Half a tail?

[lbagnall]

Hi, we’ve had a new white fang blenny for a couple of weeks now and have noticed today that she is missing half a tail. I think this is recent, as there wasn’t anything noticeable about it before. Is it possible one of our other fish have done this? Could she be ill? Any help appreciated and photos attached, they aren’t great quality due to lighting

 

[PicassoClown04]

A photo with white light on instead of blue would be very helpful! And maybe try turning on the flash since fins are sort of transparant. From your description, and what I can see in the pic, definitely possible that another fish did this. Does it look like a clean cut (no mucous, black rim, white rim, etc)? What are the other fish in the tank? Some of them can be pretty aggressive to new additions. If another fish attacked the blenny and ripped the tail then that’s okay and the tail will heal just fine. Finding the culprit and understanding why there was aggression is key, do you have large inverts (crabs, especially)?

 

[lbagnall]

A photo with white light on instead of blue would be very helpful! And maybe try turning on the flash since fins are sort of transparant. From your description, and what I can see in the pic, definitely possible that another fish did this. Does it look like a clean cut (no mucous, black rim, white rim, etc)? What are the other fish in the tank? Some of them can be pretty aggressive to new additions. If another fish attacked the blenny and ripped the tail then that’s okay and the tail will heal just fine. Finding the culprit and understanding why there was aggression is key, do you have large inverts (crabs, especially)?

Yeah I didn’t change the light as they’re on timers and some of our fish haven’t reacted well to light change in the evenings. Our bigger fish are a yellow tang, blue tang and magnificent foxface, but they generally have quite a calm temperament although our blue tang sometimes chases but we’ve never seen any aggression. Our maroon clownfish gets territorial so could be a possibility, but we haven’t seen any of them have any problems with this little blenny.
It does seem to be a clean cut, and all of her fins are fine

 

[PicassoClown04]

Wow yeah, tangs and maroons are super aggressive. I had a purple tang that killed a 5 year old adult clown over night the day I added him in (clown was very established and tang was brand new). He should be fine :) watch your fish for aggression and maybe up your feedings. Most likely sitch is your tangs were hungry and getting aggressive and territorial or your blenny wandered into the maroon’s territory and got attacked (probably the maroon IMO). Up your feedings and see if that helps

 

[lbagnall]

Wow yeah, tangs and maroons are super aggressive. I had a purple tang that killed a 5 year old adult clown over night the day I added him in (clown was very established and tang was brand new). He should be fine :) watch your fish for aggression and maybe up your feedings. Most likely sitch is your tangs were hungry and getting aggressive and territorial or your blenny wandered into the maroon’s territory and got attacked (probably the maroon IMO). Up your feedings and see if that helps

Yeah our assumption was the maroon clown, as we know she’s territorial. Is there anything else you recommend other than more food? Obviously we want to prevent things like this happening to the others. This was the first time we’ve added new fish (we added a few small ones) since we’ve had the clown and thought it was okay since they weren’t attacked in the first couple weeks

 

[PicassoClown04]

I’d say she’s probably fine, and now the blenny knows to stay out of her territory. Up the feedings, and watch the blenny for infection but he should be okay :) maybe get the clown a boyfriend

 

[lbagnall]

I’d say she’s probably fine, and now the blenny knows to stay out of her territory. Up the feedings, and watch the blenny for infection but he should be okay :) maybe get the clown a boyfriend

We’ve ordered one at the place we get our fish along with some others a few weeks ago but imports are slow due to Covid-19. Hopefully won’t be too long. thanks :)

 

[lbagnall]

Her whole tail is gone now. We couldn’t see her for a few hours and now she’s out and the rest of her tail is gone. We didn’t see anything happen. Picture attached

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Definitely looks like aggression to me