Injured chromis damelfish

[nolanp489]

Hi guys,
so today I noticed my chromis damselfish was injured. the base of this tail where it attaches to his body had a hole clean through and the bottom of the tail fell off. there is flesh damage where the tail meets the body. my question is will he recover from this? I put him in a breeder net for now. I believe my lightning maroon clownfish did it.

he was in a 50 gallon cube with:

2 lightning maroon clownfish
3 other chromis damselfish. 4 total including the injured one

 

[ichthyogeek]

Will the fish recover? Maybe. Would I have high hopes of the fish recovering? Probably not. Do you have a spare tank that you can set up as a hospital tank? Or is the breeder basket all that you have?

Keep on top of the water changes and water quality for now. If you can get the fish into a hospital tank, that would be better. My main worry is about infection (sepsis) into the bloodstream, as well as Uronema taking hold.

 

[nolanp489]

I have a quarantine tank but I just put new fish in it today. I have a larger breeder basket I can use as well. I do have a UV sterilizer on the tank but I haven't switched it on yet because it's a newer tank so I might switch it on now. He's still eating and swimming around so I mean I guess that's good.

 

[nolanp489]

If he does make it will the tail regrow?

 

[ichthyogeek]

Ooof, it's a case of Not Enough Tanks syndrome!

Turning on the UV sterilizer can't hurt. If you can, try and get the output of the sterilizer to go straight into the breeder basket. My theory, is that by doing so, you're flushing the breeder basket with sterilized water, instead of letting water passively go back and forth which has disease vectors in it.

If the fish is eating and swimming, that is a very good sign. Give it lots of high quality food (frozen!), preferably high in protein (for usage in repairing the tissue) and lipids (to fuel the energy needed to repair the tissue).

As for the tail regrowth....maybe. If it was just the rays of the caudal fin, I'd say yes. But you mentioned that the base of the tail was overly damaged. I'm not well versed enough in fish medicine to be able to tell you if they can regenerate the damage that much.

 

[nolanp489]

Haha yeah I should probably invest in a little hospital tank for issues like this. I turned the UV sterilizer on. I feed flake food in the morning a frozen mysis shrimp in the evening. My return nozzle is blowing directly at the basket it's not in the basket but there should be enough flow through the screened walls(I hope). How do weekly water changes as well. I'll keep this fourm posted on this little guy. I'm hoping he makes up but time will tell.

 

[Bfragale]

Hello- I had a damsel that had his tail and base of body badly damaged as well. I couldn’t catch him so I left him in the tank, figured he would not make it. He could swim but not normally, but was eating and otherwise active. The wound healed but tail never grew back. He was around for 3-4 months after, and seemed fine, just missing tail and swam funny. My wife named him Stan lol. Until one day he was just missing - never found a body. After first 48, case was moved to cold cases and forgotten about....

 

[nolanp489]

Surprisingly he seems to swim fine. he was pretty fast still when I was trying to catch him with the net to put him in the breeder basket. Just the other chromis damsels started nipping at what was left of his tail, that was the reason I decided to put him in the breeder.

 

[nolanp489]

I transferred him to a clear breeder. you can really see it now. The rest of the tail fell off.

 

[ichthyogeek]

ooof, that wound is screaming for an infection. Any way that you can do antibiotic dips, if not just outright evacuating it to the quarantine tank? if it fell off, I would imagine that there's necrosis, which was probably caused by opportunistic bacteria.

 

[GoingBroke88]

Why not just set him up in his own hospital system and dose antibiotics into the water? That would probably provide more protection than a dip in antibiotics and then being thrown back into the QT with other fish.

If you don't have an extra tank, just use a plastic bin that holds water. I had a couple clowns that had popeye and I just pulled them out, put them in a clear plastic tub the size of a shoe box (probably only about a gallon of volume max) and treated with Melafix, erythromycin, and Kanaplex for 10 days. I put a cheap heater in there and an airstone. Worked well and they're fully recovered now.

 

[nolanp489]

It was hanging on by a just a tiny bit of flesh. I got a few 5 gallon buckets I can use. I have kanaplex, metroplex and prazipro also Ruby reef rally on hand. Think just the kanaplex will do the trick? Or should I see if my lfs has that other stuff?

 

[Bfragale]

If you have any Iodine I would do a ten min dip between the Tank he’s in and your QT.

 

[nolanp489]

I do not have iodine. Where do you even get it from, Amazon?

 

[GoingBroke88]

It was hanging on by a just a tiny bit of flesh. I got a few 5 gallon buckets I can use. I have kanaplex, metroplex and prazipro also Ruby reef rally on hand. Think just the kanaplex will do the trick? Or should I see if my lfs has that other stuff?

I'm certainly no expert in this but I would think you might want the trifecta (metroplex, kanaplex, and furan-2) to cover for gram positive and negative infections. Melafix would be helpful as well. Iodine should be easily found at the LFS in Lugol's solution or other forms.

 

[nolanp489]

He did not make it. Checked on him this morning and he was upside down but still breathing so I gave kanaplex and metroplex dosed into the water about 30 minutes later he passed.

 

[Tired]

Sorry for your loss. I would honestly have suggested euthanasia, after seeing it completely without the tail. Swimming without a tail would mess up its spine kinda badly (they aren't meant to do that) and probably cause it long-term pain, never mind the pain of the wound and the risk of infection. Sometimes, just because an animal might survive doesn't mean it should.

Take those other chromis out. They'll fight each other as they mature, for one thing, and eventually kill each other. For another, in a tank that size, 2 adult maroon clowns is pretty much fully stocked. They're very aggressive. Bioload-wise, you could have more, but the clowns very likely won't allow it.

 

[Bfragale]

He did not make it. Checked on him this morning and he was upside down but still breathing so I gave kanaplex and metroplex dosed into the water about 30 minutes later he passed.

Sorry to hear. I think you gave a valid effort to try to save him. With an injury that bad it was unlikely he would live but I think you did everything you could. Sorry for the loss.

 

[Karen00]

Why not just set him up in his own hospital system and dose antibiotics into the water? That would probably provide more protection than a dip in antibiotics and then being thrown back into the QT with other fish.

If you don't have an extra tank, just use a plastic bin that holds water. I had a couple clowns that had popeye and I just pulled them out, put them in a clear plastic tub the size of a shoe box (probably only about a gallon of volume max) and treated with Melafix, erythromycin, and Kanaplex for 10 days. I put a cheap heater in there and an airstone. Worked well and they're fully recovered now.

I did this. I needed something ASAP so ran out to home Depot and grabbed an 8g (approx) plastic storage bin for $5 and got it setup. I thought it would be a temporary setup but it worked great so it's still operational.

 

[Karen00]

He did not make it. Checked on him this morning and he was upside down but still breathing so I gave kanaplex and metroplex dosed into the water about 30 minutes later he passed.

Just reading this thread we can all see how much you cared for him by your attempt to save him! So sorry for your loss!