Juvenile ocellaris clown with white lesions on his face

[KK's Reef]

I have a juvie clownfish that's been in my tank for a couple of weeks now. Bought from LFS that said it was captive bred. Other than a few days of acting weird while adjusting to the tank, he has been healthy and normal. A few days ago, I noticed his upper lip was pale/white, and he had a tiny lesion on his right gill that was also pale/white. It hasn't gotten worse, but it hasn't gone away either. He is still eating normally. Still swimming and behaving normally. There's two things that it can be - trauma or disease.

Trauma - the tank has been without lights for a month. I turned on the lights a few days ago and it freaked him out a bit. He would race from one end of the tank to the other. He did this for about 5 minutes and he bumped the glass and a couple of the snails at full speed. Could it be from the force of hitting the glass, or from scraping against the snails' shells?

Disease - I did introduce a couple of new snails the same day I turned the lights on. Could ich or some other parasite hitchhiked with the snails?

I honestly don't know what to make of the white lesions. If it was brook or velvet then he should have been a gonner by now. His behavior also hasn't changed and he's swimming and eating normally. He's only an inch and quarter long, so it's really hard to tell what it is. I would liken to how if you stay in the pool to long, the skin on your fingers prune and turn pale/white.. it's kind of like that color.

Anyway, I moved him to a hospital tank and started to treat with malachite green. Here's a couple of not so great pictures, and hoping you guys can help identify.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I resume since you were running with no lights, that your tank doesn't have any host anemones in it. I've seen similar lesions on clowns getting stung by them or corals. If it were just the snout, I would call this an injury, but that is less likely since the cheek is also affected (fish tend to run into things mouth first).

That said, this isn't a symptom of any major protozoan infections, so malachite green really isn't going to help. That's not to say the fish doesn't have some protozoal issue, just that these symptoms don't point towards that.

Jay

 

[KK's Reef]

I resume since you were running with no lights, that your tank doesn't have any host anemones in it. I've seen similar lesions on clowns getting stung by them or corals. If it were just the snout, I would call this an injury, but that is less likely since the cheek is also affected (fish tend to run into things mouth first).

That said, this isn't a symptom of any major protozoan infections, so malachite green really isn't going to help. That's not to say the fish doesn't have some protozoal issue, just that these symptoms don't point towards that.

Jay

Thanks for the input Jay.

Yes, not host anemones here. I'm also leaning towards injury instead of infection. I've seen the collision with the glass, snout first. I've also witnessed him grazing against the snail shell at high speed, so the cheek lesion could be an injury as well.

Glad to hear that it may not be protozoan, but just erring on the side of caution and treating him with malachite green just in case.