Melanurus wrasse broken jaw

Jesterrace · Nov 27, 2018

Mine seems to be on the mend as it's jaw is almost completely closed today (just a slight gap that's barely visible) and it has stayed eating this whole time. Very resilient fish for sure. He's the only thing left from my old 36 gallon tank.

HawaiianReef · Nov 29, 2018

My melanurus moved to a new tank, the original was crashing, so she was sressed out big time. She dove into the sand and stayed there for days. Come out, back in for days longer. After about 6 weeks she started showing herself more.
It's pretty routine that melanurus' will bury and stay there for days or even weeks sometimes to heal.

S.Pepper · Nov 11, 2020

I'm on my 5th day with my Melanurus showing signs of a mouth injury. He doesn't close his mouth, but will move it up and down slightly. He didn't eat for a couple days, but I have seen him swallow small pieces of LRS Reef Frenzy the last 2 days. Otherwise he looks and acts normal.

I believe he must have slammed into a rock or something hard when he went to bury himself. The morning i notice this problem, he woke up and was swimming around the tank with pieces of sand slightly imbedded into his face. Later that afternoon all of the sand had come off of his face.

Based on a google search and this thread, it appears not to be an isolated situation with a Melanurus.