Melanurus wrasse mouth stuck open

[berner530]

Hello my melanurus wrasse has been swimming around for the last couple days with his mouth open. He has done this before but it only lasted a few minutes but lately he’s been hanging out in the sand and rocks a lot more than he ever has and hasn’t been interested in feeding. I’ve read online that sometimes this happens when you have bristle worms in a tank and I have seen some before but what should I do? Should I setup a quarantine tank is this something that’ll resolve itself what should I look out for???

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello my melanurus wrasse has been swimming around for the last couple days with his mouth open. He has done this before but it only lasted a few minutes but lately he’s been hanging out in the sand and rocks a lot more than he ever has and hasn’t been interested in feeding. I’ve read online that sometimes this happens when you have bristle worms in a tank and I have seen some before but what should I do? Should I setup a quarantine tank is this something that’ll resolve itself what should I look out for???

This may be lockjaw in which it is up to the fish to release this. Often common with some wrasses, chromis and angels

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello my melanurus wrasse has been swimming around for the last couple days with his mouth open. He has done this before but it only lasted a few minutes but lately he’s been hanging out in the sand and rocks a lot more than he ever has and hasn’t been interested in feeding. I’ve read online that sometimes this happens when you have bristle worms in a tank and I have seen some before but what should I do? Should I setup a quarantine tank is this something that’ll resolve itself what should I look out for???

I agree, this is a hyperextension of some bones that support the mouth. I’ve tried to manually push the bones back in place on some fish, but that never worked for me.
In cases where bristle worms cause this, I’ve been able to see the spines coming out of the fish’s skin.
Sorry - I don’t know if anything that works to fix this.