My Yellow head Goby hasn't eaten in 2 days, mostly hiding and swimming like this, and keeps looking like he is gagging/gasping at random

[ragnarokreviews]

My parameters are all fine, corals, fish all fine except him. My guess is he tried to sift through gravel and sucked up something too large for him to sift? He was fine just a couple days ago. Now he basically just lays in a cave all day not moving unless something spooks him out, in which case he awkwardly swims out by flapping his front fins and dragging his tail until he finds another cave to lay in. Occasionally he seems to do that wide gasping, gagging looking thing with his mouth. He stopped eating, sifting, and cleaning out his cave too. Not sure what to do.

 

[JGT]

Looks like he might have a spinal injury. Did anything happen to him ?

 

[ragnarokreviews]

Looks like he might have a spinal injury. Did anything happen to him ?

Oh dang I could see that... No, not to my knowledge, its possible a crab spooked him at night and made him slam into something in the dark I guess but I don't know of anything that would have caused that.

 

[ragnarokreviews]

Looks like he might have a spinal injury. Did anything happen to him ?

I presume fish chiropractic medicine doesn't exist and if it does it is likely not worth the cost. Do I have any options? Will he heal to a fair degree on his own potentially or...?

 

[JGT]

Usually don’t improve much as the damage is irreversible. Keep an eye on him and see if his eating improves. If not, you may have to euthanize him. GL.

 

[MnFish1]

@Jay Hemdal actually does some fish chiropractic work. Unfortunately - I cannot view your video on my browser

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I presume fish chiropractic medicine doesn't exist and if it does it is likely not worth the cost. Do I have any options? Will he heal to a fair degree on his own potentially or...?

I got the video to play - the fish is breathing a bit deeply/fast. There is also some swelling of the posterior of its belly (that could fall in line with the idea of some sort of obstruction). If it is that, fish can sometimes pass these, but other times not, there really isn't any way to help that along though.

Jay

 

[ragnarokreviews]

I got the video to play - the fish is breathing a bit deeply/fast. There is also some swelling of the posterior of its belly (that could fall in line with the idea of some sort of obstruction). If it is that, fish can sometimes pass these, but other times not, there really isn't any way to help that along though.

Jay

Thank you, fingers crossed it is something it can pass! I really hope so.

 

[ragnarokreviews]

@Jay Hemdal actually does some fish chiropractic work. Unfortunately - I cannot view your video on my browser

Thank you! You all are awesome!

 

[Drummingbaker2010]

My parameters are all fine, corals, fish all fine except him. My guess is he tried to sift through gravel and sucked up something too large for him to sift? He was fine just a couple days ago. Now he basically just lays in a cave all day not moving unless something spooks him out, in which case he awkwardly swims out by flapping his front fins and dragging his tail until he finds another cave to lay in. Occasionally he seems to do that wide gasping, gagging looking thing with his mouth. He stopped eating, sifting, and cleaning out his cave too. Not sure what to do.

 

[Drummingbaker2010]

I haven't mine gasp like that, but mine started doing a similar thing not that long ago. My parameters are all fine as well. Unfortunately mine died over night yesterday, and when I called my fish store, they weren't entirely sure what heppened. They said is could have been a stomach parasite, but I don't know, but the pattern you just described sounds the same as what started happening to mine before it died.

 

[ragnarokreviews]

I haven't mine gasp like that, but mine started doing a similar thing not that long ago. My parameters are all fine as well. Unfortunately mine died over night yesterday, and when I called my fish store, they weren't entirely sure what heppened. They said is could have been a stomach parasite, but I don't know, but the pattern you just described sounds the same as what started happening to mine before it died.

I am sorry to hear that. That is sad. Mine has not died yet, he still hides most of the day and doesn't sift much anymore but he seems like he still has a will to live with his condition. I am thinking it is a spinal injury, but I have caught him grabbing shells and stuff out of his den and pushing them out as best he can, and I try and put food out on the edge of his hole which he tries his best to eat. Sometimes he can't but sometimes he can. I did see his tail flick once or twice when trying to push substrate out of his den which I haven't seen happen since he started acting this way, so I am hoping that is a good sign of improvement but I am unsure still.