Orchid dottyback - injury or disease?

[crazyclownlady]

My new orchid dottyback has a gash on his side after having him for a week. I’m not sure if he scraped it on the rock that he wedges himself behind, or whether it is some kind of disease. I saw the emerald crab picking at the wound so I removed the crabs. He is in the tank alone, for observation, and the tank has not had other fish for months.
The fish is eating and acting normally.
my quarantine tank is now available if I need to treat him. https://youtube.com/shorts/vK5JDSTABxw?feature=share

 

[threebuoys]

The video is not clear enough to get a good view of the fish. Any way to get a crisper image?

 

[vetteguy53081]

My new orchid dottyback has a gash on his side after having him for a week. I’m not sure if he scraped it on the rock that he wedges himself behind, or whether it is some kind of disease. I saw the emerald crab picking at the wound so I removed the crabs. He is in the tank alone, for observation, and the tank has not had other fish for months.
The fish is eating and acting normally.
my quarantine tank is now available if I need to treat him. https://youtube.com/shorts/vK5JDSTABxw?feature=share

Can’t see anything in video
Any still pics under white lighting?

 

[Smirkish]

I can see what looks to be a large patch/scrape along the side shown in the video, but it is difficult to tell if it is a superficial wound or something more severe. It would be helpful to have a closer/still shot, as mentioned above. Are the scales intact? My concern would be it getting infected- you may have to treat it then.

 

[Smirkish]

What is Wrong with my Dottyback?

My boyfriend bought an orchid dottyback a few weeks ago. We saved him from a sixline wrasse that kept nipping him at the store. Upon bringing him home he did have a small bite or two but a week after having him he developed a huge grey/white patch on his sides. I did notice some very thin...

www.reef2reef.com

Good treatment options here if it is an infection from injury.

 

[crazyclownlady]

I will get a better photo today. Thanks everyone for looking

 

[crazyclownlady]

I hope these photos help

 

[Smirkish]

It does look like a bacterial infection. I would move it to QT since you have one available and begin treating it with antibiotics.

@Jay Hemdal, can you confirm?

 

[crazyclownlady]

I’m in Canada with limited access to medications.

i have erythromycin, metroplex, ruby rally pro, kordon rid ick plus, cupramine, copper power, prazipro, paraguard, stress guard, pima fix, betta fix.

 

[Smirkish]

I would probably use the Ruby Reef Rally. I’d still move it to the QT so you can observe better and won’t be treating as large of a water volume.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

My new orchid dottyback has a gash on his side after having him for a week. I’m not sure if he scraped it on the rock that he wedges himself behind, or whether it is some kind of disease. I saw the emerald crab picking at the wound so I removed the crabs. He is in the tank alone, for observation, and the tank has not had other fish for months.
The fish is eating and acting normally.
my quarantine tank is now available if I need to treat him. https://youtube.com/shorts/vK5JDSTABxw?feature=share

My concern here is that this a new fish. Also, dottybacks live in coral caves, they are well adapted to that and don't just get "scraped" by rocks as a general course. This species is one that is known to develop Uronema infections when first acquired. There is no way without a microscope to tell Uronema from bacterial infections - in fact, in many cases, the lesions that involve Uronema have a bacterial secondary infection.

I see you are in Canada - do you have any fish medications on hand? Uronema isn't treatable (sorry!) but since we can't confirm that anyway, treating with antibiotics would be a good idea.

Here is a link to an article I wrote on Uronema:

Uronema / Red Band Disease - Hemdal

Red Band Syndrome in Marine Fishes: Caused by the Protozoan; Uronema sp. Jay Hemdal Introduction: This moderately common disease of certain species of marine fish is so often misdiagnosed that most aquarists apply incorrect treatment methods...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[crazyclownlady]

My concern here is that this a new fish. Also, dottybacks live in coral caves, they are well adapted to that and don't just get "scraped" by rocks as a general course. This species is one that is known to develop Uronema infections when first acquired. There is no way without a microscope to tell Uronema from bacterial infections - in fact, in many cases, the lesions that involve Uronema have a bacterial secondary infection.

I see you are in Canada - do you have any fish medications on hand? Uronema isn't treatable (sorry!) but since we can't confirm that anyway, treating with antibiotics would be a good idea.

Here is a link to an article I wrote on Uronema:

Uronema / Red Band Disease - Hemdal

Red Band Syndrome in Marine Fishes: Caused by the Protozoan; Uronema sp. Jay Hemdal Introduction: This moderately common disease of certain species of marine fish is so often misdiagnosed that most aquarists apply incorrect treatment methods...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

Thanks for your help, Jay. The medications I have on hand are listed in this thread a couple messages up.

i have a 40x-2000x microscope on the way (it might arrive today).

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks for your help, Jay. The medications I have on hand are listed in this thread a couple messages up.

i have a 40x-2000x microscope on the way (it might arrive today).

I would go with the Ruby Reef, or maybe that plus erythromycin.

Doing a skin scrape on a small fish like this is tough, but if you see any motile protozoans, then that confirms Uronema.

Jay

 

[crazyclownlady]

I would go with the Ruby Reef, or maybe that plus erythromycin.

Doing a skin scrape on a small fish like this is tough, but if you see any motile protozoans, then that confirms Uronema.

Jay

ruby reef as a daily bath or dosed into the QT with the erythromycin?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

ruby reef as a daily bath or dosed into the QT with the erythromycin?

I would treat it as a constant bath, as indicated on the bottle - 1 ounce per 20 gallons?

Jay

 

[crazyclownlady]

I treated with ruby reef rally and erythromycin.

Fishy is doing well after first day of treatment. He’s very active and he’s eating. The wound appears to be the same (or maybe even smaller) than yesterday.

fingers crossed.

 

[crazyclownlady]

Wow! I just checked on Fishy and the wound has almost completely healed. I can just barely see the discolouration from where the wound used to be.

thanks everyone for your help. Today is the last round of antibiotics and its looking like he’s going to pull through.

i still don’t know what caused the wound. Like i said, I did see the emerald crab picking at the wound but the fish was approaching the crab and letting this happen. In fact he was doing a twitching motion at the crab until the crab started picking at him. Then he would swim away, come back and repeat the process. Very odd.

 

[crazyclownlady]

He ended up getting another wound on his other side (with no other inhabitants in the tank) and died a day later.

i looked at the injury under microscope at 25x10 and this is what i see:

June 9, 2022

youtube.com

any idea what he died of?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

He ended up getting another wound on his other side (with no other inhabitants in the tank) and died a day later.

i looked at the injury under microscope at 25x10 and this is what i see:

June 9, 2022

youtube.com

any idea what he died of?

Definitely a protozoan infection, probably Uronema. sorry!

Jay