red spot blenny acting strange

[myles4miles]

I have a red spot blenny in my stocked tank, I've had him for about a month now and he has always been flapping his gills really fast and kinda going near the surface, i cant tell if he's just eating the algae off the back wall or going to the surface for air, ill try and post 2 vids of him, the rest of my fish seem fine, although my midas blenny has been divbombing the sand and kinda bitting his tail every once in a while but i guess that's normal for midas blennys. besides that the rest of my fish seem fine, no spots on anyone and everyone is eating a lot. red spot blenny was a lot seen scratching himself against rocks really fast while going from one rock to another. redspot blenny eats algea of rocks and walls and eats mysis/brine shrimp. any help would be appreciated.
the youtube links are the videos I took of the blenny 1st one is him swimming near the surface a lot and the second one is him breathing really fast.





ps I've also noticed the fast breathing for a while now, sometimes he chills out and slows down his breathing normally when he is eating algeee off the rocks.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I have a red spot blenny in my stocked tank, I've had him for about a month now and he has always been flapping his gills really fast and kinda going near the surface, i cant tell if he's just eating the algae off the back wall or going to the surface for air, ill try and post 2 vids of him, the rest of my fish seem fine, although my midas blenny has been divbombing the sand and kinda bitting his tail every once in a while but i guess that's normal for midas blennys. besides that the rest of my fish seem fine, no spots on anyone and everyone is eating a lot. red spot blenny was a lot seen scratching himself against rocks really fast while going from one rock to another. redspot blenny eats algea of rocks and walls and eats mysis/brine shrimp. any help would be appreciated.
the youtube links are the videos I took of the blenny 1st one is him swimming near the surface a lot and the second one is him breathing really fast.





ps I've also noticed the fast breathing for a while now, sometimes he chills out and slows down his breathing normally when he is eating algeee off the rocks.

Sometimes, with blennies and some wrasses, it is difficult to determine if the fish is flashing/scratching or if it is just biting algae off the rocks. Your blenny is breathing fast, and you reported that the midas is biting itself, so I would have to say they likely have flukes.

You can treat your display tank with praziquantel, prazipro is one brand. You would dose it once, then a second time 8 days later. You need to add aeration during the treatment, remove any chemical filtrants and run any skimmer, but don't collect the skimmate during that time. If you don't know the exact volume of water in your tank, you would dose it at 85% of it rated volume to account for rock and sand displacement.

 

[myles4miles]

Sometimes, with blennies and some wrasses, it is difficult to determine if the fish is flashing/scratching or if it is just biting algae off the rocks. Your blenny is breathing fast, and you reported that the midas is biting itself, so I would have to say they likely have flukes.

You can treat your display tank with praziquantel, prazipro is one brand. You would dose it once, then a second time 8 days later. You need to add aeration during the treatment, remove any chemical filtrants and run any skimmer, but don't collect the skimmate during that time. If you don't know the exact volume of water in your tank, you would dose it at 85% of it rated volume to account for rock and sand displacement.

thank you very much i will dose my tank asap, and for the midas blenny i keep looking through forms and everyone is saying there midas blenny legit bites his tail like a cat folding his whole body aswell as flashing the sand, and some say its so common there doing research to see if its normal for midas to do. thank you for your response. is there any other symptoms i should look for if the fish are infected with flukes, also how contagious is it to the other fish