White ?hair / whisker? on Clownfish

[ashtoreth]

Hi! I discovered today two white thin "hairs" growing out of our bigger female clown's lips. The best way I can describe them is two thin whiskers or stiff hairs (they seem fairly stiff and keep shape / angle as the clown swims). So far, I've not noticed any behavior change in her and we observe her daily so pretty confident this is the first day or two that she's had this. No other fish (we have a Midas blenny, her paired male clown, a firefish and a yellow watchman goby) has been observed to have weird physical things. Can folks help diagnose what this is / if I need to do something to fight this off if it's a parasite or otherwise a problem?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi! I discovered today two white thin "hairs" growing out of our bigger female clown's lips. The best way I can describe them is two thin whiskers or stiff hairs (they seem fairly stiff and keep shape / angle as the clown swims). So far, I've not noticed any behavior change in her and we observe her daily so pretty confident this is the first day or two that she's had this. No other fish (we have a Midas blenny, her paired male clown, a firefish and a yellow watchman goby) has been observed to have weird physical things. Can folks help diagnose what this is / if I need to do something to fight this off if it's a parasite or otherwise a problem?

Any shrimp in the tank?
Looks like a molt that was ingested, otherwise something it ate. Looks too large to be bristles from a bristleworm but Not ruled out

 

[Tahoe61]

Bristle Worm. My female clown used to battle Bristle Worm. She always recovered in a couple days.

 

[ashtoreth]

Yes, I have a cleaner shrimp and a fire shrimp. Cleaner shrimp molted maybe a week ago / half a week ago? But if the clownfish was eating a molt, does it make sense that this is still seeable after half a day? We thought it ate something too but noticed it in the morning and it's still there at night...

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Yes, I have a cleaner shrimp and a fire shrimp. Cleaner shrimp molted maybe a week ago / half a week ago? But if the clownfish was eating a molt, does it make sense that this is still seeable after half a day? We thought it ate something too but noticed it in the morning and it's still there at night...

I agree, this looks like a foreign body. There isn’t any disease that looks like this. Clowns can get skin tags from fighting, but these look long and narrow to be that.

They do look too thick to be bristleworm spines.

If the fish is still eating, I’d just opt to wait and see.