Yellow Coris Wrasse - White/Opaque Spots/Blotches on Left Side?

[clabern]

Hey Guys - My Yellow Coris wrasse had some sort of opaque/clear-ish looking scales on one side show up soon after I got him. To the naked eye, you could only see that it looked like his scales were a bit opaque in a few spots on his left side. I had chalked it up to irritation from his burrowing into the sand.

He has always, and still does eat very well, and doesn't show any weird signs of irritation/etc.

However, yesterday my rock flower anemone decided to move and I whipped out my phone to take a picture. I realized that through my phones camera (White Balance set to 10K) the Wrasse's spots sometimes looked worse/more white. Does anyone have any input on this? I asked my LFS yesterday and he didn't have any input since it doesn't look much like ich/velvet and isn't raised/puffy/etc.

Here's some pics of the spots clearly visible on his left side:

And here's a pic of his left side when the spots aren't visible:

He doesn't have any visible spots on his right side. Any info/opinions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Reefer40b]

I wouldn't be very concerned, just looks like he is getting scrapped when he goes in the substrate. Crushed coral can do this to wrasses. OR... he has an external parasite that you cant quite see yet that bothering him so he scraps against the rock. Have you seen him flashing his body agaist the rock?

 

[ngoodermuth]

My black leopard gets these marks on her one side. For the longest time I thought it was aggression from my yellow, but then recently I noticed it is only ever on the one side. My suspicion is that she burrows in a spot where the sand is under a part of the rock and scrapes herself getting under it.

Was the fish ever QT'd / treated for flukes? Just to rule out parasites... that would be my suspicion if it is not a burrowing injury.

 

[clabern]

I wouldn't be very concerned, just looks like he is getting scrapped when he goes in the substrate. Crushed coral can do this to wrasses. OR... he has an external parasite that you cant quite see yet that bothering him so he scraps against the rock. Have you seen him flashing his body agaist the rock?

I do have CaribSea Special Grade Reef sand, so it's larger particles. Have never noticed him flashing against rocks. He will sometimes flash against the glass when you're near, usually because he wants you to feed him. If/when you feed, he stops.

My black leopard gets these marks on her one side. For the longest time I thought it was aggression from my yellow, but then recently I noticed it is only ever on the one side. My suspicion is that she burrows in a spot where the sand is under a part of the rock and scrapes herself getting under it.

Was the fish ever QT'd / treated for flukes? Just to rule out parasites... that would be my suspicion if it is not a burrowing injury.

He does always burrow to that side of his body (that side is facing down). At least in the 3 times I've actually watched him burrow.

I did not QT him. I didn't setup a QT tank for this one. This is in my Nuvo 20, but will be moved to my Reefer 250 once it's setup, I will be QTing anything else I add.

I'm going to continue monitoring him to see if it changes/spreads. Thanks for your input!

 

[Ridikule28]

Mine does flash against rocks as well? Is it a parasite, or just normal behavior for him?

 

[LAReefer4Life]

My black leopard gets these marks on her one side. For the longest time I thought it was aggression from my yellow, but then recently I noticed it is only ever on the one side. My suspicion is that she burrows in a spot where the sand is under a part of the rock and scrapes herself getting under it.

Was the fish ever QT'd / treated for flukes? Just to rule out parasites... that would be my suspicion if it is not a burrowing injury.

+1^ If concerned, I'd suggest conducing a FWD to eliminate flukes from the equation and give you peace of mind. Could be burrowing injury or flukes.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Mine does flash against rocks as well? Is it a parasite, or just normal behavior for him?

Flashing against the sand bed, or rocks occasionally can be normal behavior, hunting behavior, or simply an itch... If they are doing it incessantly, especially targeting the gills, can be a sign of parasites. Usually ich or flukes, or sometimes velvet.

 

[mdbronco]

Hi! Any update here? I just posted the exact same question and then I found your post.

 

[jp_75]

any update? dealing with similar problem.

 

[mdbronco]

any update? dealing with similar problem.

totally fine and I believe that the others that said it was mild substrate scraping were right.

 

[Doglips56]

This must be normal because I’ve noticed it on my yellow coris wrasse, more so since I’ve taken away the white/red/green components of my lighting to try to combat some algae/red slime/cyano whatever the heck it is. It’s not working lol. Glad to see I’m not the only one who’s noticed this. My wrasse eats like a pig, goes to bed early and gets up late lol.

 

[MFear]

I’m so glad I found this thread. I QTd two yellow coris wrasses thoroughly for a month. I used Cupramine, Prazi and did Safety Stop dips in and out of QT and was worried I somehow missed something and he’s brought flukes or something into my display.

 

[Cbones1979]

I’m so glad I found this thread. I QTd two yellow coris wrasses thoroughly for a month. I used Cupramine, Prazi and did Safety Stop dips in and out of QT and was worried I somehow missed something and he’s brought flukes or something into my display.

Literally the same thing here. It shows more with my tank lighting then it did in just whites in QT