Clown fish abscess

[TheCalveys]

Hey all. We have had our tank for about 3 weeks. It’s a coral tank and they are very healthy. We acquired the tank on a rehoming basis so the corals are relatively mature. It originally had a small damsel that proved aggressive so had to rehome it after it attacked out clownfish incessantly. It wounded the clownfish and an abscess began developing. It is getting worse and not better. See the photo. It was small originally and grew to the point where the fish cannot really use its back tail fin. Any thoughts and suggestions??? We were told it would probably go away but is obviously very concerning.

 

[fishguy242]

hi ,sorry this was missed,let's get some expert help here,best wishes! @Jay Hemdal #reefsqaud

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Unfortunately, there really isn't anything you can do to treat this lesion while the clown is in your main tank. I don't suppose you have a treatment tank you could use?

Without that, you could try daily antibiotic dips, but they are not as effective. Using a broad spectrum, gram negative antibiotic such as Furn-2 or Kanaplex, you would dose water in a bucket (with an airstone) and move the fish into the bucket two to three times a day for an hour each tine, changing the water and redosing each day. I would dose the water in the bucket about twice the concentration suggested on the label for dosing the whole tank. So - if the dose is one pill per ten gallons, you would dose the bucket water at 2 pills per ten gallons (knowing that you would need to break the pill into smaller pieces for smaller water volumes).

Jay

 

[TheCalveys]

Thanks for the comprehensive response Jay! Sadly I am not sure what happened to the clownfish at this point. He was there yesterday and gone this morning. Searched all the nooks and crannies but I think our anemone consumed it. We have a biocube so no chance it would be caught in the filters or anything along those lines... mystery...

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks for the comprehensive response Jay! Sadly I am not sure what happened to the clownfish at this point. He was there yesterday and gone this morning. Searched all the nooks and crannies but I think our anemone consumed it. We have a biocube so no chance it would be caught in the filters or anything along those lines... mystery...

Ah, sorry to hear that. Missing fish are fairly common, probably was the anemone.
Jay