Longnose hawkfish: abdomen sub-skin patch

[Erik the Red]

Hello,
Does anybody know what this could be?
My hawkfish has been doing great for some months, but lately he’s not so voracious anymore, even though he shows interest in food and what happens outside of the tank. The feces looks pale/white-ish.

Belly doesn’t seem pinched.

He’s quite active, but mainly on the bottom.

Can anybody help me?

@Jay Hemdal

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hello,
Does anybody know what this could be?
My hawkfish has been doing great for some months, but lately he’s not so voracious anymore, even though he shows interest in food and what happens outside of the tank. The feces looks pale/white-ish.

Belly doesn’t seem pinched.

He’s quite active, but mainly on the bottom.

Can anybody help me?

@Jay Hemdal

Sorry - that doesn't strike a familiar chord to me. One possibility is that the spot is being caused by an enlarged gall bladder, and it is bile staining. This can happen when a fish has had problems with its digestive system/liver. However, the spot would likely be visible from both sides of the fish, is it?

jay

 

[Erik the Red]

No, its visible only to the left side. The right side looks normal.

Should I feed some more spirulina flakes?

 

[vetteguy53081]

No, its visible only to the left side. The right side looks normal.

Should I feed some more spirulina flakes?

Flakes are a low diet requirement for this type of fish which requires meaty foods such as LRS fish frenzy, tdo pellets, small plankton, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, and formula one frozen as examples

 

[MnFish1]

No, its visible only to the left side. The right side looks normal.

Should I feed some more spirulina flakes?

It almost looks like an injury of some type - if it were another type of fish - kind of like uronema. Sometimes fish with 'sepsis' can have lesions like this (which would require treatment in a hospital tank with an antibiotic).

 

[Erik the Red]

Flakes are a low diet requirement for this type of fish which requires meaty foods such as LRS fish frenzy, tdo pellets, small plankton, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, and formula one frozen as examples

Thanks for your feedback.
I thought about spirulina flakes because he normally goes crazy for flakes.
However, this is not the only thing I feed. I also have frozen mysis and artemia, even thought, to be completely honest, I feed mainly different varieties of flakes.

Pellets he does not care about.

 

[Erik the Red]

It almost looks like an injury of some type - if it were another type of fish - kind of like uronema. Sometimes fish with 'sepsis' can have lesions like this (which would require treatment in a hospital tank with an antibiotic).

Exactly.

He’s the boss of the tank. I only have a pair of ocellaris living on their own in a cave. I doubt other fishes would have caused this “injury”.

About uronema, the fish has been in an observation tank for a month and now has been living in the main tank for some months. It hasn’t shown any sign of disease before.

 

[MnFish1]

Exactly.

He’s the boss of the tank. I only have a pair of ocellaris living on their own in a cave. I doubt other fishes would have caused this “injury”.

About uronema, the fish has been in an observation tank for a month and now has been living in the main tank for some months. It hasn’t shown any sign of disease before.

So it was never treated with copper or Prazipro. I would consider having some antibiotic (like kanamycin) depending on what you can get, available in case the lesion grows in size/worsens (or additional symptoms)

 

[Erik the Red]

So it was never treated with copper or Prazipro. I would consider having some antibiotic (like kanamycin) depending on what you can get, available in case the lesion grows in size/worsens (or additional symptoms)

No it was not.
I left him in an observation tank for 1 months. He did not develop any symptoms, was very voracious with food and swam a lot (literally, for an hawfish, was never perching). Also grew a bit in size.

Then I transferred him to the main tank. He’s been doing good for 4 months and never had a problem.

It seems he’s still kind of OK, but a bit less active now. I noticed the spot and wanted to know if something happened.