No pics (because I don't want to stress him out more), but I had a Midas Blenny that was beating up on my Bluespotted Jawfish. I removed the Midas Blenny (had to take every rock out of my display to do it, but I got him), and after re-installing everything, the BSJ looks to be in good spirits/eating/etc., but he has some wounds. His tail and one pectoral fin is torn up a little bit, and he seems to have had a bit of a "bite" taken out of his dorsal fin, which has left some abrasions on both sides of the fin, one of which is a red wound. the rest of the wounds look minor/scrape-like.

i have been adding Prime for stress coat for the last two days, but because Prime is more of a "generalized" treatment that happens to have some stress coat stuff added, I was wondering what people think about something more targeted to healing wounds/supplementing stress coat.

Particularly, I was thinking about API Stress Coat and Kordon Novaqua. But, I'm also open to other suggestions. I was thinking of maybe lowering the salinity a little bit (i'm at 1.025 right now, I was thinking of dropping to 1.023 or 1.022) to try and stave off secondary bacterial infection.

I don't want to over-react, and I don't want to further stress him (or the rest of the tank inhabitants, including a few LPS and SPS corals) by ripping out all the rock work again to remove him and treat him in quarantine unless I absolutely have to.

Opinions?

your best bet is to remove him to a QT. You could just feed foods soaked in garlic as well as selcon but you need to keep a close eye out for bacterial infections. Most seem like surface wounds and they will heal no problems but the red would you are speaking of is so prone to infections and thats why i suggect moving to a qt for healing and possibly a furan 2 treatment if you see any degradation of fins or a bacterial infection setting in.

again, i really would like to avoid having to remove him to QT if at all possible. the remaining fish/inverts don't pick on him. is there any treatment i can do in the display?


he's eating fine. i've been soaking in garlic guad, but any idea of where to buy selcon locally (petsmart type stores?).

In the absence of additional stress he will probably heal on his own just fine. Keep a eye on the red wound. If it does not look better in the next several days, then remove him to QT and treat for infection. This is not a cheap fish and his survival should take precendent over the PITA it would be to catch him and set up a QT.

I would not recommend treating the display.

-Prof

agreed

i took another look at the jawfish at lunch. i fed him and got a better look at his wounds. directly adjacent to the missing piece of his dorsal fin, he's got about 2-3 of the white-colored abrasions on his right side and 1 abrasion on his left side. the one on his left was the one that was red last night, but looking at it today, it either looked much less red or it looked healed over a bit. the damage to the fins appears to be "shredding" rather than "rotting"/necrosis.

based on this, i am going to just try and create a low-stress environment for him (balanced with the needs of the corals in the tank). i acquired/added some API Stress Coat Marine to help with the healing. unfortunately, despite the fact that the Stress Coat says right on the bottle that it doesn't make your skimmer foam, i had immediate and crazy foaming out of my skimmer, causing it to overflow back into the tank. good to know for anyone considering using this.

I wouldn't even bother with the Stress Coat. Just let nature take it's course and practice good husbandry. Keep the water parameters top notch. Reduce stress and feed well. Fins regenerate in an amazingly short time and the wounds to his body will shortly follow.

-Prof

just to provide an update here, the jawfish appears to be doing fine. he's still eating well (more aggressively each day). i'm feeding multiple times per day (smaller portions) so that i can monitor his wound. there has been no visible progression/worsening of the injury and no sign of bacterial infection. any red on the wounds has disappeared.

i am continuing to add small amounts of stress coat. i figure there's no good reason not to do this, and Bob Fenner recommends the product in his book (as opposed to melafix and other "holistic" treatments, which he is pretty firmly opposed to). is there any reason that you suggest not using it, Professor?

well, just to wrap up this thread, the jawfish has almost completely healed up. his fins are still working on growing back, but the wounds on his body are effectively invisible now.

i did cut back on the stress coat addition after the first few days as he looked like he was recovering well. i didn't want things to get "too" slimy in there, and it was wreaking havoc on my skimmer. still though, i think the stress coat was fine. hard to know what the positive effect really was, but i didn't see any down side of using it, and it resulted in a quick heal-up!