Clownfish Mouth Injury?

[clamsoda]

Hi everyone, this is my first post here, unfortunately it's because I have a clownfish not looking too well.

 

I have had the fish for a month now and while I did not notice anything at the store, his mouth seems to be always open and his face looks injured as well, almost pushed in. I admit it took me a couple days to catch on, but looking at a picture from the first day I got him, his mouth has been open the entire time.

 

He seems to be eating fine, just cannot take pellets (tries to, but he physically can't). Will eat frozen food however.

 

I can't see any signs of fungus/parasites. I have been dosing StressGuard for 5 days now and nothing has changed. I'm in Canada so antibiotics aren't available to me.

 

The tank is new. It is now 2 months running. I had done a fishless cycle for a month prior to adding the fish. Ammonia and Nitrite have consistantly been 0 since getting the fish. Nitrate, a little high, about 15ppm, pH a little low, 8.0.

 

No corals at all in the tank yet as I have been working on better parameters. (I have started using chaeto and also have concluded I live in a low O2 apartment as my alkalinity is relatively high at 200ppm/11dKH)

 

Has anybody seen this before, and what can be expected in this fish's future? Most of the posts I come across, the fish will have a white fungal infection, or was stung by a coral. This seems like only physical trauma to me, but I'd like to get a second opinion.

 

Final note is the injured fish is the more submissive of the pair. My other clown is completely fine, and has been the entire time I've had him. I have seen them lock lips a few times, and he can be pretty aggressive to the injured fish sometimes.

 

They are the only fish in the tank right now.

 

Thanks for reading, I hope this can have a happy ending..

[Tired]

Yeah, I'd agree that it looks like a physical injury. Fish skulls and jaws are made of a lot of little, delicate bones in a fairly complicated structure, so they have more potential for things to be broken and dislocated than animals with more solid skulls do. There isn't much you can do to help, aside from feeding only foods that he can actually eat. It will heal in some way, but it'll probably heal like that, so I wouldn't expect to see much visual improvement. That being said, as long as he can eat well enough, he'll be okay.

[clamsoda]

21 hours ago, Tired said:

Yeah, I'd agree that it looks like a physical injury. Fish skulls and jaws are made of a lot of little, delicate bones in a fairly complicated structure, so they have more potential for things to be broken and dislocated than animals with more solid skulls do. There isn't much you can do to help, aside from feeding only foods that he can actually eat. It will heal in some way, but it'll probably heal like that, so I wouldn't expect to see much visual improvement. That being said, as long as he can eat well enough, he'll be okay.

Thank you for your 2 cents, I'm new to this so I get worried..