Midas Blenny has an algae goatee

[colleen]

Our midas blenny is taking after 'dad' and has sprouted a goatee.

We think he got tangled up with a hammer coral? A new frag was put near the hole he likes to hide in and overnight he showed up with a couple sores on his head, a white patch back behind his gills, and a large sore on the bottom lip/jaw. This happened a few months ago -- he healed up fairly fast and never lost appetite or color, but when his lower jaw healed up it was partially gone (a bit shorter).

He looked fine for a month or so except for an overbite, but he now has a patch of algae growing on his bottom lip. I've been told if he's healthy and eating well with good color to just leave him alone. He has good color, is active, and his appetite is fine, but I'm afraid if I leave the algae it will invade healthy tissue/bone.

Blenny is currently in a 155-gallon tank heavily stocked with SPS so I don't want to treat the tank he's in. We could catch him and move hime to another tank to treat him or we can wait until end of May when we will be tearing down our tank to move everything to our new house and tank. I got some Melafix from API, gut after I smelled it I couldn't bring myself to dump it in our reef tank even though it says it's reef safe. (Especially since I wasn't even even sure it would help.)

Our tank is very clean, this is the only algae in sight in our tank other than coraline algae.

Should we do anything??? If so, any suggestions on treatment?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated -- he's our very favorite character in the tank.

Thanks!

 

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of this. Very sad.

I'm unsure why it has been diagnosed as an algae growth. Is that a guess or a determination? I know of no algae that infects marine fishes, but there are many things out there. . .

There are several known true fungi infections and many, many microbes that give the impression of a fungal infection. Almost all of them are white, off-white or a pastel, but some are dark colored.

The fish, through its injury, has managed to pick up an opportunistic pathogen. These types of pathogens are around but in of themselves don't harm healthy fishes. They attack weakened or ill fishes -- hence the concept of them being opportunistic.

This one has been allowed to get a good foothold on the fish. What you are seeing are just the 'tips of the icebergs' of this pathogen. It's 'roots' can go quite deep into the fish, draining its energy and nutrients. That is to say, despite what you think is an otherwise healthy fish, isn't healthy at all.

These pathogens are very difficult to eradicate. However, the end result of doing nothing is the shortened lifespan of the fish. At this stage of the development of the condition, I would do nothing and let the fish expire in its due time. However, having such a fish in with other uninfected fish is not a very good idea. The sick fish is a breeding ground to increase the numbers of the opportunistic pathogen and expose other fish to an unnecessary and unwanted exposure.

The life of this fish should be spent in quarantine. If you are lucky and the fish recovers from this condition, it may be returned to its home, but for the sake of other fishes, it should not be allowed to remain in the display tank and main marine system.

The treatment is long, expensive, and futile. If you want more info on that, I'll be happy to share. Success is usually less than 30% and in the case you've described where it has been allowed to go this long, I'd give a recovery likelihood to be less than 10%.

Fish I acquire with such a condition are euthanized and never mixed in or introduced to other, healthy fishes.

For what it's worth the proper thing to have done at the time of the injury was to remove the fish to quarantine. During the transfer, the injured area was to be swapped liberally with Betadiene -- about the best means to prevent opportunistic pathogens from getting a foothold. The second step was to add antibiotics to the quarantine tank water. A second swabbing a few days later if the area was not healing well is the third and optional step. The fish would have recovered from the wound and then moved back into the display. Problem prevented.