Yellowtail Damsel

[Jessicaleah13]

I noticed my damsel brushing himself against rocks and objects in the tank and shaking himself alot. I managed to get him out of my main display so I can treat him when I know what exactly I'm dealing with. I have a quarantine tank set up. This is what he looks like in the dark with a normal flashlight on him and i can't find anything about what it is. Any advice?

 

[DaveK]

The fish is in extremely bad shape. the lighter blue patches indicats some serious damage to the fish, but I can't be sure if this is from al the scratching that it's been doing or from something else. The scratching usually indicates a paracite infection. I'd say it's a long shot but I'd treat with cupramine for possible paracites and if things don't improve consider an antibiotic also.

Things don't look good for the fish, but sometimes you get lucky, and damsels are a very tough fish.

Good luck.

 

[Humblefish]

The first thing I would do is give him a 5 min FW dip to look for flukes: https://humble.fish/freshwater-dip/

If flukes show, treat with Prazipro or some other praziquantel based medication.

If no flukes, you can treat with Cupramine (or Copper Power) + metronidazole (e.g. Seachem Metroplex) which covers a wide range of ectoparasites. Chloroquine phosphate does the same, but is more difficult to source.

 

[Jessicaleah13]

I have had him in the quarinte tank for about two weeks now treating with cupramine. He's doing alot better and full of life like he used to be. I'm worried now that he might have given the same thing to my clownfish.