Injured Chromis

[Frost_Hydra]

I woke up one day to find my Black Axil Chromis with some missing scales and a little-ripped flesh. Shes being very skittish right now so this is the only picture of the wound I could get. It's about the size nickel and its the first time I've ever seen an injury on any of my fish. All the other inhabitants are peaceful and about a 1/3 of the size of the Chromis, so I don't think any of them caused it. I'm going to assume she just got scared and scraped against a rock. I was curious if I'm supposed to treat her is some way, or get some type of medication, or really do anything in general. Thanks in advance

[Cliving1]

Might be an early sign of uronema. How long have you had it?

[Frost_Hydra]

I have had it for two weeks, it acclimated perfectly fine and started to eat the day after.

[Fiver]

I've had freshwater fish with gaping open wounds. I just kept the water clean and they recovered. Haven't had the same experience with my reef.

Good luck.

[Tripod1404]

Sorry looks like uronema. Possibly the worst disease to have in a saltwater aquarium.

[Rover88]

Hopefully its not Uronema....

I had a yellow clown goby that got a big cut/scrape down his side somehow, and he healed up in a week. Can't tell it happened.

Lets hope its the same for you

[Frost_Hydra]

Ok, so I did a bunch of research on Uronema, and its definitely a very strong possibility. At the same time the wound on my Chromis didn't really match any of the images I found on it. There's no red anywhere on the wound, and it really looks more like a few missing scales with a light scrape on the flesh behind, it's not even pink. Though if this is Uronema, what are your recommendations on how to stop it or if I should try to save the other fish? I heard a freshwater dip may help, and I guess it wouldn't hurt to give it a try either.

[slief]

My recommendation is to leave it alone, feed it welll and hope for the best. Chromis are not the most hardy fish to begin with and moving it to QT and treating with meds will stress it more. In my opinion, your best chance of it recovering is leaving it alone, feeding it well and hoping for the best. Especially since no one is 100% sure if it’s just some missing scales vs something else.

[Frost_Hydra]

sadly Emerald has passed away; I noticed her staying near the surface, and about 30 min later she died. I got a better picture of the wound now I guess... If anyone could ID the wound, it be much appreciated. I removed the body about 10 min after she died to ensure there were no sparks of life remaining. I was curious if anyone recommends me to treat the tank water or something like that. And also thank you so much for all your guy's attempts at helping me to save her.

[Tripod1404]

Originally Posted by Frost_Hydra

sadly Emerald has passed away; I noticed her staying near the surface, and about 30 min later she died. I got a better picture of the wound now I guess... If anyone could ID the wound, it be much appreciated. I removed the body about 10 min after she died to ensure there were no sparks of life remaining. I was curious if anyone recommends me to treat the tank water or something like that. And also thank you so much for all your guy's attempts at helping me to save her.

Sorry for your loss. My bet (unfortunately) is still on uronema marinum. The flesh is eaten away, that is one of the main things what UM does. Plus the wound in the original picture, if not caused by UM, should be able to heal. I have seen fish with much much larger wounds to heal.

What was the time span of the wound appearing and fish dying? If it is relatively rapid, its most likely UM.

UM is very hard to get rid of. Its not a obligate parasite so it can survive without any fish. But fortunetly its also not as infectious as other protozoan parasites. So you can live with it but if a fish gets injured, there will always be a chance of UM killing it. More risk for fish that use violence to establish social hierarchy; such as chromis and anthias . If you have multiple tangs, they might sometimes also get infected since they can cut each other badly.

I think completely getting rid of it without nuking the tank is not possible. You might try metronidazole. It is a known anti-protozoan drug. It can cure internal UM infections. But the mode of action of metronidazole is a little tricky, it is only "toxic" under anaerobic conditions. That is why it is mainly used to treat anerobic protozoan infections in humans (such as urethra, uterus and intestinal protozan infections).

So I am not sure if it can kill UM living freely in your tank. Some protozoans have large, anaerobic cellular domains inside their cells (such as storage vacuoles). I dont know if UM has such compartments. If it does, metronidazole might still be effective.

Metronidazole is reef safe, but keep in mind it will terminate your anaerobic bacteria population.

[Heuristic]

I've had urenoma, luckily it was in QT. That's exactly how it started.

uronema is opportunistic. It can sit in the water column indefinitely and you'll never even see it in a healthy fish, but the second their immune system is depressed for any reason, it can wipe them out quickly. Sorry, but I'm not sure there's any real easy to get it out of that DT. The good news is unlike it, it doesn't embed in to the fish. Meaning, if you can put a healthy fish in something like a formalin dip and then put them in non-infected water afterwards, then they should be uronema free. At least that was my understanding of it. The rocks/sand/etc would have to go and brand new water all together would have to go in to the DT. Any of your equpment and the DT itself will need to be bleached and allowed to dry completely. By the picture, this looks like a pretty brand new tank.

Again, this was my understanding of it when researching it when my chromis got it. It's the most common thing I've found that they bring in. Whenever I see a big batch of chromis at one of the LFS you can almost always see one with signs of uronema it seems like.

I've stopped QTing fish for the most part, but chromis' I will always run through some form of formalin dip/qt to make sure they aren't bringing that nasty thing in. Clowns and chromis both have a very common thing that they can bring in to your tanks that's NOT fun to get rid of.