Blue-spotted Jawfish Bacterial Infection

[skierajs]

I've had a blue-spotted jawfish in my display for 4 weeks now. About 2 weeks ago he jumped into the overflow (which has since been netted over) and since I retrieved him from the fuge (where he finally wound up) he's been a bit under the weather.

Originally he got a large gray/white patches his skin and his fins became very, very ragged. He was still eating but I wasn't able to catch him to get him back into QT.

The illness did not start from the gills like brookynella, but from the middle of his body. I've read this may be a bacterial infection of some sort that has been seen in these jawfish and is often terminal. He has been eating the whole time and the large white patches are now gone after a week of not looking good at all. The fins are still ragged and his color has not come back though (still somewhat patchy).

Has anyone else had experience with this kind of infection or know of recommended treatments? I have been feeding him a combination of spirulina brine, mega-marine, formula two, and flake. He seems to eat everything.

Picture to follow...

 

[skierajs]

As you can see his colors are way off, like there is a film of "grayness" over his whole body. Again I do not think this is brookynella or ich based on the fact that it does not seem centered around the gills and its affect on the fins is causing them to fray rather without any visible parasites.

 

[TheBigBadReefer]

i've had good results with pimafix and melafix

 

[focus]

I like Mardel products,I would treat with a gram negative anti-bacterial product. Problem is most aren't reef safe. Can you catch him?

 

[skierajs]

primafix / melafix

Have you treated melafix / primafix in your display tank? Any negative effect to corals and / or water quality?

I am not too fond of the idea of putting anything in the display tank that I am not testing for, and if I could get the fish out into QT I could probably treat with something stronger.

However since I tried and failed to get the bugger out once I may be willing to try...

Does anyone have an opinion as to the chances of this fish pulling through on his own without medication? He is eating well.

 

[biggyclops]

do you soak your food with garlic? might help in imho

 

[Gina McReeferson]

Does anyone have an opinion as to the chances of this fish pulling through on his own without medication? He is eating well.

I'm sorry to say but this is exactly how ours looked shortly before he went missing and presumably dead. Unfortunately, this is very common with the Blue Spotted Jawfish....we saw a couple years ago at a great price at a local LFS and I just couldn't resist them. We thought they were doing well, we had them for months and then that happened. Once I saw what was happening, I did a ton of research on here and on Reef Central and from my readings, it seemed most people who had them, were not able to keep them long term....IIRC, the same as what is happening to yours and what happened to ours seemed to be the main culprit.

I hope yours pulls through, and I'm sure there are people who have been able to keep them long term, but I don't think their chances are great in our systems from my experience and from what I've read.

The pearly jawfish (yellowhead) have a much better survival rate in our systems.

As a side note, none of our other fish got sick when this happened, it may be a jawfish only type of disease, I could be wrong though, I forgot the name of it from when I was reading up on it, it was so long ago now.

 

[skierajs]

thanks

Thanks for the reply, although discouraging.

The symptoms point to standard bacterial fin / tail rot, which I have to say I've never seen in a reef tank before.

Since he's shown improvement over the last week I will keep a close eye and treat with anti-bacterial meds if he doesn't continue to improve (and I can get him out of the tank). I will be target feeding him to try to help him to eat as much as possible and will try garlic soaked foods.

I think you may be right that this is a common disease for these jawfish, and potentially only affects them. None of the other fish are showing signs of illness. I also have a UV I switched on to see if that might help but since it is likely not parasites I doubt it will make a difference (perhaps keep from spreading though).

I'll post updates.

 

[Gina McReeferson]

Good luck to you.

I did a search on these guys here and found this thread, it seems some have lost these guys not to an infection, but to jumping .....http://bostonreefers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=62301&highlight=jawfish+disease

 

[skierajs]

Yeah we already named him jumpy the jawfish after he jumped into the overflow. The tank is now well egg crated and netted.

 

[focus]

IMO you might see a slight improvement, I did and then it came back with a vengeance, and was terminal. He was eating well also except towards the end. Unfortunately I was unable to catch him. And I agree it is a jaw fish problem,none of my other fish had any signs of bacterial infection.

 

[Dave McReeferson]

A common way to lose these particular fish unfortunately, I wonder if it is not something to do with their dietary needs as it is so common...

 

[SharkLover]

my yellowhead may be suffering from fin rot or possibly worse.
He shows no iiregular signs of illness except his left fin is 75% missing and his tail is starting to Rot. I'm scared to give him medication cause I simply don't know which one and I don't have a QT set up yet. Poor jawfish, what ever will i do!

 

[SharkLover]

*bump*

Any help would be great.
Can i grab some rock from my tank and sand and put it into a QT tank maybe a 10g. It shouldn't cycle right?

 

[Greg Hiller]

Is there something you think that brought the problem on? If you can get the fish into quarantine, it's still eating, and you think it's a bacterial infection, you might try the flake food that has antibiotics in it.