Fish stung by bristleworm?

[Vitaly]

I have owned a Fridmani Dottyback (Pseudochromis fridmani) for about 6 months and he has been healthy and happy. This morning I noticed that there are white, thin, fibrous structures extending from his left side (none of the right side). I have been watching him this morning and he is eating, actively swimming and not showing any obvious symptoms of infection (gill flaring, lethargy, etc).

Here are some pictures of these structures. I purposefully overexposed the image to enhance the structures.

Could this white, fibrous processes be bristle's for the bristleworm? I have been stung on a few occasions and this looks similar to the appearance of my fingers following contact.

If these are bristleworm stings will the Fridmani shed them naturally?

 

[Sk8r]

Yep. If that's what it is, it'll fall off about 2 days from now. Won't hurt the fish. Hopefully he'll learn not to shove a bristleworm, which probably took worse damage by losing all those bristles: he was probably trying to use its burrow for the night.

And by the length of the bristles, that was a fair-sized worm, probably quite deep in the rock.

Took my firefish 3 encounters to figure out the concept.

Bristleworms are necessary for your tank's health---but sometimes your fish think they're a menu item, and this can create some fuzzy fish.

 

[ssavader]

If you see that he is not doing well after a couple of days, try to net him and carefully remove on of them with fine tweezers to insure that these are not flukes or worms.

 

[LeslieH]

Fireworm bristles - which is what I think they are - are shaped like harpoons with barbs that point backwards. If the fish's skin is delicate they will cause more damage if you try to pull them out. Just let them fall out naturally.