injured fish, lying on sand, labored breathing....any hope?

[latazyo]

so my new yellow coris wrasse appears to have suffered some fin trauma

he appears to have minor trauma to his caudal fin and moderate to severe trauma to his left pectoral fin

the pectoral fin injury is located at the base, in fact it actually looks somewhat bloody

the fish is kind of slithering around on the bottom of the tank and breathing heavily

I removed the fish from the tank and put him in my other tank

at this time I dont have any water parameters, but this appears to be an obvious case of protective pink skunk clownfish or hungry snowflake eel

 

[thatguy]

In my experience, labored breathing is a sign of Dead Fish Swimming.

 

[Nanook]

Could be a number of things, but fish incompatibility list is probably the cause. Snowflake eels are not great companions in a reef tank.

 

[latazyo]

considering that my eel is smaller than a pencil, I am not really suspecting him....regardless, the point of the thread is not to determine who did it, but if there's anything I should do to help the fish, or just flush it

unfortunately I did not witness the altercation so I can not know who caused the damage

although I can't really see a SFE taking small bites out of fins....looks like something a smaller fish would do, whereas when I feed the eel, he bites the prey with his sharp teeth and swallows it hole, less of a biting situation

 

[logiktest]

When you removed the fish, did you remove it to a hospital/QT tank or another display?

 

[latazyo]

I moved it to the other display

the only fish in that tank is a yellow watchman goby

he has since passed

 

[logiktest]

Your new yellow coris wrasse has passed?

 

[latazyo]

yeah, I really wish I could have seen the altercation, but I was not able to

he had fin nipping on his caudal fin that was normal fin nip type stuff, but his pectoral fin was really bad

it was bloodly looking where the fin connects to the body, so it almost looked like it had been ent the wrong way or pulled on

it was a neat fish, but he was buried in the sand most of the time