Lump / Open wound on Blue Spotted Watchman Goby

[Timbo3416]

So a couple weeks back I thought I noticed a lump on the side of my Blue Spotted Watchman Goby. He does such a good job hiding that I thought maybe it was just my imagination. I woke up today to find him out of cover on the side of the tank seemingly struggling to breathe. Where I thought I saw the lump on him is now a huge open wound.

I pulled him from my DT and put him in a 2.5 gallon aquarium to use as a hospital tank. I haven't added anything recently so I am not sure what he has.

Can anyone shed light on what he has and what the recommnded treatment would be? Or is he going to die no matter what I do?

Is there some treatment I should do on the DT to keep this from spreading to anything else? I have lots of corals of all types in the DT so any treatment has to be safe for a reef tank.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Deinonych]

Looks like an abscess. I would administer a broad-spectrum antibiotic like kanamycin ASAP.

 

[ThRoewer]

Looks like an abscess. I would administer a broad-spectrum antibiotic like kanamycin ASAP.

I would suggest the same and urge to start treatment right now.

This looks already pretty bad. It looks like his whole tail is affected and in the process of dying off. The struggling to breathe is not a good sign.

As for reef safe treatments - there is not really such a thing, especially if you have to go broadband because you don't know what exactly it is you have to treat. Any effective treatment will have some undesired side effects on the eco system of your tank.

 

[Deinonych]

As for reef safe treatments - there is not really such a thing, especially if you have to go broadband because you don't know what exactly it is you have to treat. Any effective treatment will have some undesired side effects on the eco system of your tank.

Yes, thanks for pointing that out. I neglected to mention that any antibiotic should be administered in a hospital tank.