Need Help With Dwarf Lion, Please Help

Cutiewitbooty

New member
When I woke up this morning my lion's tail was, well..gone. It looks like something has eaten it, but i'm not sure what could have done that to a lion fish and why my lion would even sit there long enought to let that happen. He is having alot of trouble swimming up to get any food (he only eats by gone to the top for krill, wont eat from a feeding stick ect) and i'm kinda worried about him. I have no idea what could have done this to him though. All I have in there is a blue damsel which ignores him (he thinks he is a rock) and a cleaner shrimp which has a great intrest in the lion and is really big, but would he actually eat away at his tail? I was thinking maybe the hermits, but they are so small it would take hours and i can't see the lion sitting there for that. I know there arn't any hidden hitchikers that would do it because of the size of the tank, plus i have taken the rock out a million times. The only one i could even concider being able to do it is the skunk cleaner. Please help, i think i'm going to put him in my fuge. Has anyone heard of a psyco tail eating cleaner shrimp before?

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It looks like a bacterial infection. Now, don't take this as an attack on your animal husbandry, but it normally occours in situations with high dissolved organics. Too much food in, not enough water out. I have also seen infections like this when the temperature was too high, also resulting in low oxygen content as the aforementioned would. What are your total parameters?
 
Would an infection take the fishes entire tail in 1 night tho? I'm still thinking bout this one. Did you see the fish the day b4 and was it ok then?
 
prams are pretty good, amm0, nitrites0, nitrates10, temp 78-79, cal 450 and thats all the tests i have. Like i said there are only him and 1 other fish so it's not overstocked. It happened over night, if you also look on his dorsal fin (not sure if thats the right term) it looks like it's been nibbled on too.

Here is a pic of what his tail looked like yesterday, i fed him last night and it looked like this pic.

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I would say you do have an unseen hitchiker of some sort. At least that is my guess at this time. It is wierd that he would let this mystery critter nibble at him tho. I gotta think some more.
 
yeah i'm really stumped too, i'm 100% sure about there being no hitchiker that could do that. It's got to be the cleaner, but still why would the lion let him do it......................

I dosed melafix to help with any seconday infections though, i'm just so baffled
 
Hmmm, maybe it did get pined in a rock shift or something. Maybe if it did get stuck, the cleaner would have a chance to nibble at him. I haven't heard of a cleaner doing that, tho.
 
Yes, it is possible to have an infection run wild like this overnight. In my humble opinion it would not be a bad idea to do a partial water change with adequately prepared water.
How long have you had the lion?
 
maybe hermits.......but that would take them forever to eat that much tail.........but if he somehow got pinned............?
 
Got any powerheads in there? Might of chewed his tail up.

I am with afishyonados too, infection can rot flesh away rapidly. You dosed melafix to your main tank? Eek.. Do you have a quarantine tank handy?
 
Powerhead is a good possibility. And, yes you guys are right, it could be an infection. They seem like the two most likely answers. I would QT it.
 
I don't have a QT tank, but i do have a 10 gal i could set up if i have to. I do water changes once a week, about 20% Melafix is reefsafe and i only have 1 other fish, so i'm not to worried about that. He is looking more pale, if the infections can eat away that fast that must be what it is. Here is a pic of the tank, it's really clean and everything...

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what do i need to do for a bacterial infection, besides melafix. Also how could he have gotten this? The last thing i put in there was the cleaner shrimp and that was about 1 week ago.
 
too add something, actually useful (I haven't been useful in the last ten minutes or so)

My fuzzy dwarf went through the same thing, I posted it in the agressives forum.. this was 3 years ago. We came down to nematodes creating a primary infection, and him dieing and disolving away like that due to secondary infections...
 
Do you believe in aggressive treatments? It is possible to remove him and gently swab his tail with iodine on a Q-tip. Be very careful not to get stabbed by him though! When applying the iodine swab to the infection, be sure not to let any drip anywhere near the gills! This will immediately kill him!
After the treatment, return him to the same tank. QT tanks are a great idea, if they are already cycled. The lion does not have this kind of time.
The tank does look on a lighter note!
 
can you pic up iodine at any store? Is this contagious? I just bought a new fish that will be here on tuesday, should i be worried? As for the QT, i can take the water directly out of my tank o put in there. what other treatments are there, the iodine seems like a fast way though, will it kill anything if it drips in the main tank though? And how did it even get into my tank, could he have had it all along?
 
an un-cycled QT can be possible. just involves a LOT of water changes. If your going to be using meds, its actually best called a hospital tank cause there won't be a bio-filter left afterwords, which means lots of water changes...
 
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