Not looking so good...

[dheinze]

I bought a healthy looking Sea Grass Wrasse on Saturday (5 days ago). After acclimating him into the tank, I treated it with a full dose of general cure (metronidazole and praziquantel). He buried himself in the sand, and I didn't see him again for a number of days. Yesterday, he poked his head up out of the sand on a number of different occasions, but didn't seem interested in coming all the way out, or in eating. This morning (Thursday) he finally came all the way out of the sand, but definitely didn't look good. He had difficulty maintaining buoyancy, and was floating on his side at the top of the tank. There was also a red swelling on his abdomen around the anal opening - I've included a picture to show that. Shortly after I noticed him out of the sand, he struggled his way back down the tank and buried himself again. My questions are as follows:

1. What does he have?
2. Is it treatable?
3. I have a melanarus wrasse in the same quarantine tank, purchased from the same place on the same date...is this disease communicable?

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[sandwi54]

Sorry for your loss. It looks like brooklynella to me. You will want to treat the melanurus wrasse too as this disease is highly contagious. It can be treated with formalin dip.

 

[dheinze]

Brooklynella is visible on the surface of the fish from the pictures I've seen. The spots you see in my pic are the fish's normal coloration. The real "lesion" is the swelling and redness near the anal opening. I was thinking something more like intestinal obstruction or something with the swim bladder?