Odd Behavior With One of My Fish

[jamesbaur13]

I have a Chevron Tang that recently started doing an odd behavior.

He does this periodically... he will be swimming along like normal and swim so his head is pointed straight up. He'll then open and close his mouth around 3-5 times like he is pecking at an invisible rock, then continue to swim. It's not a violent motion, he gently swims to the described positions. He isn't anywhere near the surface of the water when he does this, so he's not gasping for air.

Other than this one odd behavior, everything else seems pretty normal. His breathing is not accelerated. He eats well (a little too well tbh) and looks great.

I have 12 other fish in the tank with him, none of them are exhibiting this issue.

I checked my water... all seems normal.

I'm just wondering if others have fish that act in the same manner or if this is a red flag of concern.

 

[MrTuskfish]

Anyone who seems to know why fish do things like this scares me a little. I doubt its anything to worry about.

 

[jamesbaur13]

UPDATE:

I'm thinking that I somehow got flukes into my system.

I haven't added any fish in since October (3+ months). I've added around 4 corals (mini colony's 3" in dia).

I QT all fish with Prazipro and TT for 2 wks.

Unfortunately I do not have the resources to QT corals.

The reason I'm thinking I have flukes is because of the odd behavior of the Chevron coupled with the behavior of one of my anthias. The Chevron recently started doing his odd behavior (as described above) more frequently. The one anthias seems to be in much poorer shape. His gill movement is very accelerated. For the most part he hides and just breathes heavy. He doesn't eat.

On the 3rd day of my anthias exhibiting this condition (Wednesday, 2 days ago) I decided to try something. The tank is becoming grown in and it makes it difficult to catch the fish without destroying the coral. I would have liked to catch him to do a FW dip.

As a proactive measure (as I haven't been able to prove it's flukes without a FW dip) I decided to treat my whole DT with Prazipro.

I have a couple questions (and I realize they are loaded to some degree).

Typically, how long does Prazipro treatment take to show signs of improvement? I feel this question is a bit loaded because I feel the anthias isn't going to make it. I'm hoping to see improvement in my tangs behavior, but I realize that his behavior is not indicative of flukes.

And second... will a FW dip on a fish which has expired (my anthias) which has been exposed to flukes and has been treated with prazipro yield dead flukes?

Basically, I'm hoping to find an indication of whether or not the prazipro treatment was/is worthwhile.

The treatment requires me to shut off my skimmer, so if it isn't flukes... having the extra pollutants in the water is not helping, so that's why I ask.

 

[blacklab75]

Often the beginning stages of ich can look like flukes when the infection is in the gills. The prazi treatment while gentle, is still stressful and could allow the ich to take off.