Sunken forehead disease???

[tommmy]

Over the past couple of years I have lost a few fish with these symptoms. The head above the eyes slowly shrinks away with the fish eventually dyeing. One fish seems to be affected at a time so far it has been Tomato clown, brown bird wrasse, blue damsel. Now I have another tomato clown affected please watch attached video. I stopped adding fish when the first fish was affected and I don’t plan to add any more till the tank is free of this problem.

It takes 3-4 months for the fish to die.

tomato clown video

 

[LargeAngels]

Your fish is starving.

 

[Spracklcat]

That's an interesting idea. If the fish was starving wouldn't you see the belly sinking in too, and first?

 

[LargeAngels]

From the video the fish looks way too skinny. It also may be that there is an internal parasite problem with the fish.

 

[Spracklcat]

Ah, thanks.

 

[tommmy]

This fish as well as all the others continue to eat up till about two weeks before they die. At that point they become lethargic and stop eating. This is a fish only tank with daily feedings. All affected fish act normally until they reach the lethargic phase. If you look closely at the end of the video you can see how completely the head is pinched in.

 

[LargeAngels]

Head pinching is a classic sign that the fish is starving. It has used up all its food storage.

The fish may be eating, but not enough to sustain them long term. Just slowly starving to death. There is a possibility that they have some internal parasites.

Try more frequent feedings.

 

[tommmy]

The internal parasites idea makes sense. What should I do to break the cycle of one fish being affected at a time in succession?

 

[LargeAngels]

If it is a fish only then I would medicate the tank with something like Prazipro.

 

[vegaskid11]

I recently had this same problem with a few lyretail anthias from a large shoal purchase. The forehead area justs wastes away. These fish were two of a purchase of 25 and were eating 3-4 times a day with the others. They never stopped eating, they just slowly wasted away. It must be some type of infection. There is no way they are starving, unless the infection is not allawing them to process nutrients or something. The rest of the shoal is perfectly healthy and fat.

 

[johno4]

I would treat the tank with prazipro and see if the problem continues.

 

[vegaskid11]

The two that I had with this problem died weeks ago. I have not seen it pop up in the rest of the anthias from that large buy that I did. It must not be contagious.

It was actually a friend of mine who first noticed the problem on these particular anthias of mine about a week after I originally got them. He said he had seen it before on cichlids. He could not remember a name.

 

[JHemdal]

I've also seen this loss of muscle tissue on the nape before in African cichlids. I've only seen it in marine fish a few times. In those cases, it was a symptom of Mycobacterium marinum. Basically, the fish eat well enough, their bellies are fairly plump, but they lose muscle mass. The problem is that Myco is not curable, but only certain fish are prone to developing acute symptoms like this.

Jay

 

[vegaskid11]

Thank you for the information. That sounds exactly right. Those symptoms match exactly with what happened to the fish I had. It was most noticeable at first around the forehead region (nape) and towards the end (4-5 weeks) it was visible muscle loss throughout the body.

It was Africans my friend saw it on as well. Good call.

So this marinum must not be contagious then?

 

[vegaskid11]

This doesn't sound good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycobacterium_marinum

 

[jlnielsen13]

Same problem same fish

Same problem same fish

I recently had this same problem with a few lyretail anthias from a large shoal purchase. The forehead area justs wastes away. These fish were two of a purchase of 25 and were eating 3-4 times a day with the others. They never stopped eating, they just slowly wasted away. It must be some type of infection. There is no way they are starving, unless the infection is not allawing them to process nutrients or something. The rest of the shoal is perfectly healthy and fat.

I have a lyretail anthias with this same issue!! I cannot figure it out as he swims normal eats a ton of food and seems healthy otherwise. He has been like this for 6 months but I can tell he isn't internally healthy! Any suggestions?