whats wrong with my dog face puffers mouth?

[hrairguitar]

My dog face puffer went from eating frozen prawns daily to developing some mouth issue overnight. It seems to have some kind of stringy clear stuff around its mouth that almost looks like its dangling. I attached some before and and after pics. Since its developed this issue it has not been eating and it almost seems like its having trouble opening its mouth. Other than this mouth issue it seems to be acting relatively normal (chills out in its spot on a rock and comes out for the occasional swim every so often.

Anyone ever experiences this or have any idea of what it might be? And how can I help this guy out?

 

[roenicknewf]

To me it just look like some scrapes from picking at rocks or shells ..Mine gets the same thing

 

[hrairguitar]

To me it just look like some scrapes from picking at rocks or shells ..Mine gets the same thing

That makes me feel so much better. Thank you. This morning I woke up and some of the mouth stuff was gone but still a little bit hanging. Makes me wanna grab it out lol We'll see if it eats now

Does yours ever refuse food?

 

[roenicknewf]

No,and thats the only thing that puzzles me..I still wouldn't worry too much,,could be he banged his mouth pretty good and it needs to heal ..I really don't think its any kind of disease

 

[hrairguitar]

uhhh! still not eating and looking lethargic. did a couple laps around the tank but shows no interest in eating. I tested my water with 2 different test kits. Everything was normal except my alkalinity was kind of high (salinity 1.024. My flame angel, yello tang, maroon clown, watchman goby and damsels are all eating and acting normal and every one of my corals are opened up fully (blasto's, duncans, polyps, mushrooms). I did have a new Coris Wrasse die last night as well so something has to be up that I'm unable to see.

Debating on taking the puffer out and putting in my coral cat shark tank and seeing how it does in there. Also going to take my water to LFS to see if they see anything that my test kits didnt show. So strange though that every other fish is acting normal but the puffer is having problems

 

[Joe0813]

i wouldnt put it in your shark tank...if it has something then it will transfer it over to that tank

 

[hrairguitar]

i wouldnt put it in your shark tank...if it has something then it will transfer it over to that tank

LFS said water was just fine. I'm gonna do a water change though and see if that helps..I told them it nibbled on a polyb and blasto the other day and they said that one of those might be why its acting like that. They also said putting it with shark might work as well. They said I shouldn't be concerned (even though its hard not to be).

 

[Joe0813]

theres no water tests that i know of that can test for a parasite or disease

 

[hrairguitar]

theres no water tests that i know of that can test for a parasite or disease

Very true. Let's hope its not something like that. Its times like this I wish they could tell us what's wrong so we could fix it!

 

[Joe0813]

id QT it to make sure theres nothing wrong... that way it will be alone and not have to compete with other fish either

 

[hrairguitar]

Update*

Later that night the puffer seemed to make a full recovery. I fed it some shrimp dipped in iodine and it gobbled them up by hand feeding. I did a partial water change (about 30-35%) (matched salinity and temperature and then added some carbon (it had been a while). Now for whatever reason my skimmer is out of control and constantly pulling watery foam and I'm having to empty basically every 10 minutes. I'm wondering if its the iodine. So I did another water change just now. Still foaming like a b**ch! And worst of all my puffers face looks totally weird and black and its acting super lethargic. What gives! So now I'm making more salt water and going to do a bigger water change because something just isn't right.

Any thoughts? Id appreciate any help I can get on this. The only thing I can think that's different was the iodine soaked shrimp. Every other invert and fish and coral are all business as usual. Just my puffer and skimmer are off big time

 

[hrairguitar]

Anyone anyone?

 

[Joe0813]

Put it in a qt