Help! Think Our Blennys Been Fighting With A Bristleworm

[Miss Wiggle]

just looking at the tank and noticed one of the blennies had something white on his side, went to look and he's got two small rows of white spines sticking out the side of him. he's behaving completely normally, feeding ok etc etc just got the two rows of spiny things.

we think he's been fighting with a bristleworm because of the pattern of the spines and because he doesn't seem unwell.

are the spines likely to do him any harm? get infected? anything we can do to remove them?

 

[Donya]

My engineer goby got a bunch of bristleworm spines in the face once when he tried to attack one that was attempting to share a hole in the rockwork. The goby recovered in a couple days and went back to normal, so if your blenny is eating I'd think it will be fine. Others may advise better, but I wouldn't try to remove the spines from a fish...you'd have to do it with tweezers, and having removed them from my own hands far too many times, it's tricky even when the surface they're being removed from holds still. IME the spines themselves arn't all that bad, since they just itch/burn and it does go away in a reasonable amount of time.

 

[Musho3210]

NOTE: this is a question, not an answer

Would melafix help preventing an infection?

 

[SkiFletch]

Probably not Musho. Melafix is just an anti-irritant, it has no disinfectant properties whatsoever. It MIGHT promote slime coat growth on the fish's body which might lower the chances of infection somewhat, but I doubt it'd be anything significant... JMO

 

[Donya]

Melafix is just an anti-irritant, it has no disinfectant properties whatsoever.

The active ingredient is a mild antibiotic according to the Merck Index. I've found it effective against otherwise uncurable bacterial infections in certain fw snails, so it's not just an anti-irritant. I really doubt it would do any good with bristleworm stings though.

 

[SkiFletch]

Huh, learn somethin new every day

 

[littleme1969]

Yes I agree. Primafix is even better it fighting anything infection and fungus based. Ive used it with great sucess on all tropicals and the apple snails pick up great on it too. Its one of the few meds I would use without question. Great for new arrivals that are suffering from stress related problems too

 

[Donya]

Ive used it with great sucess on all tropicals and the apple snails pick up great on it too. Its one of the few meds I would use without question.

Pimafix is better because the active ingredient is much harsher. It can have some bad results with fw snails as much as it can do good. If overdosed (not by much in the case of Pimafix), both meds generate a sharp spike in activity in snails and then basically have a "knock out" effect if taken a little higher. I ran tests on Planorbids and various Ampullariids a few years ago with those meds and the active ingredients alone and was rather shocked by the results. I've always been skeptical about their use with marine inverts after seeing the fw effects at different dossages, since it's not always clear how fast the stuff denatures in the tank between doses. Both also have bad reactions when in direct contact mucous membrains.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well he's lost a few spines over the last few days, seems otherwise healthy so we're not gonna medicate... for now at least... will continue to monitor the situation.