Broken bone?? New fish - New to the hobby - advice needed

[Jillian]

Sorry this is a long post - was trying to put as much information as possible.


I need some advice on what to do, if there is anything that can be done. I have an African Cichlid that looks like bone is sticking out of his cheek. The weird part is that it will be there and then it will be gone. I'll go check on him later and it's back again. I'm concerned about it injuring him further going in and out since the hole wouldn't be able to heal completely. Looks like it could be either a branchiostegal ray bone from looking at the fish skeletal system or something foreign.

Background on the fish:
Ob peacock African Cichlid
Purchased from local fish store about a week ago
Approx. 3 inches long
75 gallon tank - tank mates are 10 other African cichlids(most still under 3-4 inches) and 2 synodontis catfish (under an inch)
Treated the tank with one day of Paraguard

The LFS offered to take him back once I showed them pictures when trying to figure out what is was but I wouldn't feel right giving him back to put him in the store with an injury.

He's fitting in well with the rest of the fish but he does stay in the plants at the top of the tank instead of going into the rocks. I'm guessing it may hurt if he knocks it into them. Eating fine and otherwise looks healthy. No gasping. Not getting picked on or fighting. He had fin damage when I purchased him but its healing up very well.

Does this sound like its his bone or would this be something else. Not sure if I should attempt to see if it will easily come out or if I need to leave it alone.

Any advice would be very appreciated. This is my first attempt at a tank like this and I have no idea what else to do or how serious the injury is.

I can provide more pictures if needed. Thank you!


Jillian

 

[Fishfur]

I suppose it might be bone, but if so, I'd expect to see more deformity in the surrounding area, swelling or bleeding. It might be a foreign body, though where it came from is hard to say. Since the skin is broken it may well get infected, either bacteria or fungus often invade open wounds. And it is not likely to heal over if it continues to protrude.

When it goes back in, does it vanish entirely, or is there still a tiny bit showing ? Is there any sign of swelling or bleeding ?

Salt may be helpful with both healing and preventing secondary fungal infections, and cichlids have no issues with salt I am aware of, though catfish are not that good with salt. But there's been at least one study where salt was used to treat Ich on catfish and those treated with salt had the best survival rate overall. It appears to be long term exposure to salt that harms catfish, rather than short term exposure, as they'd get in treatment situations.

But it would probably be best to move this fish to a QT, where he can be treated without involving the other fish.

It is possible to anesthetize fish. This might make it possible to investigate the nature of the protruding 'bone', to find out if it is a foreign body or in fact a bone.

Clove oil is more often associated with euthanasia, but it is in fact one of the best anesthetics for fish, and so long as you are careful with dosage it won't kill the fish. Just knock him out so you can explore this injury and see if the 'bone' will come out easily or not. He is a fair size, so the risk is much less than with a very small fish.

You might try to grab it with tweezers while he's swimming, but that might be very, very difficult to do, and if it is bone, he's going to react badly if you succeed and it would be painful.

If it gets infected, you may have to intervene, but salt might be the first thing to try, in a QT... quarantine tank.

 

[Jillian]

Thank you for all of the information.

With the bone, it did look like it went in all of the way one day but every other time it looks like there was at least some part of it out. I haven't seen any bleeding. I checked today and the only swelling or difference in one side to the other is it being a little swollen where it is actually poking out. But it's very minimal, I had to look for a few minutes to even see that.

I was trying to figure out what causes it to go back in/move. Thought maybe jaw movement would have some type of impact but it didn't move whe he was eating at all. He also yawned and no change either.

Since its still there we might try to catch him today to see if it can be very gently pulled out. If it can't be then we'll have to figure out options from there. I have an extra 25 gallon I can turn into a QT if it starts looking abnormal but I need to go out and grab a filter. I know there's aquarium salt but we already use Seachems cichlid lake salt so I'm not sure if that is the same but we use approximately 1 teaspoon for every 10 gallons of water we add when we do water changes. The catfish are from the same lakes as the cichlids so they can tolerate the salt but not sure how much extra than their normal requirements.

Thank you again!