Hawk Trouble

[Kloxman]

Hi All,

I have a long nose hawkfish, he is about 4 inches long. He has somehow managed to fracture his upper jaw right in the middle. I don't know if he ran into something or had an encounter with another fish. He usually darts across the tank to grab food, so a colision with something is probably a good bet. The fracture appears unstable and bends at the fracture point when he swims. He is in generally good health, I have had him for about a year. No other fish in the tank is ill or traumatized. Water conditions good.

The hawkfish hides allot, breaths hard and doesn't appear to be able to eat. Yesterday, the 4th day since I noticed the injury or have seen him eat anything, I tried to feed him from a syringe and I think he got a little down. My question to anybody who can help is: Is this type of injury fatal to the fish simply because it won't or can't eat? Can they survive without part of his upper jaw? Will it eventually heal if I can continue to force feed him enough to stay alive? I don't want to stress kill him either.

I feel I should do something and can't stand to just watch him starve to death. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks for your time,

Kloxman

 

[Navarre]

Sounds like a very unfortunate injury

WIthout seeing the injury its hard to tell to be honest. However, fish can very quickly adapt to dissabilities, it just needs to find a way that suits its new problem. The biggest fear for me to start with is infection. The wound needs to heal as quickly as possible to stop infection setting in or this will kill the fish far faster than starvation will.

If the fish is in good health then perhaps its got a fighting chance to recover and start feeding again. it simply now needs to learn a new feeding style and once it learns how to overcome this problem it should be ok (as long as infection can be kept out of the equasion).