YWG with a hole in the side.

[Crooked Reef]

Last year I purchased a yellow watchman goby and after about two months it turned itself white. I did research on this and it means that the fish was an adult female and is a normal color shift. About a month and a half ago it started to turn back yellow, but had two spots on each side laterally from each other that stayed white and slowly went back to yellow. These were located in front of and behind its dorsal fun on each side, with the exception of one spot on its side in front of its dorsal fin that remained white. One morning a few weeks ago when I checked the tank, there was a hole in its side where the spot was. This wasn’t a slight divot, it was as big around as a pencil eraser and went through to the spine. Where it was located I could see some internal organs to the front and below the hole. The fish was taken from the tank and would eat, but unfortunately did not recover. Since seeing this a google search has shown multiple cases of this for yellow watchmen gobies, oddly enough always in the same general spot. It is almost always put down as a bacterial infection, but why the same spot and why on this particular species? I am attaching a picture for reference in case anyone has seen this before and knows why it happened. No other fish have shown any symptoms and in all of the cases I have found, nobody has said it spread to another fish.

[Crooked Reef]

Also, I make it a point to check my tanks everyday for issues and can say without a doubt, this hole went from a white spot to a clean cut, not ragged, hole in one Day.