Today I've noticed that one of my ottos was red around the head and frontal fin area, at first I thought it could be ammonia since it was breathing heavily as well. I checked the others, but no redness on them, nor were they panting and the aquarium is up and running since March without an issue. So I observed the sick one and only then I saw, that his whole head is red, and part of its face missing?! It was able to swim around, but I decided to isolate it. An injury seemed even more obvious from what I could tell without disturbing it too much. Though it did not matter, in a matter of minutes, it passed away. Took some pictures of the poor thing.
Can an otto self-harm itself like this? From what I could tell, its jaw on that side was in pieces. There are only cherry shrimps, amano shrimps, celestial pearl danios, and threadfin rainbowfish in the tank, nothing big. I was thinking maybe it got himself stuck in one of the dragon stone crevices and fought itself out by harming itself in the meantime? Or maybe the filter intake could suck it in somehow, but seen tinier cherry shrimps jumping away from the flow without an issue.
It all happened so fast, I just needed to vent somewhere... Had them since March, it feels awful to lose them this suddenly.
