Injured or Sick Engineer Goby

I bought 2 engineer gobies about 2 weeks ago. Just came back from being away for a day and noticed one of the gobies appears injured or sick. I'm attaching some pictures(sorry about the focus, best I could do on a moment notice, I'll try for more later), but it has some cut fins, damaged scales, and one of the eyes looks slightly blue/cloudy(why I thought it could be sickness). I looked around for rock falls, and one small one on the sand may have shifted slightly, it doesn't look much out of place. Most of my rock is on an eggcrate on the bottom but I took a few pieces down to put on the sides above the sand and figured they wouldn't be a threat to them but maybe I'm wrong? Also, I attempted to feed it mysis but it wouldn't take any when out of the rocks. I didn't try when it went back in the rocks yet.

No other fish in the tank have shown aggression toward them.

Anyone have an engineer goby experience a rock fall and come out with some bruises?

If it's an injury any suggestions on what I can do to help?

For now I'm just going to monitor it as best as I can. I'm not sure if setting up the hospital is necessary, especially considering how difficult it's going to be to catch it and that will only add to its stress so hopefully I'll see some improvements. Any help would be appreciated.

I'll take some tests shortly to post.

 

It's really hard to tell from the picture. I'm wondering if maybe the goby got caught in the egg crate? My engineers dug tunnels all the way under the rock to the glass. I've had many rock tumbles and many times I've dropped rocks even when the goby was huge and it always seemed to miss getting hit. If it got caught in the egg crate would that match the injury you see - like trying to wriggle out and getting scraped?

 

Just took some tests:

Salinity: 1.023
Ammonia: didn't check but no other fish is showing problems
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 10ppm, the engineers are digging up my sand bed and that's not letting it drop.
pH Range over the last day: 8.27 - 8.43(currently)

 

He has dug all the way to the egg crate. That is a possibility. I'll get a better picture hopefully soon.

 

that makes me think that's what happened. He got tangled up. Try to look up what might help with fish injury. I don't know off the top of my head what to do other than to not stress it and to offer food, but think about if you got all banged up, you'd want to just rest and take time to heal. Maybe there is something you could add to help prevent any secondary infections. I'll let others chime in.

 

I got a better picture. Doesn't look good :-[

 

Just saw the other one go for him. I put them in the tank together... not sure if its because he's injured or thats the cause.. uhg im getting the hospital out

 

Was able to catch him and put em in the sump for now. I don't understand, I added them together and they've been buddies for almost 2 weeks, now this out of the blue?

 

it's probably the one instinctually going after the injured fish sensing weakness - it's a fish eat fish world out there.

What I'm seeing in the pic could be a slime coating that the fish is expelling to heal the injuries. I wish others would chime in here because I'm just going by what I think may be going on and could be totally off.

 

What size tank??
IME it helps to have a coarse substrate as the burrows they make in sand are not stable .Eggcrate is not ideal for them either.It could be a lack of adequate space/burrows. Engineer gobies do not usually venture out of the burrow.