Anthias quarantine meds of choice?

Miami Reef

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Hello guys. I purchased 5 anthias today from my LFS (one anthias and many chromis had an active uronema infection - I did not purchase any fish that had uronema symptoms).

I’m wanting to medicate/treat these anthias ASAP because I don’t want them to get uronema since they were exposed.

I usually treat with metronidazole, praziquantel, and copper.

I also have 37% formeldahyde at home.

These anthias are already in their quarantine tank, so doing any bath treatment is useless because their QT is already “infected”. Any treatment needs to be in tank.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Sorry - I’ve never seen much benefit using copper or in-tank formalin (25 ppm) against Uronema. Chloroquine showed some promise in an in vitro test I ran.
Remember though, unlike ich and velvet, there mere presence of Uronema in a tank doesn’t mean the fish will get sick from it.
Jay
 

Tamberav

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Chloroquine or Metro with Chloroquine being the better choice if you have access. For metro, 500mg per 40 gallons for first dose and ramp it up over next 3 days to 500mg per 20g and treat for 14 days.
 
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Miami Reef

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This is definitely uronema, correct?

F3E0170A-DEF0-43E1-BDB4-C6345EADB734.jpeg
 
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Miami Reef

Miami Reef

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Could be a injury.
Interesting. I slightly “overdosed” metroplex JUST to make sure. I will try to food soak it too. I really don’t want these anthias to die. It’s my first time quarantining them and I really want to keep them alive.
 

Jay Hemdal

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This is definitely uronema, correct?

F3E0170A-DEF0-43E1-BDB4-C6345EADB734.jpeg

Could be, but it is a pretty small spot to have caused the fish to die, and fish that die from Uronema often die with their mouths gaped open.

Because there is so much confusion between an injury, bacterial infection and uronema from just gross visual symptoms, it really has to be positively ID'd from a skin scrape under a dissecting microscope.

Jay
 
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Miami Reef

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Could be, but it is a pretty small spot to have caused the fish to die, and fish that die from Uronema often die with their mouths gaped open.

Because there is so much confusion between an injury, bacterial infection and uronema from just gross visual symptoms, it really has to be positively ID'd from a skin scrape under a dissecting microscope.

Jay
No. The fish isn’t dead. It’s alive and eating well. I took it out of the water for the picture.
 

Jay Hemdal

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No. The fish isn’t dead. It’s alive and eating well. I took it out of the water for the picture.
Oh! I prefer not to catch up anthias unless I really need to - with that whole eye damage/popeye thing that they get so easily.

So - being alive with no other symptoms other than that spot, yes, that could be the start of Uronema. Remember, these lesions grow from the inside outward....so watch for darker discoloration around the open point of the lesion.

Jay
 
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Miami Reef

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Oh! I prefer not to catch up anthias unless I really need to - with that whole eye damage/popeye thing that they get so easily.

So - being alive with no other symptoms other than that spot, yes, that could be the start of Uronema. Remember, these lesions grow from the inside outward....so watch for darker discoloration around the open point of the lesion.

Jay
Will treating the outside with metro suffice? I don’t generally like feeding medicated foods because I don’t believe they work. If fish eat the metro foods it means the dose is too low?
 
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Miami Reef

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And Jay, I generally don’t like to catch fish out of the water, but I made the decision because uronema is very deadly. I felt it was worth it for diagnostic purposes.

The anthias went into the net without any damage to the eye.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Will treating the outside with metro suffice? I don’t generally like feeding medicated foods because I don’t believe they work. If fish eat the metro foods it means the dose is too low?
I'm not a fan of medicated food unless people first estimate the weight of the fish and then dose accordingly. That said, Metronidazole is one of a couple of medications that can be dosed orally, without factoring in the weight of the fish and the weight of the food being fed. Noga gives the dose as 5 grams of metronidazole in 1000 grams of food. This works out to be 5 parts per thousand. I used to use 10 ppt, but that is too bitter for most fish to accept. At 5 ppt, some fish will eat enough of it to work I think. You shouldn't feed this for more than 3 days in a row. I've used plain gelatin as a binder, but Focus would probably be easier/better.

The idea with just dosing the water with metro is that marine fish drink water in order to maintain a proper osmotic balance, and so, ingest medication at the same time. However, figuring how high the dose should be based on the amount of water a typical fish drinks in 24 hours is pretty much just as bad as "adding some medication to the food and feeding that to the fish". A few weeks ago, I did find some possible references, and came up with this:
A “typical” marine teleost will drink on the order of 10–20% of their body weight per day, with the ability to drink up to 35–40% if the salinity is high. For an example, a fish weighing 500 g will consume around 100 mL of saltwater in a day. The amount of medication actually ingested must be pretty low though: if metro was dosed at 25 mg/l, then a 500 g fish would swallow 2.5 mg per day. This works out to be 5 mg/kg of fish mass, many times lower than the 100mg/kg dose often given.


Jay
 
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Miami Reef

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When you say “feed for 3 days” is that every other day for 3 doses, or it is literally 3 days in a row.

I always “learned” that medicated foods with metro should be for 12-14 days but every other day.
 

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This is definitely uronema, correct?

F3E0170A-DEF0-43E1-BDB4-C6345EADB734.jpeg
Hard to tell. Normally by the time there are obvious uronema symptoms, it's too late to save then. Metroplex would be a starter if you do not have CP
 
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Miami Reef

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Hard to tell. Normally by the time there are obvious uronema symptoms, it's too late to save then. Metroplex would be a starter if you do not have CP
You mean when fish have the red gash it means that they are goners, but there *might* be a chance this fish can survive since it’s a “mild” case?

I’m not going to do any skin scraping. I will assume it’s uronema. I’m curious to know if it’s going to survive.

I believe 4 of my anthias are in the clear. Because they started the metro and food soak before any physical symptoms.
 
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Miami Reef

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33F8170E-240B-4E56-9EAE-816E091E4A93.jpeg

Are you serious? I am almost sure this other anthias didn’t have that red spot before. Maybe it did and I missed it?

This will be an interesting batch of fish…I doubt they’re all gonna live. I’m very curious though.

I’m doing high doses of metro.
 
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4FordFamily

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You mean when fish have the red gash it means that they are goners, but there *might* be a chance this fish can survive since it’s a “mild” case?

I’m not going to do any skin scraping. I will assume it’s uronema. I’m curious to know if it’s going to survive.

I believe 4 of my anthias are in the clear. Because they started the metro and food soak before any physical symptoms.
Normally, yes that's correct. IF that's uronema, hard to tell early on. By the time you're sure it's uronema, that fish is done for unfortunately
 

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