Black Tang Disease

[LokeLucky]

Hello,

I got black tang shipped to me yesterday (6Jan2023) it has shown up like this in pics.
seller says it was due to shipping stress and was looking fine when they packed it.
Can you please suggest what would be best way to treat him and what is the disease he has.
I do have multiple other tangs and fish in my 200 gallon display so this is not my first fish.
please help !

 

[ckuhny3]

dang that looks crazy beat up. Is there any guarantee from the shipper?

 

[LokeLucky]

dang that looks crazy beat up. Is there any guarantee from the shipper?

Yes. They are offering.
but I want to try and save him what ever it takes

 

[ckuhny3]

Good for you. That poor fish looks like it went through hell

 

[LokeLucky]

Good for you. That poor fish looks like it went through hell

They said it was healthy when packed and its bag was fine and no water leakage or anything but I could see it was not healthy right when I opened the bag.
took lot of videos of me opening and stuff to show as proof if needed!
Hopefully I can treat it

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello,

I got black tang shipped to me yesterday (6Jan2023) it has shown up like this in pics.
seller says it was due to shipping stress and was looking fine when they packed it.
Can you please suggest what would be best way to treat him and what is the disease he has.
I do have multiple other tangs and fish in my 200 gallon display so this is not my first fish.
please help !

Stress is a small percentage of issue but likely either bacterial or shipping related.
How did you acclimate and for how long ?
This appears to be a display tank and quarantine would have been huge advantage as treatment will need to be conducted in a quarantine setting especially with its eyes clouded over. Seachem Kanaplex is best bet.
Often, the problem is fish in shipped bags produce carbon dioxide and ammonia. The carbon dioxide lowers the pH of the water in the bag, That in turn makes the ammonia non-toxic to the fish. When you acclimate them, if not done just right, you drive off the carbon dioxide faster than you are diluting the ammonia. That raises the pH of the water in the bag, and that in turn, makes the residual ammonia very toxic to the fish. Sometimes, the fish will die right in the bag.
I hunch this may be a result of that.
Is the fish breathing normal or rapid ?

 

[LokeLucky]

I drip acclimated it and did it for almost 1hr
I do the same with all my other fish. (I have 6 tangs other than this guy as of now in my display)
When I watched the fish in its bag it had signs so I didn’t put him in display. I also have 75gallon qt tank where it is right now.
It is breathing normal as of now, it did eat in the morning but now it’s not eating.

 

[Weeb]

Keep trying to get it to eat. If it won't eat I believe it will eventually succumb to its injuries. Get it eating marine algae or nori and keep offering meaty foods, too.

 

[LokeLucky]

Keep trying to get it to eat. If it won't eat I believe it will eventually succumb to its injuries. Get it eating marine algae or nori and keep offering meaty foods, too.

Ya for sure. Will be giving him a fresh water dip which will help if any flukes on the body and will also give some relief to the fish.
hopefully it will eat after that.
planning to do prazipro after that

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Ya for sure. Will be giving him a fresh water dip which will help if any flukes on the body and will also give some relief to the fish.
hopefully it will eat after that.
planning to do prazipro after that

I would skip the FW dip. That will only add stress and this fish has been through a lot. Prazipro is a gentler way to reduce possible flukes. The only time I use a FW dip is as a diagnostic tool (with a microscope) to check to see if a fish has flukes. In reality, Prazi knocks flukes off almost as fast as a FW dip does, without the risk of capture damage.

IMO - if the shipper is correct that this fish had no issues going into the bag, that this is due to shipping trauma. If it were an infection, it would have been present before shipping, at least to some degree. Drip acclimation for shipped fish can be a huge issue if not done correctly. As @vetteguy53081 said, fish can die right in the bag as the ammonia becomes more toxic as the carbon dioxide is released.

Do you know the arrival salinity of this fish versus your tank? That can be another issue, to much of a rise cannot be compensated for through a single acclimation (say a specific gravity rise of 1.018 to 1.025)

Another issue is this - shippers just don't fully realize that as the length of a fish increases linearly, its mass (and subsequent oxygen needs and ammonia production) increases geometrically. This looks like a fairly good sized fish. They may have underestimated the bag size needed for safe shipment. For example, let's say that a 2" fish requires a shipping bag with a volume of 2 cups. A 4" fish is double the length, but may require a shipping bag volume of not 4 cups, but 6 or 8.

Here is an article I recently posted on fish acclimation: (click on the PDF icon on the right side)

Acclimation Methods

Acclimating Animals to Aquariums Jay F. Hemdal c.2020 Introduction to acclimation techniques Most beginning aquarists hear that they must “acclimate” any new animals they add to their aquarium. Acclimation (sometimes termed...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ya for sure. Will be giving him a fresh water dip which will help if any flukes on the body and will also give some relief to the fish.
hopefully it will eat after that.
planning to do prazipro after that

This fish is near blind and laying down in one pic approaching the state of being Moribund. Getting it to eat would be a high improbability. You need to focus on preventing any further skin issues and those eyes clear before permanent retina damage/

 

[LokeLucky]

I did a fresh water dip this morning and lot of worms came out. They are white and I can see them falling of the fish. Attached some pics of it.
Does Prazipro treatment help in getting rid of them? How many times should I do fw dip ? I also have Oreni tile fish in the same tank (both came shipped sameday so I got them in same tank)
Should I dip him too in fw ?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I did a fresh water dip this morning and lot of worms came out. They are white and I can see them falling of the fish. Attached some pics of it.
Does Prazipro treatment help in getting rid of them? How many times should I do fw dip ? I also have Oreni tile fish in the same tank (both came shipped sameday so I got them in same tank)
Should I dip him too in fw ?

That’s Neobenedenia - a type of fluke. That are large adult flukes, so this fish had them long before it was shipped to you. There is a risk that knocking all the flukes off, if there were a lot of them, can cause the fish to bleed out. If it makes it overnight, that isn’t going to be an issue.
Neo is tough to control - prazi won’t kill the eggs, and even multiple prazi treatments may not catch all of them after they hatch. I’ve seen cases that required 5 prazi treatments spaced six to nine days apart.
A better treatment is to hold the fish at half salinity for 35 days (1.012 or 16 ppt).
Jay

 

[LokeLucky]

That’s Neobenedenia - a type of fluke. That are large adult flukes, so this fish had them long before it was shipped to you. There is a risk that knocking all the flukes off, if there were a lot of them, can cause the fish to bleed out. If it makes it overnight, that isn’t going to be an issue.
Neo is tough to control - prazi won’t kill the eggs, and even multiple prazi treatments may not catch all of them after they hatch. I’ve seen cases that required 5 prazi treatments spaced six to nine days apart.
A better treatment is to hold the fish at half salinity for 35 days (1.012 or 16 ppt).
Jay

Hi, sure ya I will move him to different 75gallon qt and reduce salinity and keep him there for 35 days.
hypo-salinity treatment *
I got Oreni tile fish with him and he is in the same qt now. It doesn’t have any signs of disease but is not eating what would you suggest ? Please advise for him.
thank you

 

[Weeb]

That’s Neobenedenia - a type of fluke. That are large adult flukes, so this fish had them long before it was shipped to you. There is a risk that knocking all the flukes off, if there were a lot of them, can cause the fish to bleed out. If it makes it overnight, that isn’t going to be an issue.
Neo is tough to control - prazi won’t kill the eggs, and even multiple prazi treatments may not catch all of them after they hatch. I’ve seen cases that required 5 prazi treatments spaced six to nine days apart.
A better treatment is to hold the fish at half salinity for 35 days (1.012 or 16 ppt).
Jay

Do you think/know whether or not Fenbendazole will kill the eggs?

 

[Weeb]

I did a fresh water dip this morning and lot of worms came out. They are white and I can see them falling of the fish. Attached some pics of it.
Does Prazipro treatment help in getting rid of them? How many times should I do fw dip ? I also have Oreni tile fish in the same tank (both came shipped sameday so I got them in same tank)
Should I dip him too in fw ?

That's bad. Sorry for this stress -- on you and the fish. It takes quite some time for these flukes to have gotten that large.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Do you think/know whether or not Fenbendazole will kill the eggs?

I don’t think so, but I don’t know for certain. Bleach at 50ppm won’t kill the eggs, neither does FW. The eggs must hatch out in 6 to 12 days, so if you keep the hypo treatment up long enough, they die as they hatch. The study that was done says 30 days is sufficient, but I bump it to 35 just to be safe.

I stopped using fenbendazole as a bath due to random toxicity in certain groups of fish. Even changing 100% of the water doesn’t stop the issue. Most fish can be treated with it, but it wipes out certain fish groups. Flashlight fish and darters for sure, as well as tetras and some catfish. Without testing each genus/family of fish, I can’t be confident that it will be safe, so I don’t recommend it. It is apparently safer to use orally if properly dosed.

Jay

edit: there was a typo above - 500 ppm = 50 ppm

 

[LokeLucky]

That's bad. Sorry for this stress -- on you and the fish. It takes quite some time for these flukes to have gotten that large.

Sellers claims that it was healthy when packed and I am not sure how come they get this size in shipping bag when I took the bag out of the shipping box I can clearly see them on the body and also took video.

 

[LokeLucky]

I don’t think so, but I don’t know for certain. Bleach at 500ppm won’t kill the eggs, neither does FW. The eggs must hatch out in 12 days, so if you keep the hypo treatment up long enough, they die as they hatch. The study that was done says 30 days is sufficient, but I bump it to 35 just to be safe.

I stopped using fenbendazole as a bath due to random toxicity in certain groups of fish. Even changing 100% of the water doesn’t stop the issue. Most fish can be treated with it, but it wipes out certain fish groups. Flashlight fish and darters for sure, as well as tetras and done catfish. Without testing each genus/family of fish, I can’t be confident that it will be safe, so I don’t recommend it. It is apparently safer to use orally if properly dosed.

Jay

I will start process for hyposalinity.
keeping at 1.012 or should I go lower 1.009 ?
or between 1.009 -1.012

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I will start process for hyposalinity.
keeping at 1.012 or should I go lower 1.009 ?
or between 1.009 -1.012

1.012 is fine for Neobenedenia. 1.009 is needed for marine ich, Cryptocaryon, but it is riskier to do. I can't advise you on this - the tang didn't show any distinct signs of ich, but its skin was so congested it would be impossible to tell. I'd hate to have you cure the Neo but then lose the fish to ich. On the other hand, going to 1.009 can kill the fish, but if you don't get to that point exactly, it won't take care of ich.

Here is a post I made on hyposalinity:

Hyposalinity

Hyposalinity Jay Hemdal 2021 This term refers to a long-term bath treatment for marine fishes in which the salt content of the water is lowered and held below the point that certain parasites can survive. The salt level reached, and the time of the treatment are the two variables...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay