Blue hippo tang flashing, no visible signs of ich.

[jake royston]

Greetings all,

I have a 3” blue hippo tang that’s constantly flashing on the rock work. Had him about 3 weeks now. No visible signs of ich or other parasites from what I can tell. Eating everything that it’s fed and it’s poop appears normal (fast breaks apart, goes everywhere) after feeding.

any ideas on what could be causing this? Curious to try a FW dip, but trying to catch him may be difficult with all the hiding spots and lots of room for him to swim around.

no ammonia reading in the tank, 10-15% water changes weekly.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

With the scratching on the gill covers and fairly rapid breathing, I think that gill flukes are a pretty likely diagnosis. These are often egg layers, so are a bit difficult to treat. Some people have had good success using Prazipro in a display tank setting, but it may harm clams and kill feather dusters.

You would need to treat three times,. ,a week apart each time, with a 25% water change before the second and third treatments. You also need to increase aeration when dosing it.

Jay

 

[jake royston]

That’s what I suspected, don’t have much in the tank at the moment, just ordered some prazipro, hopefully that works.
Thank you!

 

[jake royston]

With the scratching on the gill covers and fairly rapid breathing, I think that gill flukes are a pretty likely diagnosis. These are often egg layers, so are a bit difficult to treat. Some people have had good success using Prazipro in a display tank setting, but it may harm clams and kill feather dusters.

You would need to treat three times,. ,a week apart each time, with a 25% water change before the second and third treatments. You also need to increase aeration when dosing it.

Jay

So I gave the FW dip a try. Didn’t see anything super obvious, saw a few small (very small) white specs left behind, as well as some brownish green specs, hard to say as he/she took a large poop in the container as I put him in there. I’ll attach a few pictures, not sure how helpful they will be. I’ll update tomorrow as to how he’s doing. Right now he’s hiding in the rocks but seems to be okay.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

You won’t be able to see gill flukes in a FW dip without a microscope, and even then it is tough because they contort into little balls of mucus. On larger fish, a gill biopsy works, but not n this case.
Jay