Blue hippo tang with skin issues

[livcooley123]

Hi all,

I have a small blue hippo tang that I’ve had for months and she’s developing some strange symptoms that I can’t diagnose. My display tank is a 125g reef with 2 clowns, a purple tang and sail fin tang (no aggression issues as they were added at the same time), a powder blue tang, a coral beauty, a flame hawk, a three stripe damsel, fox face rabbit fish, and the baby blue hippo. About a month ago, shortly after adding the fox face and powder blue at the same time, there was an outbreak of ich (possibly even velvet) in the DT and we moved everyone into a 90 gallon cycled quarantine tank to run the display fallow. Everyone has been doing ok in the QT (we have dosed it with Cupramine but have admittedly been bad at testing and keeping it at therapeutic levels) except for the blue hippo. She has been scratching the last few days and for the past week or so hasn’t been looking good. She has white stuff on her that looks more like flakes than ich or velvet spots. Her fins look kind of frayed also.

I’m not sure what’s going on but I noticed she was laying on her side at the bottom of the QT in the middle of the day, which is unusual behavior for her. I fed the tank right after (happened to be dinner time anyway) and she did get up and eat, although not as vigorously as I’d expect. I scooped her out and gave her a 5 minute freshwater dip and now have her in a 1 hour paragard bath in case there’s something bacterial going on.

Posting some pics and video - anyone have a clue what this could be? I’ve seen some people in other threads mention copper poisoning, could that be the issue?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

For copper poisoning to be a real concern, you would have to be running Cupramine above 0.60 ppm, and by the sounds of it, you have been dropping below therapeutic levels (0.50 ppm).

What is the background of the video - the fish is breathing very fast and barely moving, was that during the FW dip?

If you see improvement tomorrow, after the FW dip, I would suspect it is flukes. However, the fish looks in a really bad way in the video, if it doesn't improve, it may not survive the night.

I'm not a big fan of Paraguard for marine fish - it is basically an aldehyde and malachite green - better suited for treating freshwater fish for protozoan parasites. It has little benefit against bacteria.

Jay

 

[livcooley123]

For copper poisoning to be a real concern, you would have to be running Cupramine above 0.60 ppm, and by the sounds of it, you have been dropping below therapeutic levels (0.50 ppm).

What is the background of the video - the fish is breathing very fast and barely moving, was that during the FW dip?

If you see improvement tomorrow, after the FW dip, I would suspect it is flukes. However, the fish looks in a really bad way in the video, if it doesn't improve, it may not survive the night.

I'm not a big fan of Paraguard for marine fish - it is basically an aldehyde and malachite green - better suited for treating freshwater fish for protozoan parasites. It has little benefit against bacteria.

Jay

Thanks Jay, yes that was during the FW dip when the fish was still pretty stressed from being caught. She’s actually doing much better now and we’re treating with General Cure in a smaller tank for now as after further research we’re starting to suspect flukes as well.
If it is flukes, should all the other fish in QT be treated? Or only treat if they’re showing symptoms too? This would be my first encounter with flukes.
Thanks again!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks Jay, yes that was during the FW dip when the fish was still pretty stressed from being caught. She’s actually doing much better now and we’re treating with General Cure in a smaller tank for now as after further research we’re starting to suspect flukes as well.
If it is flukes, should all the other fish in QT be treated? Or only treat if they’re showing symptoms too? This would be my first encounter with flukes.
Thanks again!

Yes, if it is flukes, there is a good chance that your other fish are infected. Some fluke species are more specific as to what fish species they attack, but it is a good bet that they are attacking something. You might want to look into Prazipro - it is mostly reef safe (as long as you add good aeration).

Jay

 

[livcooley123]

Yes, if it is flukes, there is a good chance that your other fish are infected. Some fluke species are more specific as to what fish species they attack, but it is a good bet that they are attacking something. You might want to look into Prazipro - it is mostly reef safe (as long as you add good aeration).

Jay

Thanks, I’ll look into Prazipro! We have her in our nano for observation for now and she’s behaving much more normally and not showing as many signs of stress. I got a few good pictures of how she looks under the brighter lighting in the nano - does this look like a really advanced form of HLLE? I can’t figure out what’s going on with her face? Is it an infection?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks, I’ll look into Prazipro! We have her in our nano for observation for now and she’s behaving much more normally and not showing as many signs of stress. I got a few good pictures of how she looks under the brighter lighting in the nano - does this look like a really advanced form of HLLE? I can’t figure out what’s going on with her face? Is it an infection?

Yes, that is HLLE. That isn’t life threatening, just disfiguring. You need to handle the acute disease issues first. Avoid using dusty carbon in the tank, but once it starts, it is very difficult to turn things around.
Jay