Blue throat trigger

[Flame2hawk]

So - some species of flukes are pretty specific to the type of fish they infect. Triggers are quite a bit different in their scale/skin structure than most other aquarium fish. I would not be at all surprised to have a trigger develop a disease that other fish won't catch. My concern here is the worsening of the symptoms. Without an "end game" I'm just worried that things will progress further, to the detriment of the trigger. I do not see any reason that if possible, you couldn't isolate the trigger for treatment alone. I wish I could give the fish a skin scrape and look at it under a scope that would probably tell us pretty quickly what is going on here!

JaY

Thx. X hatch Still looks and behaving fine. Wish I could catch him but there’s is no way without dismantling tank as every time i get near he freaks out. So unlike him as he was eating out of my hand before. Will do a 20% water change and then replenish copper to maintain 2.00 for another week while dosing tank with prazi. Will do another water change in 7 days an start removing copper while adding 2nd dose of prazi. Hopefully 2 prazi doses does it but it can take 3 or 4. Will add extra aeration for sure. Thx again

 

[Flame2hawk]

So - some species of flukes are pretty specific to the type of fish they infect. Triggers are quite a bit different in their scale/skin structure than most other aquarium fish. I would not be at all surprised to have a trigger develop a disease that other fish won't catch. My concern here is the worsening of the symptoms. Without an "end game" I'm just worried that things will progress further, to the detriment of the trigger. I do not see any reason that if possible, you couldn't isolate the trigger for treatment alone. I wish I could give the fish a skin scrape and look at it under a scope that would probably tell us pretty quickly what is going on here!

Jay

Thx. Going to do water change and add prazi as well as replenish copper for one week. Then another water change with no copper replenish but 2nd dose of prazi. Hope this wrks...

 

[Flame2hawk]

Well 36 hours into prazi and blue throat is worse and not improving. Still no sign of whatever he has on other fish. Have stopped trying to get him out as it s stressing all the other fish. Along with prazi, starting 4th wk of 2.00ppm copper power. Any suggestions? Thx

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Sorry - I've run out of ideas.

Jay

 

[Flame2hawk]

Sorry - I've run out of ideas.

Jay

Well I finally was able to catch him and gave a 5m F/W bath. Looks like flukes right?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Difficult to see - but those are not Neobenedenia flukes. Neo looks like scales falling off the fish. Other flukes have softer bodies and contort up into little white balls, and that could be those.

One observational criteria will be; does the fish show even minor improvement today? If not, then it likely isn't flukes. If it does improve, even a tiny bit, then the FW dip gave some temporary relief, and you should continue with a comprehensive fluke treatment.

jay

 

[Flame2hawk]

Nothing is working and now its spreading to my emperor angel although he’s still eating. I’m pretty convinced it is not parasitic so going with bacterial as next logical step. Started dosing food pellets with NFG/metro/Kanaplex as all are eating except the BTT. He’s now in a 20g hospital tank and will start dosing the water column today since not eating. Fingers crossed.

 

[JumboShrimp]

How did this ever turn out?

 

[Flame2hawk]

Am still dealing with it and have lost lots of beautiful and sometimes irreplaceable fish. Very sad. I will write up something at the end because there are allot of misconceptions out there about what works and what doesn’t. As an example I now can tell you with a high degree of certainty that hyposalinity doers NOT work on all forms of flukes and I would never use it to treat any flukes because it is hard to determine which form it is. Prazi is probably best remedy but you need several treatments over a much longer time then recommended to eradicate completely. More to come and thx for asking!