Brook or flukes?

[NickC]

so I have three fish in quarantine, two ocellaris and a tail spot blenny. One of the clowns is showing signs of something, and I’m not sure if it’s early signs of brooklynella or he has flukes. I’ve tried taking pictures but he’s small, and doesn’t pose for the camera very well.

The fish has some white clouding forming on one eye, and definite white on his bottom lip. Symptoms appeared a couple of days ago and are slowly getting worse, yesterday was the first day I was positive he had something.

My question is wether I should treat the qt for flukes with prazi, or dose metro for brook. I’m pretty new to treating fish and would hate to dose the wrong med.

I would rather not do a bath as the other two fish have been exposed (and I’m assuming should be treated prophylactically), and the qt is well cycled so bathing and sterilizing the qt would probably cause ammonia headaches that I’d rather avoid. I’ll be doing a fw dip on the affected fish today to buy a little time.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance

 

[HotRocks]

Can you upload pics? It may be helpful.

 

[NickC]

I can try, but like I said the pictures I’ve taken didn’t really turn out very good. Qt lights come on at 10:00 am.

 

[drstardust]

Pics would be helpful for diagnosis. However, if you strongly feel that you've narrowed it down to either brook or flukes, you could treat with both metro and praziquantel. API General Cure conveniently contains both of those medications. A formalin bath would also be a treatment for both conditions, but this is more hardcore and requires that extra care be taken.

 

[NickC]

I guess I should add that the fish is a little under weight, and is slightly sucked in behind his belly (near anal fin)

 

[Reefahholic]

Could be Neobenedenia. Is there anything around the eyes? Look closely...

 

[NickC]

Pics would be helpful for diagnosis. However, if you strongly feel that you've narrowed it down to either brook or flukes, you could treat with both metro and praziquantel. API General Cure conveniently contains both of those medications. A formalin bath would also be a treatment for both conditions, but this is more hardcore and requires that extra care be taken.

I don’t feel strongly about anything haha! Like I said, I’m pretty new to treating fish. Have a decent amount of experience with reefs, but had really good luck with healthy fish over the years. After a hiatus I’ve recently set up a new system.

I’ll try my best to get some pics when the lights come on here in a bit. I didn’t realize prazi and metro were safe to use together, what’s the protocol if you don’t mind?

 

[NickC]

Could be Neobenedenia. Is there anything around the eyes? Look closely...

One eye has begun to get either cloudy, or has a white film on the surface. It may be slightly protruded as well. White bottom lip too, maybe some faint white on other areas of head/fin edges.

 

[miyags]

Brook will look like white translucent skin fluffing off your clown

 

[Reefahholic]

One eye has begun to get either cloudy, or has a white film on the surface. It may be slightly protruded as well. White bottom lip too, maybe some faint white on other areas of head/fin edges.

Hmm...

 

[drstardust]

Hmm yeah, please try your best to get a good picture. As hard as that can be, it's even harder to diagnose correctly from just a description

 

[NickC]

Brook will look like white translucent skin fluffing off your clown

Symptoms have just begun to appear, if it’s brook it’s the beginning stages. Trying to come up with a treatment plan before it gets really bad.

 

[NickC]

Hmm...

What’s the hmmm for?!

Hmm yeah, please try your best to get a good picture. As hard as that can be, it's even harder to diagnose correctly from just a description

I realize this. Gonna try my fat fest once the lights come on in 45 mins.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

[Reefahholic]

This is brook:

 

[NickC]

This is brook:

Thanks. I’ve seen bad (obvious) cases of brook in clowns a few times, this fish is just starting to show whatever he’s got. Does brook normally leave the eyes alone? I know flukes can get the eyes, same with bacterial infections. That being said I guess I should consider bacteria too...

 

[NickC]

It’s the misbar in the foreground. The camera doesn’t show it very well. You can see the white bottom lip, and how the fish is slightly sunken in between the pelvic and ventral fins. That is the affected eye, but it doesn’t show in the picture at all. That eye is slightly protruded as well.

Right now I’m thinking freshwater dip, then either dose the whole qt tank with metro or api general cure.

 

[NickC]

I’ll try and get some better pics as well.

 

[drstardust]

From the pics I can't see anything super obviously wrong. The white lip could be a lymphocyst or the beginnings of a bacterial infection. Or nothing lol. It would be an odd spot for brook to start. The slightly sunken belly is interesting and may or may not be of any significance. Is he still eating/pooping normally. Any white stringy poop appear? I always treat prophylactically with food laced with General Cure (with Focus) for internal parasites, and would recommend this regardless if you haven't done it.
Speaking of, what have you treated with so far in this QT process? How long have they been in there? How did they look when you got them?

 

[Stuartmercer]

do freshwater tips, usually kills parasites

 

[NickC]

From the pics I can't see anything super obviously wrong. The white lip could be a lymphocyst or the beginnings of a bacterial infection. Or nothing lol. It would be an odd spot for brook to start. The slightly sunken belly is interesting and may or may not be of any significance. Is he still eating/pooping normally. Any white stringy poop appear? I always treat prophylactically with food laced with General Cure (with Focus) for internal parasites, and would recommend this regardless if you haven't done it.
Speaking of, what have you treated with so far in this QT process? How long have they been in there? How did they look when you got them?

I agree it’s not super obvious, but it’s much more noticeable in person esp. the eye. If I dose the tank with general cure do I still need to feed with it?

Fish were added separately, the misbar went in first five days ago. The other clown and tailspot yesterday. Those two are healthy as can be, the misbar was a little skinny when he went in but otherwise showed nothing. He eats frozen brine, pecks at mysis but that’s it. He never ate voraciously. Only saw him poop once and it was normal. He came from my lfs who keeps their fish in copper and antibiotics, but he was only there for maybe 5 days.

Qt tank is 20g with a biowheel hob, cycled for 5 weeks with 15lbs of live rock. Rock removed before fish went in.

Thanks again for the quick responses, I really appreciate it.