Brooklynella??

Jay Hemdal

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Suddenly my Hippo tang is looking to be in rough shape. Nothing added to my tank in at least 4-5 months. I think more like 6. I QTd all fish. I’m very confused why this would suddenly show up.

Being in Canada means almost no access to meds...

Is this Brook? Seems like it must be. How does Brooklynella spread?

I don’t add anything to my tank because I have very large puffers which physically cannot QT anymore. This is so discouraging.
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I'm going to go in a different direction here; does the fish show any secondary symptoms, breathing fast, lack of appetite or scratching?

It may be a artifact of the photos, but these spots are diffuse and are of different shapes. Parasites like ich are more regular, with shaper edges. If it was velvet, by the time you see spots on the body, gills would be so damaged that the fish would be breathing really fast. With flukes, the fish would be scratching. With all three, other fish would be showing symptoms (or will be soon). The only other disease that this looks like is Brooklynella, and I can't rule that out at this point.

Hepatus tangs are prone to what I call "idiopathic mucus plugs". I don't know all the reasons that can cause them, but copper treatments (not in this case) and environmental stress seem to be two causes. That's what I'm seeing here. Here is an article I wrote that discusses this topic:



Jay
 

vetteguy53081

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No, I have never been able to find formalin. Basically all meds are banned.
Formalin is available in the form of:
API Quick cure
Ruby Rally Pro
 

Rickybobby

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Sorry to hear. I live in Ontario. Getting meds has been very easy. Amazon and eBay. Just takes a little while. Sorry looks like velvet
 
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Justin_Reef

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I'm going to go in a different direction here; does the fish show any secondary symptoms, breathing fast, lack of appetite or scratching?

It may be a artifact of the photos, but these spots are diffuse and are of different shapes. Parasites like ich are more regular, with shaper edges. If it was velvet, but the time you see spots on the body, gills would be so damaged that the fish would be breathing really fast. With flukes, the fish would be scratching. With all three, other fish would be showing symptoms (or will be soon). The only other disease that this looks like is Brooklynella, and I can't rule that out at this point.

Hepatus tangs are prone to what I call "idiopathic mucus plugs". I don't know all the reasons that can cause them, but copper treatments (not in this case) and environmental stress seem to be two causes. That's what I'm seeing here. Here is an article I wrote that discusses this topic:



Jay

It may be a artifact of the photos, but these spots are diffuse and are of different shapes. Parasites like ich are more regular, with shaper edges. If it was velvet, by the time you see spots on the body, gills would be so damaged that the fish would be breathing really fast. With flukes, the fish would be scratching. With all three, other fish would be showing symptoms (or will be soon). The only other disease that this looks like is Brooklynella, and I can't rule that out at this point.

Hepatus tangs are prone to what I call "idiopathic mucus plugs". I don't know all the reasons that can cause them, but copper treatments (not in this case) and environmental stress seem to be two causes. That's what I'm seeing here. Here is an article I wrote that discusses this topic:



Jay
she is not breathing heavy but I’ve seen her rub on a rock once. I’ve dealt with ich many times over the past 15 years but it never looked like this. As you said, it always had crisp, well defined edges. I can’t actually see any edges, it looks more like tiny bits of peeling skin. She eats and swims normally.
 

Jay Hemdal

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she is not breathing heavy but I’ve seen her rub on a rock once. I’ve dealt with ich many times over the past 15 years but it never looked like this. As you said, it always had crisp, well defined edges. I can’t actually see any edges, it looks more like tiny bits of peeling skin. She eats and swims normally.
That still eaves us at Brook or mucus. I'd say wait and see if other symptoms develop...but doing so has some risk to it.

Jay
 
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Justin_Reef

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That still eaves us at Brook or mucus. I'd say wait and see if other symptoms develop...but doing so has some risk to it.

Jay
Ok, thank you.

I see a lot of comments about velvet, which of course worries me a lot. Does velvet lay dormant like this for so long? Would I not have likely seen signs of velvet at some point in the past? Would my other fish be able to build up such a strong immunity to velvet?

I did treat for ich a very long time ago with hyposalinity because I was not willing to put my puffers through copper. It seemed successful but since hypo is not all that reliable, it's hard to say for sure.

This is a FOWLR tank and in the past I have done hypo right in the display with no negative side effects. I could potentially do that again if it were ich but it probably isn't a cure. And this really doesn't look like ich to me.

Does hypo help brooklynella? I seem to be finding mixed reviews.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Ok, thank you.

I see a lot of comments about velvet, which of course worries me a lot. Does velvet lay dormant like this for so long? Would I not have likely seen signs of velvet at some point in the past? Would my other fish be able to build up such a strong immunity to velvet?

I did treat for ich a very long time ago with hyposalinity because I was not willing to put my puffers through copper. It seemed successful but since hypo is not all that reliable, it's hard to say for sure.

This is a FOWLR tank and in the past I have done hypo right in the display with no negative side effects. I could potentially do that again if it were ich but it probably isn't a cure. And this really doesn't look like ich to me.

Does hypo help brooklynella? I seem to be finding mixed reviews.
If your fish had velvet, fast breathing would be the first, and sometimes only symptom.
I use formalin for brooklynella, dipping and moving the fish to a clean tank works better than dipping and returning the fish to the infected tank.
Jay
 
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Justin_Reef

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Formalin is available in the form of:
API Quick cure
Ruby Rally Pro
Hey do you mean API general cure? I can’t find anything called “quick cure”. I happen to have General Cure which I had shipped from the US.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Hey do you mean API general cure? I can’t find anything called “quick cure”. I happen to have General Cure which I had shipped from the US.
General Cure is a different drug.

There is an experimental treatment you can try. I've never done it myself for Brook, but have used it for other issues. You need 3% household hydrogen peroxide. Add 20 ml of that to 1 gallon of tank water and dip the fish for 30 minutes. Do this daily. The trouble is, it works best if you move the fish to a clean tank right after the dip.

Jay
 

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she is not breathing heavy but I’ve seen her rub on a rock once. I’ve dealt with ich many times over the past 15 years but it never looked like this. As you said, it always had crisp, well defined edges. I can’t actually see any edges, it looks more like tiny bits of peeling skin. She eats and swims normally.
It looks very similar to velvet, but different. Typically with velvet the fish will become very agitated. Especially tangs. It’s like having ants in their gills. They swim very erratic especially with the flow off. They will definitely breathe heavy in the end, but sometimes not initially. It could be ICH, but it doesn’t look like Ich to me. It’s really odd that you haven’t added anything in 6 months and the fish isn’t in distress. When you say anything does this include anything wet as well? Flashing is usually seen with both Ich and Velvet.

I’d be interested to see what happens in the following days.
 
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Justin_Reef

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It looks very similar to velvet, but different. Typically with velvet the fish will become very agitated. Especially tangs. It’s like having ants in their gills. They swim very erratic especially with the flow off. They will definitely breathe heavy in the end, but sometimes not initially. It could be ICH, but it doesn’t look like Ich to me. It’s really odd that you haven’t added anything in 6 months and the fish isn’t in distress. When you say anything does this include anything wet as well? Flashing is usually seen with both Ich and Velvet.

I’d be interested to see what happens in the following days.
Yes, it's all very strange to me too.

Last night she started to flash more, rubbing a lot of rocks and... my largest puffer. She still swims normally, eats and is not breathing heavy. Just looks quite itchy.

She had ich in QT but it looks more like what ich usually looks like, not this. I have not added anything to the tank other than new equipment (not used, not wet).

So far I have done nothing. It's a large tank and she is hard to catch but I will keep trying. I was hoping to do a freshwater bath and take a closer look at her skin as she moves so much that it's tough to get a look for more than a few seconds.

The other fish are all symptom free, for now.
 
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Justin_Reef

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Last night she was flashing and rubbing on anything she could find. Enough to have scratched herself quite a bit. Today, I have not seen her flashing anymore, she is still active, breathing is normal, eating is normal and she has less of the 'flaky looking stuff' on her body (no idea what to call it at this point).

The flakes are smaller now and it seems like maybe she scratched a lot of them off? They really only show well is you view her looking down her body, if you look at her from the side, they disappear for the most part. They are flakes hanging or peeling off of her, not bumps or bubbles. The flakes appear quite transparent but are too small to know for sure.

I have seen ich on this fish before and it was visible from all angles.

I have not seen velvet in person before but from looking at photos, this doesn't look like velvet, besides, she is not in distress as I would expect from velvet.

I have never seen Brooklynella other than in photos and this looks similar but not quite the same.

All other fish still look healthy and symptom free.
 
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Justin_Reef

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To me the spots don't look distinct enough to be ich. My vote is velvet or some other, perhaps less common, external parasite. Definitely not brook, though.
If it is velvet, then these are some tough fish. I have 6 fish in the tank, 5 of them don't show any signs of the parasite but would have been living with it for close to 6 months. The one fish showing signs is not having any issues with breathing.

Not saying that it is not velvet but seems unlikely based on what I have read about velvet. Maybe I am wrong. Has anyone heard of anything like this?

Whatever it is, it's been in the tank for at least 6 months but never shown itself until now.

I'll try and give more tank info.

3 fish have been with me for 2 years. All had ich when I got them. Treated with hypo which is unlikely to have worked but never saw signs of ich again until I added the Hippo tang which was QT'd for 2 months. She never showed any signs of parasites in QT but after a few weeks in the display, there was an ich outbreak. This was 9 months ago. I removed a lot of my LR and did hypo in the display for 12 weeks. Then I decided to add another puffer. Since the tank was already in hypo, I acclimated the new puffer and did another 6 weeks in hypo. Raised the salinity back up, added my LR which was now fallow for 18 weeks. This was roughly 6 months ago, give or take. Absolutely nothing wet has been added to this tank since then.

This happened a few days ago.

Logically, I know there is a good chance there is still ich in my tank since hypo is so hard to pull off. I can do hypo again, when I have, the fish never seem to be in distress and are always looking good but I feel like it might be a waste of time.

So far I have done nothing because I have not been able to catch the tang, she is incredibly fast.
 

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My firefish made it through velvet, so you never know what will happen, sometimes. Hopefully the tang makes it through. Do you have corals or inverts? If not, why not treat the DT?
 
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Justin_Reef

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My firefish made it through velvet, so you never know what will happen, sometimes. Hopefully the tang makes it through. Do you have corals or inverts? If not, why not treat the DT?
Unfortunately I can't get meds in Canada. Everything was banned a few years back. Not totally sure why but some ridiculous reason that I believe was to regulate fish farms and ended up banning meds for hobbyists too.

I could usually drive to the US, I am close to the border but... not anytime soon.
 
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Justin_Reef

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I was looking at the photos again and they are a bit misleading. They make it look like opaque white spots on the fish but that is not the case. This is more like small transparent flakes.
 

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