Brooklynella?

[atul176]

I got my clown about 3 days ago, and he’s currently in 2.0 ppm copper power and have also dosed general cure. He was still refusing to eat so I checked for flukes with a freshwater dip, and it looks like there is mucus on his fins. I’m not sure if this is brook so can the experts help out #reefsquad? It is mostly on the bottom portion of his body. He had no symptoms of disease other than flared fills and lack of a food drive, so this was unexpected. I attached a few pics.

 

[atul176]

I got my clown about 3 days ago, and he’s currently in 2.0 ppm copper power and have also dosed general cure. He was still refusing to eat so I checked for flukes with a freshwater dip, and it looks like there is mucus on his fins. I’m not sure if this is brook so can the expert help out? It is mostly on the bottom portion of his body. He had no symptoms of disease other than flared fills and lack of a food drive, so this was unexpected. I attached a few pics.

I have a better picture here.

 

[nereefpat]

I don't have any experience with Brook. It's supposed to look like the skin is sloughing off. Wild clowns are infamous for it.

I don't think Jay Hemdal gets the Reefsquad pings, but he will see this anyway since it's in the disease forum. I'll be curious to see what he thinks.

The lack of feeding is a little strange. Was is eating before the copper treatment? That can suppress appetite.

 

[atul176]

I don't have any experience with Brook. It's supposed to look like the skin is sloughing off. Wild clowns are infamous for it.

I don't think Jay Hemdal gets the Reefsquad pings, but he will see this anyway since it's in the disease forum. I'll be curious to see what he thinks.

The lack of feeding is a little strange. Was is eating before the copper treatment? That can suppress appetite.

it ate pretty much 1 pellet in 1 ppm copper power and refused to eat food after that. It would spit it out or take a tiny nibble. It does have white stringy feces, and since it isn't eating, i cant food soak general cure. I dosed it into the water column hoping to kill two birds (potentially brook and internal parasites) with one stone. The mucus on the fish is gone now. Any thought @Jay Hemdal ?

 

[carbasaurus]

It’s hard to tell from the pictures. Brooklynella will give a fine salty coating of the entire fish. It moves fast in terms of debilitating the fish ( had a tank wipe out years ago when I first entered the hobby, all the fish except a pair of gobies were gone in a couple of days). It also will effect the gills and cause gasping, weak swimming and eventually the fish lying on its side on bottom of tank. It’s hard to watch.

I do think I can see puffy white spots on the fins which looks like lymphocytosis. This is a self limited viral infection that will clear on its own in a few days. Hopefully that’s what it is.

The lack of feeding can be from a lot of reasons: Fish just stressed from move, wild fish not yet used to captive care food, choice of food offered, copper treatment itself.

 

[atul176]

It’s hard to tell from the pictures. Brooklynella will give a fine salty coating of the entire fish. It moves fast in terms of debilitating the fish ( had a tank wipe out years ago when I first entered the hobby, all the fish except a pair of gobies were gone in a couple of days). It also will effect the gills and cause gasping, weak swimming and eventually the fish lying on its side on bottom of tank. It’s hard to watch.

I do think I can see puffy white spots on the fins which looks like lymphocytosis. This is a self limited viral infection that will clear on its own in a few days. Hopefully that’s what it is.

The lack of feeding can be from a lot of reasons: Fish just stressed from move, wild fish not yet used to captive care food, choice of food offered, copper treatment itself.

I don’t believe it to be lympho as the spots are gone now. About 10 min after I took those pics everything is clear. I do know the he has stringy white feces, so I’m dosing general cure into the water column. I’m also using chelates copper so I thought it wouldn’t be as stressful on the fish. Either way, should I do a water change and reduce the copper down to one or wait it out?

 

[carbasaurus]

Just saw the last post. If the food was soaked in medicine and tasted bad the fish probably will ignore same type food when offered again (Chloroquine impregnated reef caviar has that problem. Some fish don’t mind the taste, others will eat it once and ignore it after that). Try a test of some plain frozen brine shrimp or mysis shrimp just to see if he eats. That will give you some reassurance

 

[atul176]

Just saw the last post. If the food was soaked in medicine and tasted bad the fish probably will ignore same type food when offered again (Chloroquine impregnated reef caviar has that problem. Some fish don’t mind the taste, others will eat it once and ignore it after that). Try a test of some plain frozen brine shrimp or mysis shrimp just to see if he eats. That will give you some reassurance

The food isn’t soaked in gc when I feed him. He ate a single non infused pellet and basically refused all of them after. Mind you I tried two different varieties, one of them being the food it was supposedly eating at the LFS.I did order two other types of food, and they’ll be coming shortly. I don’t have any frozen foods on hand, just pellets and flakes unfortunately.

 

[carbasaurus]

It’s been ages since I have used copper treatment. See if he eats the brine or mysis and if no, I would try the water change. I QT my fish in a small mini reef tank without medication. When I see something I usually can treat successfully with the chloroquine impregnated reef caviar.

 

[carbasaurus]

How is his swimming? If he is swimming normally and not gasping you may need to just keep experimenting with the foods and hope the frozen arrives soon. He actually looks pretty good in the pictures

 

[atul176]

It’s been ages since I have used copper treatment. See if he eats the brine or mysis and if no, I would try the water change. I QT my fish in a small mini reef tank without medication. When I see something I usually can treat successfully with the chloroquine impregnated reef caviar.

I’ll do a water change tomorrow followed by a freshwater dip. I don’t have any frozen foods on hand so I’ll just try to reduce the copper level and redoes general cure.

 

[atul176]

How is his swimming? If he is swimming normally and not gasping you may need to just keep experimenting with the foods and hope the frozen arrives soon. He actually looks pretty good in the pictures

His color is rlly good and he’s swimming fine. His breathing is a little fast and his gills look slightly flared, although that may be the result of improper culling. I’ll reduce the copper and experiment with foods.

 

[carbasaurus]

Crossing my fingers for you. It’s always distressing when our fish are sick

 

[atul176]

Crossing my fingers for you. It’s always distressing when our fish are sick

Thanks man. Hopefully he makes it through.

 

[atul176]

Crossing my fingers for you. It’s always distressing when our fish are sick

Thanks man. Hopefully he makes it through

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks man. Hopefully he makes it through

Reducing the copper could be a mistake - clownfish are not overly sensitive to copper, so if you are testing/dosing correctly, that isn't the problem.
I see just a wisp of mucus in one image, Brooklynella usually creates larger sheets of cloudy mucus along the fish's back, but still, I can't rule that out.

What is the ammonia level, and what are you testing it with?


Jay

 

[atul176]

Reducing the copper could be a mistake - clownfish are not overly sensitive to copper, so if you are testing/dosing correctly, that isn't the problem.
I see just a wisp of mucus in one image, Brooklynella usually creates larger sheets of cloudy mucus along the fish's back, but still, I can't rule that out.

What is the ammonia level, and what are you testing it with?


Jay

Ammonia level is undetectable, confirmed salfitert and seachem ammonia alert. The mucus is completely gone, and now it is just stringy white feces with slightly faster breathing than average as well as flared gills.

 

[atul176]

Reducing the copper could be a mistake - clownfish are not overly sensitive to copper, so if you are testing/dosing correctly, that isn't the problem.
I see just a wisp of mucus in one image, Brooklynella usually creates larger sheets of cloudy mucus along the fish's back, but still, I can't rule that out.

What is the ammonia level, and what are you testing it with?


Jay

I just attached a video of the fish’s breathing pattern. It definetly looks unhealthy to me. Do you have an idea of what this could indicate?

 

[carbasaurus]

I can’t download the video. Difficult breathing is definitely concerning. It’s good you tested ammonia and its zero as new QT systems may not have adequate denitrification. If it is brooklynella you still have options. A formalin/ malachite green dip can knock down the immediate bioload of the pathogen but then will need to continue treating the tank ( I am assuming you don’t have another sterile QT tank.) understanding the microbiology helps as there is a lot of treatment options on the market. Velvet, ich, uronema are protozoan infections . Not all antibiotics are effective. Using human medicine as a comparison: chloroquine was developed to treat malaria (a protozoan infection) it is therefore logical to presume that its effective against brooklynella (most references say it is). Metronidazole (aka flagyl) is an antibacterial but is also effective against trichomonas infections in people (a protozoan infection) so it might be effective against velvet. I personally like chloroquine. You can dose the tank directly (be very precise in your measurements) or use impregnated reef caviar. The later is tough to find but the direct dosing form is likely available at a good local fish store

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I just attached a video of the fish’s breathing pattern. It definetly looks unhealthy to me. Do you have an idea of what this could indicate?

Sorry - the video wouldn't play for me. Rapid breathing can be a sign of gill infections, water quality issues or low dissolved oxygen. You can add an air stone to rule out the latter. The ammonia test will rule that out, and then that leaves gill infection of some sort.

Jay