Cleaner Wrasse - disease identification

[ddamerell]

Hi All,

The attached image is of a Cleaner Wrasse which has gone from disease free to panting on the sand in 12 hours. I believe the discolouration around the gills has also appeared in this time.

I've also lost another Wrasse in the last 24 hours. Really strangely I've lost fish from two tropical tanks in the last week with identical symptoms - probably a coincidence but this isn't the first time I've lost fish like this.

Nitrate is around 2ppm
Phosphate undectable
Ammonia below Seneye threshold

Treating in a quarantine tank with Cuprazine but I've never saved a fish this unresponsive

Any advice or suggestions?

Thanks
David

 

[Big G]

Sounds like Velvet. Sometimes they attack within the gills unseen overwhelming the fish before you can treat.
Freshwater dip removes many of the parasites from the gills giving it the O2 it's been denied. But is risky on a weakened fish.
And antibiotics for the bacterial infection that usually sets in from the many insertion points. Spectrogram works well in these fast moving situations.

 

[ddamerell]

Thanks for the quick reply. Velvet fits and I've suspected it before for a previous tank wipe out. The only fish in that particular tank that survived was a valentini puffer who's also in the current tank the wrasses were in which have died (the above cleaner died last night). The puffer isn't showing any signs of distress but then I know some people think they have some ability to fight off Velvet. The only other fish left is a Mandarin which is also breathing heavily. I'm about to move him into a hyposalinity tank with Cuprazin. The Cuprazin is pretty risky for a Mandarin I think but I don't really see another option as I can't get CP given the hype around hydroxychloroquine. The only other thing I'm going to do is hook up a UV sterlizer but I highly doubt that will help in the DT to any great extent.

 

[ddamerell]

Quick update to close this thread off. The Mandarin died the day after the cleaner wrasse but the Valentini Puffer is still alive and showing no obvious signs of disease which is exactly what happened the last time I had an outbreak The puffer has previously been copper treated and I'll likely do this again but I'm thinking of using a black Molly to try and get a positive ID on the parasite causing this before moving on. It would be great to see some antigen tests emerge that are cheap enough for hobby use in detecting exactly what we are dealing with when these diseases flare up but I'm guessing these would costs thousands.