Fish reinfected during copper treatment

[ziczac]

Hello,

This is my first post on here and of course it's regarding ich :/. I've been following all of the great advices and set up a hospital tank for all of my fish who went through an ich + velvet outbreak. The hospital tank is a 55 gallon and I'm currently on day 12 of Cupramine treatment. The copper concentration is kept constant at 0.5g/ml, ammonia 0, temp 82, and salinity 35. At first all of the fish were cleared of any white dots after 3 days of the treatment. However on day 9, some of them get reinfected again. But in this case, I'm not sure if it's ich or velvet or something else. The dots do not look like the ich dots in the beginning. I attached a couple of pictures here. On the sailfin tang there isn't really any dots, just some small pumps. Please help me identify what the fish is having and the best course of treatment for them. I just started using focus and metroplex on their food today. I plan on doing a 30 days treatment of Cupramine as recommended here.

Thanks a lot for all the help!

 

[Maritimer]

This looks similar to something we've seen a bit of 'round here, and often in fish that have been in copper for a while - it looks almost like white-head pimples that you find on human teenagers. (And on humans who once _were_ teenagers...) It's just "not-quite-right" for ich or velvet. Rather looks like it's pushing up through the skin. I have something similar going on with a couple of dwarf angelfish in my display - they'd just come out of a coppered QT, and developed this a few days to a week and a half later. A couple of weeks in, and it seems to be fading away - never transferred to my other fish.

@melypr1985, @ngoodermuth, @aykwm, @Humblefish - any thoughts?

~Bruce

 

[4FordFamily]

Looks to me like what Bruce described above. Observe them and if the spots dont disappear and reappear in different areas in 3-5 days, that’s probably what it is.

I think @melypr1985 switched to CP when it happened to her. If that’s not an option I believe a few others just stuck it out if it did not significantly worsen.

 

[ngoodermuth]

I think it could be a mild bacterial infection from where the ich attached to the fish (bite wounds). Sometimes white bumps can be a skin reaction to the copper itself, but since it's affecting several different fish I think it's more likely a pathogen. If you have access to acriflavine, you can try a bath as an antiseptic and then make sure you are feeding well, often, and maybe even add vitamins to the food to help boost the immune systems.

Copper is an immunosuppressive, so bacteria that would normally be a non-issue can take root during treatment.

If the symptoms persist after 14 days of copper you might consider transferring the fish to another, sterile QT and administering antibiotics.

The Bacterial Infection Predicament

https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/The-Bacterial-Infection-Predicament.310311/

 

[ziczac]

Hello,

Thank you for all the replies. I really appreciate them. I'm so glad that it's not ich or velvet again.

The fish actually looks a lot better today. There are no more "dots" on the nemos. The pumps on the sailfin tang are gone too . The only fish that is still with dots is the purple tang but he looks better also. I did a 50% water change yesterday and fed with metroplex and focus. I don't know which one helps with the infection or the fish just fought it off. For now I plan to just keep feeding metroplex, focus and selcon and observing the fish. Hopefully they will pull through. I hope to finish the 30 days of copper treatment.

However, in case the infection gets worse... I have a couple of questions (after reading the recommended link):
1. I have a bottle of herbtana, will it help contain the infection during the copper treatment?
2. Will cipro work to treat this kind of infection? That's what I have on hand right now.

Thanks again!

 

[ziczac]

I just wanna give a quick update in case anyone has the same situation.

It's day 27 of cupramine treatment and everyone is looking as healthy as they could be, eating like pigs and swimming happily!! No more pumps or dots. 3 more days then onto the observation period .