Flashing and yawning. Skin scrape and gill biopsy clean.

[ss88]

One month ago, I acquired some reef aquarium inhabitants from a person exiting the hobby. Seeing as the livestock had been in the aquarium for over a year without new introductions according to the individual. I decided to forgo the standard prophylactic treatment for corals and fish, instead isolate all livestock in a dedicated 220 gallon aquarium. I really didn't want to unnecessarily stress the livestock by subjecting them to treatment if not required.

Fast forward a month, I have noticed a steady rate of regular flashing and yawning with all fish (1-2x per hour). Not increasing or decreasing, respiration rate, overall behavior and feeding normally for all fish.

Suspecting flukes, I preformed a freshwater dip to diagnoses, results where negative for Neobenedenia on 4 inhabitants. Preformed a skin scrape on 3 inhabitants, gill biopsy on a wrasse all clean under microscope. Did I simply miss the flukes when I preformed the biopsy?

Could free floating particulate in the water column or stray voltage explain the flashing and yawning?

Considering praziquantel is rather coral and fish safe, was considering dosing the aquarium at 2.5ppm (3 times with 7 day interval). The aquarium does have a population of bristleworms, snails and crabs, will these all be wiped out?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

One month ago, I acquired some reef aquarium inhabitants from a person exiting the hobby. Seeing as the livestock had been in the aquarium for over a year without new introductions according to the individual. I decided to forgo the standard prophylactic treatment for corals and fish, instead isolate all livestock in a dedicated 220 gallon aquarium. I really didn't want to unnecessarily stress the livestock by subjecting them to treatment if not required.

Fast forward a month, I have noticed a steady rate of regular flashing and yawning with all fish (1-2x per hour). Not increasing or decreasing, respiration rate, overall behavior and feeding normally for all fish.

Suspecting flukes, I preformed a freshwater dip to diagnoses, results where negative for Neobenedenia on 4 inhabitants. Preformed a skin scrape on 3 inhabitants, gill biopsy on a wrasse all clean under microscope. Did I simply miss the flukes when I preformed the biopsy?

Could free floating particulate in the water column or stray voltage explain the flashing and yawning?

Considering praziquantel is rather coral and fish safe, was considering dosing the aquarium at 2.5ppm (3 times with 7 day interval). The aquarium does have a population of bristleworms, snails and crabs, will these all be wiped out?

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

What species of fish are showing symptoms? What species are not?

Neo is really the only fluke I can see in dips, the others turn into tiny blobs of mucus.

Skin scrapes and especially gill biopsies, done on live fish are often so conservative (not to harm the fish) that all but heavy fluke infections are missed.

As long as you dose carefully and don’t use ethanol as a solvent, and ensure good aeration, you shouldn’t have any invert losses using prazi.

Jay

 

[ss88]

@Jay Hemdal I had also considered the same, conservative biopsy resulted in miss diagnosis.

Predominantly symptomatic specimens include.
Pomacanthus
Halichoeres
PraziPro it is. Do you see any issue running the skimmer but removing the collection cup to allow overflow to ensure maximum aeration in the aquarium?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

@Jay Hemdal I had also considered the same, conservative biopsy resulted in miss diagnosis.

Predominantly symptomatic specimens include.
Pomacanthus
Halichoeres
PraziPro it is. Do you see any issue running the skimmer but removing the collection cup to allow overflow to ensure maximum aeration in the aquarium?

Yes, that's what I do - run the skimmer bubbling well, just don't collect skimmate during the treatment. There is going to be some extra nutrient loading - from not removing skimmate, plus bacterial decomposition of the solvent ion the prazipro. You will want to do some water changes afterwards, or even between treatments to manage that.

jay