I think I'm dealing with flukes in my DT. It's my first time at dealing with any disease after almost 5 years of fish-keeping.
What I did wrong:
I added snails that I purchased at an LFS on April 6 - no QT. I also added snails from Live Aquaria (which I believe were shipped from a Quality Marine facility in California) on April 23, again no QT.
I've QT'd all fish that I have ever purchased, but have never QT'd snails, shrimp, hermits. From this point forward, anything wet must go through QT.
I noticed strange behavior among some of our fish beginning on April 25. Not sure how fast flukes could move from an 'invert carrier' to fish. Probably no way to tell which batch of snails carried flukes. The strange behavior was most obvious in a Yellow Eye Kole Tang -- the overall brown color of the fish was very washed-out indicating stress of some sort. Yellow Eye seemed to twitch sometimes, was more active then usual, still eating very well. Second fish to exhibit symptoms was Royal Gramma. Had twitching, and rubbed against rocks / sand, but still eating normally.
What I hope I did right:
Yellow Eye got a freshwater dip (both his and my first). Seemed to go pretty well. Did it in a black bucket. Found 10-15 'things' in the bucket -- looked like sesame seeds, guessing they were flukes. Royal Gramma got a freshwater dip. Seemed very stressful for the fish. Both Yellow Eye and Royal Gramma are in a 20-Gal QT now (together), with PraziPro in the water. Yellow Eye has several tiny marks. Fish is behaving pretty normally, eating only a little. Royal Gramma also has several marks (looks like scrapes) and is very inactive -- swims around the QT a bit, then parks in a PVC hideout, not eating.
Treated DT with PraziPro according to directions on the bottle (1 teaspoon per 20 gal). I've added air-stones, removed skimmer cup (yes - crazy foaming).
24 hours after PraziPro in DT, I'm noticing some black-ish spots on One Spot Foxface. Also noticing a few tiny red spots on one (of two) Lyretail Anthias. I'm planning to repeat the PraziPro dose in a few days (4 days between dosings). All fish in DT seem to have pretty normal activity levels, but they are not hungry.
Fish Inventory:
1 Bangaii Cardinal
2 Ocellaris Clowns
2 Lyretail Anthias
1 Coral Beauty Angel
1 Yellow Eye Kole Tang (now in QT)
1 One Spot Foxface
1 Solorensis Wrasse
1 Lubbock's Fairy Wrasse
1 Royal Gramma (now in QT)
1 Coral Banded Shrimp
1 Cleaner Shrimp
2 Peppermint Shrimp
Assorted snails, hermits.
Total Water volume = 108 Gallons. Temperature 77-78 degrees F.
Test Results before adding PraziPro:
Nitrates (Nyos) = 5
Phosphates (Hanna) = 0.08
Alkalinity (Hanna) = 8.5
Calcium (Red Sea) = 440
Magnesium (Red Sea) = 1,320
SpectraPure RODI System. Red Sea Salt (Blue Bucket).
Should I be doing anything else? All comments / questions appreciated . . .
Thanks for reading all of this.
---Frank
