Has my black molly hit?

[Quiverfull]

hello:

Here is a video of my black Molly that is in observational QT with 4 anthias (1 male, 3 female).


All 5 fish have been in QT for 17 days. noticed the Molly 2 days ago. all the anthias seem to be doing well for the moment and are eating fine. I would appreciate your assessment and recommendations for treatment. Thanks.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Those spots seem too diffuse to be ich. Black mollies are the one fish that you can sometimes see flukes directly on (due to the contrast). I see you are doing an observational quarantine, I presume that means you haven't treated this tank for flukes (trematodes) yet?


I'm not a big fan of using mollies as "canaries in the coal mine". Here is a write-up from my upcoming disease book:

Using black mollies to screen an aquarium for Cryptocaryon

In recent years, a procedure has been promoted that uses marine-adapted freshwater mollies to screen for active Cryptocaryon infections in marine aquariums. The thought is that black mollies that are naïve to marine ectoparasites, will soon develop infections if the disease is present in the aquarium. Being black, these parasites will show up in sharp contrast, making their identification much easier. Mollies have also been suggested to be housed alongside sensitive fish (that cannot be easily medicated) to serve as a “canary in the coal mine” for active disease.

The basic process is to acquire a small group of freshwater black mollies and gradually acclimate them to seawater over a period of 5 to 7 days. They then are added to the previously fallow aquarium, or added to the quarantine tank, and then observed for at least two weeks to see if they develop ectoparasites. If they do, then a treatment needs to be instituted, or the fallow period extended.

As with many aquarium ideas, over-extrapolation can reduce the effectiveness of the original idea. The process is really only suited to screen for Cryptocaryon. Brooklynella may not even infect mollies. Uronema and Amyloodinium can survive salinities as low as 3 ppt so may already be present in “freshwater” mollies that have been raised in brackish fish ponds. Marine and freshwater fish have basically the same internal salinity. Therefore, untreatable internal diseases, such as viruses and Myxozoans could possibly be brought into an aquarium with the mollies.

There is a risk for introducing euryhaline trematodes into an aquarium along with black mollies. Fish farmers, wholesalers and retail dealers all understand that mollies benefit from being housed in brackish water, and so they usually add salt to systems housing mollies in order to reduce mortality under crowded conditions. Euryhaline trematodes take advantage of this, the trouble is that some of these can survive marine conditions and then hyposalinity is ineffective as a treatment for them.

Finally, here have been no scientific studies that indicate this method is actually effective, it is based on sound theory, but needs to be better tested. This process does seem to have benefit in screening for Cryptocaryon, but falls short for other diseases.

Jay

 

[Quiverfull]

Jay:

Thank you for the comments. I certainly there are issues with using mollies. My goal was to try to observe without treatment given the reported sensitivity of anthias to medications. I appreciate that their use is controversial.

Tonight noticed one of my anthias has marks in mid body on both sides. Any suggestions for treatment would be appreciated?
Here is the image:

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Ugh, when I see marks like that on an anthias, my mind immediately jumps to Uronema. I hope that isn’t it, as there is no effective treatment for that, as it starts as an internal disease. Check the article section for my article on red band disease.
Jay

 

[Quiverfull]

Jay:

thank you for the update. I read the article... My salinity is 1.023 in the QT, do you think it will be of any use to increase it to 1.025? What other treatments do you recommend? I suspect it is too late for the other 3 anthias in the tank even though they appear to be fine... I have not started any medications at this point. I have Cupramine and Prazipro on hand and ordered some General Cure which I will have in a day or 2. Should I start any of these medications? It does not look like a H2O2 bath would be or any help (I also have this readily available). Thanks for your wisdom and insights.

Best,

Greg

P.S. You helped me with a copper band butterfly a few months ago and it did very well and transitioned into my DT and doing great!

 

[Quiverfull]

So I tried a H2O2 bath for 30 min last night according to a recipe on https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/h2o2-bath-experimentation.4801/

The diseased fish seemed to do fine and was placed back into the main QT after dosing Metroplex (all I had on hand at the time). This evening when I came home from work, the wish was dead. The others look relatively healthy. The question I have is what to do with the remaining fish? Do I dose Metroplex and Kanaplex in the main QT? do I do a prophylactic H2O2 bath on the rest? Looking for suggestions to save the other 3 anthias. thanks for your help.