Help! Clown covered in something

[jlitz]

Woke up to both my clowns struggling and covered in white mucus or something. Totally fine yesterday. What is this? Reefs been setup for 4 months. 0 ammonia. <10 nitrates. Working on other tests. Only new acquisition was a quarantined whitetail bristle tooth tang 3 days ago, and he looks like he might have something on him as well.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Woke up to both my clowns struggling and covered in white mucus or something. Totally fine yesterday. What is this? Reefs been setup for 4 months. 0 ammonia. <10 nitrates. Working on other tests. Only new acquisition was a quarantined whitetail bristle tooth tang 3 days ago, and he looks like he might have something on him as well.

Going to need pics under white lighting as Nothing can be seen- This is what we are seeing:

May be start of brook, but no assessment until fish can be seen more clearly

 

[jlitz]

This is actually under white lighting. My iPhone is not cooperating

 

[jlitz]

It looks like brooks

 

[Jay Hemdal]

It looks like brooks

It looks like severe Brooklynella. That is REALLY difficult to treat at this stage. One of the best drugs is formalin, but you cannot easily get that, and it has to be handled carefully due to human toxicity issues. You would give the fish a one hour 150 ppm formalin bath daily, and use 25 ppm formalin in the tank each day.

You might be able to buy some time with a 5 minute freshwater dip, but putting the fish back into the tank will just reinfect them. People in the US use Ruby Reef Rally Pro, but it really works best on light infections.

Jay

 

[jlitz]

It looks like severe Brooklynella. That is REALLY difficult to treat at this stage. One of the best drugs is formalin, but you cannot easily get that, and it has to be handled carefully due to human toxicity issues. You would give the fish a one hour 150 ppm formalin bath daily, and use 25 ppm formalin in the tank each day.

You might be able to buy some time with a 5 minute freshwater dip, but putting the fish back into the tank will just reinfect them. People in the US use Ruby Reef Rally Pro, but it really works best on light infections.

Jay

that definitely is what it is. I’ll do as you said and put them in my qt. Thank you so much! I’m honestly shocked. People were just commenting last night on how pretty those exact fish were, and I run uv on the display tank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

that definitely is what it is. I’ll do as you said and put them in my qt. Thank you so much! I’m honestly shocked. People were just commenting last night on how pretty those exact fish were, and I run uv on the display tank.

They are pretty but often wild caught will catch this opposed to tank raised, but even tank raised will contract this. While ruby Rally pro works with brook, you will want to follow Jay's recommendation on Formalin (use carefullY) as this is severe and likely developed over some time

 

[Lavey29]

that definitely is what it is. I’ll do as you said and put them in my qt. Thank you so much! I’m honestly shocked. People were just commenting last night on how pretty those exact fish were, and I run uv on the display tank.

All fish need to be treated in QT and your tank needs to fallow for 76 days.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

All fish need to be treated in QT and your tank needs to fallow for 76 days.

Agreed all fish need to be treated, but Brooklynella has direct development with no resting stage, so 45 days fallow will work, 60 days to be extra cautious, or if the diagnosis isn’t 100% certain.

Jay

 

[Lavey29]

Agreed all fish need to be treated, but Brooklynella has direct development with no resting stage, so 45 days fallow will work, 60 days to be extra cautious, or if the diagnosis isn’t 100% certain.

Jay

Is the lower amount of time if you raise temp up?

It's velvet that is longer fallow huh?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Is the lower amount of time if you raise temp up?

It's velvet that is longer fallow huh?

In the case of Brook, you don't need to raise the temperature to get the shorter fallow periods. Velvet has a life cycle similar to marine ich, but it doesn't have such a prolonged tomont stage, so fallow for that can also be 60 days.

Longer time doesn't hurt anything (as long as the fish are being held in a stable tank), but it does cause people to become disenchanted.

Most failures of fallow periods that we see here are caused by adding non-quarantined fish to the tank after the fallow period (sigh).

Jay

 

[jlitz]

I just want to thank everybody for their help with this. I lost the male clown and the whitetail bristle tooth, but I was able to dip the female clown and she looks a little better. It spread to my coral beauty and Midas blenny unfortunately, but everything is getting treated and over to the qt, so hoping for the best. Thanks again

 

[jlitz]

In the case of Brook, you don't need to raise the temperature to get the shorter fallow periods. Velvet has a life cycle similar to marine ich, but it doesn't have such a prolonged tomont stage, so fallow for that can also be 60 days.

Longer time doesn't hurt anything (as long as the fish are being held in a stable tank), but it does cause people to become disenchanted.

Most failures of fallow periods that we see here are caused by adding non-quarantined fish to the tank after the fallow period (sigh).

Jay

Jay thanks for all your advice here. I’m just curious what I can do in the future to stop this. I qtd the tang I believe brought the brook in, which obviously wasn’t enough. I found your qt guide and bought all the stuff to follow it from now on, but I noticed you said it might not take care of brook. Should I really be doing a formalin dip on every fish I get? Thanks again.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Jay thanks for all your advice here. I’m just curious what I can do in the future to stop this. I qtd the tang I believe brought the brook in, which obviously wasn’t enough. I found your qt guide and bought all the stuff to follow it from now on, but I noticed you said it might not take care of brook. Should I really be doing a formalin dip on every fish I get? Thanks again.

Brooklynella is tough. Luckily, it mostly only involves wild caught clownfish, or fish exposed to sick clowns. Our quarantine process that we use here does not screen for Brooklynella because formalin is just too difficult for people to acquire.

The best I can tell you is to avoid clownfish unless you buy tank raised ones direct from the breeder. then, if Brooklynella shows during quarantine, you can deal with it there.

Jay