Help Infection fin and body on a clown - CentroPyge and Purple Tang

[Jay Hemdal]

Hello @Jay Hemdal

i continue the thread for the european community as I took an educated gamble with Esha Gdex in a reef tank

Last night coming from home, i found my black clown near the surface with trouble breathing.
in order to try to relieve him, I did a 5 min fresh water bath.

I didn't took picture unfortunatly, but in the fresh water i was able to see like white round capsule, the size of semoule grain falling off in the water. i couldn't see any worms or parasite with naked eyes.
look a bit like this picture i found online, but there were like only 10 and seems a bit bigger.

Once the fresh dip done, he went back to the bottom corner with the female clown fish and looked better.

after this, I prepared for the praziquantel protocol.
removed the peroxyde oxydator, cut the ozone timing. removed the carbon under the reefmat and took off the cup from my skimmer.

then I look to dose the Esha GDEX, with 66mg per ml concentration.
based on their instruction : https://www.eshalabs.eu/europe/products/esha-gdexsupregsup.pdf

for my 300L aquarium, I need 300 drops ( 100 drop = 3.2ml) or 9,8ml.
this correspond to a total concentration of pranziquel : 9,8 x 66 = 647mg or 2,15 mg/l. very close to your recommendation of 2,2mg/l I have read on the forum.

however, based on your recommendation this should be a single dose followed by a second one 8 days later while Esha recommend half dose for the following 2 next day.

So I am going to follow your protocol for prazipro and leave it for three days and then put back skimmer cup and carbon (not sure if i can restart peroxyde and ozone also)

Once i drop the 10ml, lot of microbubbles was produced by my skimmer. fish got agitated, especially my purple tang and flame angel even my file fish was. but calmed down after an hour or so after dosing as it was close to light off.

now the question, is it reef safe?

Impact on my corals and invert in my reef tank after more than 12 hours
- Acropora -> No impact, polype still extended
- Stylophora -> all polype closed right after dosing, was the most impressive reaction after the fish and got me worried. however after the night, polyps were back to normal this morning.
- Euphylia torch-> retracted slowly after dosing, but hard to know if its the medication or because the night was coming as they often close before light off.
- Anemone -> no reaction
- Snails -> no reaction
- Feather duster-> still filtering in the morning.

so far so good for this first dose and 12h we keep update as Esha doesn't take responsability on this question and we cannot get prazipro in europe.

as for my fish after 12h.

Black Clown, my weaker fish. still in the back corner, staying vertically and breathing fast. found less white but as jay suggested there is probably a secondary bacterial infection going on and need antibiotic that I am trying to get (need doctor prescription for it here).
he did went for the food at lunch and was eating, so it make me hopeful.

Purple tang's eye seems better

Flame angel still looking rough but i can see improvement. still eating and actve. I don't notice heavy breathing like the clownfish

I read on the forum that wrasse can be impacted by praziquantel.
i can report that my yellow cory wrasse is fine and don't seems to be impacted.

It scratch the sand when i dosed, but as it was close to light off, it often do that before sleeping in sand so i am not sure it's related.

to be continued, hopefull my black clown fish will get better.
possible next step, i found this medication in my cabinet with ciprofloxacine, but i don't have enough to treat my entire tank.

would a antibiotic bath works on my clown fish and possibly flame angel?
if so, what would be the protocol?

many thanks again for your time and help and i hope it will be helpful for other reefer.

cheers,
Petit Reef

The picture is of Neobenedenia, but I understand that is not your picture, so I cannot confirm if your fish have the exact same issue.

Wrasses are mostly sensitive to low dissolved oxygen that results from the treatment, otherwise they are fine with praziquantel if you aerate the tank well.

Skimmers should be run to supply aeration, but do NOT collect the skimmate/foam, allow it to return to the tank.

I would not dose the fish with ciprofloxacin in your main tank, you would need to move the clown to a hospital tank.

Jay

 

[PetitReef]

Hello All,

Update on my fish and corals after the treatment of my DT with praziquantel from eSha GDex

Overall very good news as my black clown survived and doing very well. his eyes are not swallowed and i don't see white spot anymore.
still a bit of excess mucus on the right, but he swimming, eating, breathing normally, staying with the female as it was. so i believe is on his way to recovery.

My flame Angel also is looking much better, no more bulged and white eyes, got his color back and his fins are healing. so also on a good way to remission

My purple tang is as chubby and active as before and no visible mark or spot on him anymore.

my yellow wrasse have not been impacted at all by the treatment.

as for the impact of eSha Gdex on my corals and invertebrate.
only my stylophora seems to have been impacted, polyps extension are still lower than before the treatment, but i don't see necrosis so I wait and see.

All my acropora are fine as well as my torch euphilliya

I don't know if related and i just noticed today while feeding, I didn't see any Nassarius snails when they usually get out of sand when feeding. i will keep an eye on it tonight but maybe a potential watch out for for what eSha use as binder.


something i noticed also during treatment is indeed to vast amount of bubble generated by the skimmer (cup was removed during treatment) and it look like a bacterial or dino bloom in the aquarium with a film on the glass i had to scrap each day. with ozone, skimmer, carbon and peroxyde removed during the treatment, could possibily be a mini dino outbreak. it went away after the 3 days when everything got reinstated and i did a 20% water change.

many thanks again to @Jay Hemdal for his advices, hopefully this will be the last update of this thread. if something happen to change in the folllowing days i will post in it.

Hope it will help European reefer without a QT who need to treat with Praziquantel. eSha Gdex seems to be a possible solution.

cheers,
Petit Reef