Help pls, fish suffering from recurring problem, not sure what to do!

[Andrew D]

Hi everyone. Hoping I can once again get the attention of Jay and some of the other experts on this great forum. I've run into a disease that I don't know how to treat.

First, a few details about my tank. It is 500G with approximately 80G in sump (2 containers). Lots of live rock with about 1 inch substrate the size of kitty litter. My tank is very well stocked, with tangs, angels and butterflies of various sizes. I also have (or had) a 6 inch blue throat trigger and a small blue trigger, a couple of 4 inch parrotfish, 2 small hawkfish, 2 small lunar wrasse, 3 small clowns and a harem of medium-sized 4 bimac anthias. I feed well (frozen, flake, pellet and algae) so even though there was a bit of aggression there wasn't one obvious aggressor and no one fish being unduly targeted. I run a large protein skimmer and recently added a diatom filter to deal with cloudy water.

I've asked for help a few times over the last couple of years, all to do with disease that keeps striking my 500G fish only. I've pasted links to these threads at the bottom of this post but in short the first time I lost all but one fish (regal tang), the second time I lost all but 6 of my fish (with the regal again surviving) and the third time I lost only a couple of smaller fish (butterflies) because I reacted quickly with both copper and hypo). I don't have the means to properly diagnose but each time it looked like a combination of velvet and flukes (hence the treatment). I should clarify, velvet was a guess based on symptoms but flukes was confirmed when I caught one of the fish and gave him a fresh water dip.

And now, not 4 months after stopping treatment the last time it seems like it's happening again. I have added fish in the interim, but am pretty careful to QT in excess of 35 days with therapeutic copper (copper safe). I don't QT for flukes but before they go in to QT I freshwater dip and also freshwater dip before they go into the display. Any sign of flukes they stay in QT with hyposalinity. I know I'm probably taking a small risk here but my plan has always been to routinely "flush" the display with hypo salinity for 30+ days given that flukes don't kill as quickly as velvet or ich do. As with most people I am limited with my QT space.

This last time it started about a week ago, I noticed strange behaviour in many of my fish - heavy breathing, hiding, and most signficantly scratching themselves against rocks. Since then I've also noticed inconsistent eating (the algae that I put on a clip that used to be eaten within minutes was still there after 10), smaller fish looking like they're picking pests off the larger fish (and the latter letting them!) and also some of my tangs (yellow and scopas especially) with large blotches on their sides. The fins on some of the smaller fish (butterflies especially) seem a little more tattered. Some fish seem completely unaffected (including my naso and vlamingi which were the first to show signs of distress the last 2 times this happened) while others were struggling. Interesting to note though, I've not seen any fish (including on my powder blue) with dots indicative of either ich or velvet.

Over the course of 2-3 days I dropped salinity to 1.009 and added copper to 2.2+ Both have been at therapeutic levels for at least 5 days. I've now lost 7 of my smaller fish (all the anthias, 1 racoon butterfly and 2 clowns) with the last loss happening just yesterday. Although some fish are looking better, others are not and all seem still to be breathing very rapidly. I did a 20% water change yesterday because I was worried about the biofilter with the rapid move to hyposalinity, and also took the opportunity to siphon the substrate and remove some plastic seaweed that had become a detritus trap.

I'm not sure what to do next. Do I just need to give it more time? Should I discontinue one of the treatments and run them consecutively vs. concurrently? Could it be something else, that is treated otherwise (I looked through the stickies and couldn't find anything). I've invested a lot of time, money and emotional energy into the tank and don't think I can handle another re-boot.

Thanks in advance for your help. Andrew

Help please, thought it was flukes but now not so sure...

Hi everyone. I am having problems with one of my tanks, a large fish only that I set up about a year ago. About 6 months ago I had a large die off as a result of what I thought at the time was velvet. Classic symptoms, I couldn't catch it in time to treat even though treatment would have been...

www.reef2reef.com

Help diagnosing strange skin lesions

Edit, I dosed prazi 3 weeks ago not 6 That's really cloudy. What type of mechanical filter do you have on this tank?

www.reef2reef.com

Fish immune to velvet? What to do....

Hi everyone. I know I'm going to spark some controversy here, but hey aren't those the best threads? I need some help figuring out what to do. I set up a 500G fish only in January, and things were going great for a few months. I moved my larger tangs over from my reef and had added some...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi everyone. Hoping I can once again get the attention of Jay and some of the other experts on this great forum. I've run into a disease that I don't know how to treat.

First, a few details about my tank. It is 500G with approximately 80G in sump (2 containers). Lots of live rock with about 1 inch substrate the size of kitty litter. My tank is very well stocked, with tangs, angels and butterflies of various sizes. I also have (or had) a 6 inch blue throat trigger and a small blue trigger, a couple of 4 inch parrotfish, 2 small hawkfish, 2 small lunar wrasse, 3 small clowns and a harem of medium-sized 4 bimac anthias. I feed well (frozen, flake, pellet and algae) so even though there was a bit of aggression there wasn't one obvious aggressor and no one fish being unduly targeted. I run a large protein skimmer and recently added a diatom filter to deal with cloudy water.

I've asked for help a few times over the last couple of years, all to do with disease that keeps striking my 500G fish only. I've pasted links to these threads at the bottom of this post but in short the first time I lost all but one fish (regal tang), the second time I lost all but 6 of my fish (with the regal again surviving) and the third time I lost only a couple of smaller fish (butterflies) because I reacted quickly with both copper and hypo). I don't have the means to properly diagnose but each time it looked like a combination of velvet and flukes (hence the treatment). I should clarify, velvet was a guess based on symptoms but flukes was confirmed when I caught one of the fish and gave him a fresh water dip.

And now, not 4 months after stopping treatment the last time it seems like it's happening again. I have added fish in the interim, but am pretty careful to QT in excess of 35 days with therapeutic copper (copper safe). I don't QT for flukes but before they go in to QT I freshwater dip and also freshwater dip before they go into the display. Any sign of flukes they stay in QT with hyposalinity. I know I'm probably taking a small risk here but my plan has always been to routinely "flush" the display with hypo salinity for 30+ days given that flukes don't kill as quickly as velvet or ich do. As with most people I am limited with my QT space.

This last time it started about a week ago, I noticed strange behaviour in many of my fish - heavy breathing, hiding, and most signficantly scratching themselves against rocks. Since then I've also noticed inconsistent eating (the algae that I put on a clip that used to be eaten within minutes was still there after 10), smaller fish looking like they're picking pests off the larger fish (and the latter letting them!) and also some of my tangs (yellow and scopas especially) with large blotches on their sides. The fins on some of the smaller fish (butterflies especially) seem a little more tattered. Some fish seem completely unaffected (including my naso and vlamingi which were the first to show signs of distress the last 2 times this happened) while others were struggling. Interesting to note though, I've not seen any fish (including on my powder blue) with dots indicative of either ich or velvet.

Over the course of 2-3 days I dropped salinity to 1.009 and added copper to 2.2+ Both have been at therapeutic levels for at least 5 days. I've now lost 7 of my smaller fish (all the anthias, 1 racoon butterfly and 2 clowns) with the last loss happening just yesterday. Although some fish are looking better, others are not and all seem still to be breathing very rapidly. I did a 20% water change yesterday because I was worried about the biofilter with the rapid move to hyposalinity, and also took the opportunity to siphon the substrate and remove some plastic seaweed that had become a detritus trap.

I'm not sure what to do next. Do I just need to give it more time? Should I discontinue one of the treatments and run them consecutively vs. concurrently? Could it be something else, that is treated otherwise (I looked through the stickies and couldn't find anything). I've invested a lot of time, money and emotional energy into the tank and don't think I can handle another re-boot.

Thanks in advance for your help. Andrew

Help please, thought it was flukes but now not so sure...

Hi everyone. I am having problems with one of my tanks, a large fish only that I set up about a year ago. About 6 months ago I had a large die off as a result of what I thought at the time was velvet. Classic symptoms, I couldn't catch it in time to treat even though treatment would have been...

www.reef2reef.com

Help diagnosing strange skin lesions

Edit, I dosed prazi 3 weeks ago not 6 That's really cloudy. What type of mechanical filter do you have on this tank?

www.reef2reef.com

Fish immune to velvet? What to do....

Hi everyone. I know I'm going to spark some controversy here, but hey aren't those the best threads? I need some help figuring out what to do. I set up a 500G fish only in January, and things were going great for a few months. I moved my larger tangs over from my reef and had added some...

www.reef2reef.com

Do one or the other which may be current issue with losses. . . . If hypo, stick with hypo and no Copper or do coppersafe or copper power at 2.25 at salinity range 1.024 - 1.026
Also, have you considered adding a UV serilizer once the issue cleared?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi everyone. Hoping I can once again get the attention of Jay and some of the other experts on this great forum. I've run into a disease that I don't know how to treat.

First, a few details about my tank. It is 500G with approximately 80G in sump (2 containers). Lots of live rock with about 1 inch substrate the size of kitty litter. My tank is very well stocked, with tangs, angels and butterflies of various sizes. I also have (or had) a 6 inch blue throat trigger and a small blue trigger, a couple of 4 inch parrotfish, 2 small hawkfish, 2 small lunar wrasse, 3 small clowns and a harem of medium-sized 4 bimac anthias. I feed well (frozen, flake, pellet and algae) so even though there was a bit of aggression there wasn't one obvious aggressor and no one fish being unduly targeted. I run a large protein skimmer and recently added a diatom filter to deal with cloudy water.

I've asked for help a few times over the last couple of years, all to do with disease that keeps striking my 500G fish only. I've pasted links to these threads at the bottom of this post but in short the first time I lost all but one fish (regal tang), the second time I lost all but 6 of my fish (with the regal again surviving) and the third time I lost only a couple of smaller fish (butterflies) because I reacted quickly with both copper and hypo). I don't have the means to properly diagnose but each time it looked like a combination of velvet and flukes (hence the treatment). I should clarify, velvet was a guess based on symptoms but flukes was confirmed when I caught one of the fish and gave him a fresh water dip.

And now, not 4 months after stopping treatment the last time it seems like it's happening again. I have added fish in the interim, but am pretty careful to QT in excess of 35 days with therapeutic copper (copper safe). I don't QT for flukes but before they go in to QT I freshwater dip and also freshwater dip before they go into the display. Any sign of flukes they stay in QT with hyposalinity. I know I'm probably taking a small risk here but my plan has always been to routinely "flush" the display with hypo salinity for 30+ days given that flukes don't kill as quickly as velvet or ich do. As with most people I am limited with my QT space.

This last time it started about a week ago, I noticed strange behaviour in many of my fish - heavy breathing, hiding, and most signficantly scratching themselves against rocks. Since then I've also noticed inconsistent eating (the algae that I put on a clip that used to be eaten within minutes was still there after 10), smaller fish looking like they're picking pests off the larger fish (and the latter letting them!) and also some of my tangs (yellow and scopas especially) with large blotches on their sides. The fins on some of the smaller fish (butterflies especially) seem a little more tattered. Some fish seem completely unaffected (including my naso and vlamingi which were the first to show signs of distress the last 2 times this happened) while others were struggling. Interesting to note though, I've not seen any fish (including on my powder blue) with dots indicative of either ich or velvet.

Over the course of 2-3 days I dropped salinity to 1.009 and added copper to 2.2+ Both have been at therapeutic levels for at least 5 days. I've now lost 7 of my smaller fish (all the anthias, 1 racoon butterfly and 2 clowns) with the last loss happening just yesterday. Although some fish are looking better, others are not and all seem still to be breathing very rapidly. I did a 20% water change yesterday because I was worried about the biofilter with the rapid move to hyposalinity, and also took the opportunity to siphon the substrate and remove some plastic seaweed that had become a detritus trap.

I'm not sure what to do next. Do I just need to give it more time? Should I discontinue one of the treatments and run them consecutively vs. concurrently? Could it be something else, that is treated otherwise (I looked through the stickies and couldn't find anything). I've invested a lot of time, money and emotional energy into the tank and don't think I can handle another re-boot.

Thanks in advance for your help. Andrew

Help please, thought it was flukes but now not so sure...

Hi everyone. I am having problems with one of my tanks, a large fish only that I set up about a year ago. About 6 months ago I had a large die off as a result of what I thought at the time was velvet. Classic symptoms, I couldn't catch it in time to treat even though treatment would have been...

www.reef2reef.com

Help diagnosing strange skin lesions

Edit, I dosed prazi 3 weeks ago not 6 That's really cloudy. What type of mechanical filter do you have on this tank?

www.reef2reef.com

Fish immune to velvet? What to do....

Hi everyone. I know I'm going to spark some controversy here, but hey aren't those the best threads? I need some help figuring out what to do. I set up a 500G fish only in January, and things were going great for a few months. I moved my larger tangs over from my reef and had added some...

www.reef2reef.com

Well, there is a lot to break down here!

One thing caught my eye, you said you used a, "...diatom filter to deal with cloudy water." That tank should not have had cloudy water unless something was very wrong. then, diatom filters only alleviate the symptoms, not cure the original issue. Was the water white or green cloudy?

Can we get a video of the remaining fish?

Although coppersafe can be run in marine or freshwater (meaning it can also be run in hyposalinity) exposing marine fish to copper and hypo at the same time adds stress, especially for smaller fish (a surface area to volume thing). I generally avoid using both at the same time.

Everything here points to Neobenedenia flukes. If you have a freshly dead fish (within a couple of hours) you can give it a post mortem FW dip to confirm that.

 

[MnFish1]

Agree with the above - and just a reminder hyposalinity does not treat or cure velvet. that requires copper.

 

[Andrew D]

Thanks everyone.

Jay, the diatom filter is a double chamber DYI I installed about 5 months ago, it’s referenced in one of the threads i pasted earlier. It was to deal with white cloudy water that persisted at the tail end of my last hypo treatment. It was pretty effective so i just kept using it, cleaning the filters every couple of water changes.

I’ve included some videos of fish that are struggling more than others. The majestic hasn’t been doing well for a couple of days but this is the first day i noticed how ragged the blue cheek butterfly is, especially around the gills. I’ve also posted a video of smaller fish picking stuff off some larger ones.

I forgot to mention this earlier but i did freshwater dip one of my last casualties and didn’t see any flukes. I will try to catch another one and post later tonight. I’ve also got a large water change ready in case it is just flukes and i need to drop copper levels fast.

 

[JumboShrimp]

My heart is breaking for you.

 

[Andrew D]

Thanks JumboShrimp, it's been quite the emotional rollercoaster the last few years, Im seriously thinking of quitting were it not for all I've invested thus far.

Jay, I was able to catch one of my purple tangs who, while still eating, was also looking pretty beat-up. I freshwater dipped him and frustratingly saw no flukes. Not sure what is going on, or what else I can try.

 

[Charles2465]

I'm no expert, but I haven't lost any fish to velvet or ich because copper usually stops it from progressing pretty quickly. I usually catch it early though. I put copper pipes in and overnight it will slow down quite a bit and the relaease of copper is slow with those. I'd wager it may be something else. Did the fresh water dip alleviate the symptoms at all?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks JumboShrimp, it's been quite the emotional rollercoaster the last few years, Im seriously thinking of quitting were it not for all I've invested thus far.

Jay, I was able to catch one of my purple tangs who, while still eating, was also looking pretty beat-up. I freshwater dipped him and frustratingly saw no flukes. Not sure what is going on, or what else I can try.

Do you happen to have a microscope? Only Neobenedenia flukes are large enough to see with the naked eye. Gyrodactylus flukes really need a microscope to see, and then, they tend to look like little blobs of mucus.

If the fish survived the dip, are they stable or slightly improved the next day?

This has all the hallmarks of a end-stage fluke infection, but without doing a microscopic skin scrape, I just can't be certain.

The rapid breathing and dusty appearance could indicate velvet (Amyloodinium) but that tends to kill fish in a few days and they stop eating.

 

[W31Olds]

Andrew, since you have many valuable fish in a large tank with a problem that seems to come and go, if I were you, I would be investigating a eDNA Test to see what's going on. I would also purchase a microscope. You can pick up nice used ones cheap.

 

[Charles2465]

Thanks JumboShrimp, it's been quite the emotional rollercoaster the last few years, Im seriously thinking of quitting were it not for all I've invested thus far.

Jay, I was able to catch one of my purple tangs who, while still eating, was also looking pretty beat-up. I freshwater dipped him and frustratingly saw no flukes. Not sure what is going on, or what else I can try.

Do you happen to have a microscope? Only Neobenedenia flukes are large enough to see with the naked eye. Gyrodactylus flukes really need a microscope to see, and then, they tend to look like little blobs of mucus.

If the fish survived the dip, are they stable or slightly improved the next day?

This has all the hallmarks of a end-stage fluke infection, but without doing a microscopic skin scrape, I just can't be certain.

The rapid breathing and dusty appearance could indicate velvet (Amyloodinium) but that tends to kill fish in a few days and they stop eating.

Is there a possibility it could be brookanella?

 

[Andrew D]

I'll see if I can pick up a used microscope, will any do or does it need to be a certain strength/quality? As for the fish I caught and dipped, he was fine a few hours later but I will check again when the lights come on. I didn't of course put him back in the display so he'll be easy to watch and also test if I get a microscope.

As this evolves I really don't think it's ich or velvet. My powder blue has finally come out of hiding and while skittish he seems to be otherwise OK, no dots. And other than the little majestic who is likely on his last fins I don't see any dustiness of the other fish. I've been worried about dropping copper levels because from personal experience I know how fast velvet kills, but at this point I think I need to pick a road and focus on fluke treatment by keeping hyposalinity and lowering copper levels. It's puzzling though, because I've treated for both at the same time in the past and once started all my fish recovered quickly and well.

One thing I've been meaning to ask, is it possible that with each treatment period fish become less tolerant of copper and what may have cured previously is now killing them?

 

[W31Olds]

I picked up mine off of ebay from a place called reLinked Medical. Got a $700 scope for $50 bucks and all that's wrong with it is a slightly bent screw that has no impact on it's performance. Mine is a binocular type with 10X eyepieces and X4,10,40,100 objectives and I like the micro adjustable table. As far as copper goes as you know it is a poison, but the Fish Medics would have a better idea about tolerance buildup.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I'll see if I can pick up a used microscope, will any do or does it need to be a certain strength/quality? As for the fish I caught and dipped, he was fine a few hours later but I will check again when the lights come on. I didn't of course put him back in the display so he'll be easy to watch and also test if I get a microscope.

As this evolves I really don't think it's ich or velvet. My powder blue has finally come out of hiding and while skittish he seems to be otherwise OK, no dots. And other than the little majestic who is likely on his last fins I don't see any dustiness of the other fish. I've been worried about dropping copper levels because from personal experience I know how fast velvet kills, but at this point I think I need to pick a road and focus on fluke treatment by keeping hyposalinity and lowering copper levels. It's puzzling though, because I've treated for both at the same time in the past and once started all my fish recovered quickly and well.

One thing I've been meaning to ask, is it possible that with each treatment period fish become less tolerant of copper and what may have cured previously is now killing them?

What you want is a dissecting scope that can visualize down to the protozoan level, so about 80x magnification. Higher than that, and you won't really see much more.

I've purchased a couple of these over the years: AmScope SE306R-PZ-LED Forward-Mounted Binocular Stereo Microscope

Even something like this will work to ID flukes and most protozoans: Beileshi 60x Zoom Microscope Magnifier LED Clip-on Micro Lens

I have not seen fish become intolerant of coppersafe or copper power over time. I've maintained fish long term at 2 ppm copper (4+ months) and had no issues.

 

[Andrew D]

Just saw something on my scopas that Ive not seen before, might be relevant. Looks like little hairs or fuzziness near his tail barb. Does this signal anything? He’s doing better but is still skittish and occasionally invites smaller fish to pick at his skin although not by the tail.

 

[W31Olds]

Looks strange to me. Is it on both sides of your scopus? Maybe something Bacterial, but I would tag the fish Medics.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Just saw something on my scopas that Ive not seen before, might be relevant. Looks like little hairs or fuzziness near his tail barb. Does this signal anything? He’s doing better but is still skittish and occasionally invites smaller fish to pick at his skin although not by the tail.

That’s weird. Generally, injuries are not symmetrical side to side like this. Diseases are more likely to cause mirrored lesions from side to side. Trouble is, these lesions are more localized than protozoan or fluke diseases would be.

Is this fish still feeding well?

 

[Andrew D]

Honestly I'm not sure, he's very skittish and there's still a lot of competition when I feed. He's out more than he was a few days ago, and other than those spots his colouring is better. I will look more closely this evening when the lights are on.

Yesterday I did a large water change (well, 100G but still less than 20% given large water volume), this time without copper which brought my copper down to 1.93 this morning. I also raised the salinity a bit, I was close to 1.010 so am bring it up to 1.012 which I understand is sufficient for flukes.

No new fish losses overnight, but I did lose another small butterfly yesterday. My blue cheek is still alive but behaving the same (rapid breathing, hovering in a corner, not eating), my powder blue has finally come out and is eating again, my ebili looks like he's on his last legs (emaciated where he used to be quite fat).

 

[Andrew D]

Oh, and i picked up a microscope which looks to be strong enough. What pls do i test, skin scrapings? How do i do this without hurting the fish?

 

[Andrew D]

I guess I should collect all my thoughts before posting. I'm also going to test the water using an ICP from Fauna Marin. I knwo this is geared to reefs but I figure it will tell me if there's some other toxin in the water.