Help! Semilavartus- need help with disease ID and tx

cj02

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I have 2 beautiful Golden Semilavartus Butterflyfish. They are new residents in a 300g FOWLR tank. They were quarantined for 3 weeks. The addition of them has been very peaceful. They swim and eat as a community with no issues. In fact they eat like crazy! My cleaner wrasse has welcomed them to its cleaning station without issue. A few days back I noticed a couple of white lesions on the pectoral fins of one of them. Now, as of today the fish has a white plaque-ish film on its body. Doesn't look like ich to me. The fish is acting normal, not like velvet where the fish will sit in front of the powerhead, etc.

Can someone reliably ID this and tell me how to treat? or do I need to treat? Is it fungal? Maybe a methylene blue dip? Please help. Much appreciated.

IMG_1035.jpg IMG_1038.jpg IMG_1039.jpg IMG_1040.jpg
 
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Jay Hemdal

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What did the quarantine process consist of?

If they are not breathing fast, it isn't velvet. Old ich infections can look like this, but when they first start up, you would see distinct spots, so I think you can rule that out.

I'd be leaning towards flukes at this point. I would skip the methylene blue dip, those are useless. However, that implies you might be able to catch these fish? If so, what about trying a 5 minute FW dip to see if flukes drop off?

Jay
 
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cj02

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Qt was 2 weeks in copper one week no coppe plus carbon and skimmer.
I think I can catch them.
thanks.
any other recs?
 

MnFish1

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Agree with @Jay Hemdal How about the rest of the fish in the tank (Assuming they are not the only 2)
 

vetteguy53081

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I too think flukes as nodules are quite large to be ich or velvet However Im surprised none on the eyes as much as its covering body, and looks like Brook also but typical for this fish which is generally susceptible to bacterial and lympho issues
 

Jay Hemdal

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Qt was 2 weeks in copper one week no coppe plus carbon and skimmer.
I think I can catch them.
thanks.
any other recs?
Copper won’t deal with flukes. You could try the FW dip, or treat the whole tank with praziquantel. If you dip and find flukes, you’d need to treat with prazi as a follow up.
Jay
 
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cj02

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Agree with @Jay Hemdal How about the rest of the fish in the tank (Assuming they are not the only 2)
The rest of the fish are perfect. Nothing at all.

Emperator- transitioning
Lemonpeel
Queen angel- juvenile
Flame angel
Regal angel
Gem tang
Dejardini
Purple tang
Flame hawk
Longnose hawk
Royal gramma x2
A few pajama cardinals
6 line wrasse
Blue cleaner wrasse

is it possible the quarantine was ineffective?
Thanks for taking an interest here.
 
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cj02

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Copper won’t deal with flukes. You could try the FW dip, or treat the whole tank with praziquantel. If you dip and find flukes, you’d need to treat with prazi as a follow up.
Jay
Ok. Easy catch. Fish literally went right into the trap while I was putting in the tank.

Dipped in RODI freshwater for 5 minutes. Temperature the same as display.

Did not see major flukes jumping into water. Maybe one or two could be flukes or residue from bucket, even though I cleaned it thoroughly. I don't know.

Images of catch and post dip.

Should the white patches go away immediately post dip?

Next steps please? Thank you. I feel very confident knowing the expertise involved in this case.

IMG_1048.jpg IMG_1057.jpg IMG_1058.jpg IMG_1061.jpg
 

Jay Hemdal

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Ok. Easy catch. Fish literally went right into the trap while I was putting in the tank.

Dipped in RODI freshwater for 5 minutes. Temperature the same as display.

Did not see major flukes jumping into water. Maybe one or two could be flukes or residue from bucket, even though I cleaned it thoroughly. I don't know.

Images of catch and post dip.

Should the white patches go away immediately post dip?

Next steps please? Thank you. I feel very confident knowing the expertise involved in this case.

IMG_1048.jpg IMG_1057.jpg IMG_1058.jpg IMG_1061.jpg

If it was Neobenedenia, you would have seen dozens of oval things in the bucket that looked like fish scales - pretty hard to miss, so I think we can rule that out. One thing though - did they posture for the cleaner wrasse a LOT? If so, they may have Neo, but the wrasse may have picked most of them off, leaving white areas of skin damage.

At this point, the differential diagnosis would be a bacterial skin disease. Treating that by a dip likely won't work. It may go away on its own, but if the spots have grown in size and number, that is probably not the direction this is going.

No easy solution for this I'm afraid.

Jay
 
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cj02

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The rest of the fish are perfect. Nothing at all.

Emperator- transitioning
Lemonpeel
Queen angel- juvenile
Flame angel
Regal angel
Gem tang
Dejardini
Purple tang
Flame hawk
Longnose hawk
Royal gramma x2
A few pajama cardinals
6 line wrasse
Blue cleaner wrasse

is it possible the quarantine was ineffective?
Thanks for taking an int
If it was Neobenedenia, you would have seen dozens of oval things in the bucket that looked like fish scales - pretty hard to miss, so I think we can rule that out. One thing though - did they posture for the cleaner wrasse a LOT? If so, they may have Neo, but the wrasse may have picked most of them off, leaving white areas of skin damage.

At this point, the differential diagnosis would be a bacterial skin disease. Treating that by a dip likely won't work. It may go away on its own, but if the spots have grown in size and number, that is probably not the direction this is going.

No easy solution for this I'm afraid.

Jay
Ok. Definitely did not see dozens of oval flukes. The fish does NOT posture for the cleaner very often. Similar to other fish. In your opinion, should I just wait it out or catch him again and treat with something else? Everything tools good and healthy in there. Never easy with fish disease for sure.

Chris
 

Jay Hemdal

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Ok. Definitely did not see dozens of oval flukes. The fish does NOT posture for the cleaner very often. Similar to other fish. In your opinion, should I just wait it out or catch him again and treat with something else? Everything tools good and healthy in there. Never easy with fish disease for sure.

Chris

Here is what I would do: set up a medication tank with some operating bio media. Pick up some gram negative, broad spectrum antibiotic to have on hand. Then, watch the lesions. If they get worse, move the butterflies over and start treating them. If it resolves on its own, then you don't have to treat them.

Jay
 
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cj02

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Following up on previous post for completeness sake.

So, unfortunately about 2 days after posting about the semilavartus disease, I had an ich breakout in the display. That being said, I removed inverts and treated the tank with Cupramine at 0.5 for 14 days. All the fish did well and no deaths to date. I hated treating the entire tank, but really had no choice, otherwise fish loss would have been an issue.
To date, the pair of Golden butterflies are doing well. The fins are pristine, and the white patchy material on one of them appears to be improving, however still not gone completely. I wish I had an ID for this, looked everywhere, and even Jay H. wasn't 100% sure, however it seems to be in remission. I am feeding high quality foods soaked in Selcon, in an effort to boost fish immunity and get rid of the white patches. Any other suggestions would be amazing. Thanks.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Following up on previous post for completeness sake.

So, unfortunately about 2 days after posting about the semilavartus disease, I had an ich breakout in the display. That being said, I removed inverts and treated the tank with Cupramine at 0.5 for 14 days. All the fish did well and no deaths to date. I hated treating the entire tank, but really had no choice, otherwise fish loss would have been an issue.
To date, the pair of Golden butterflies are doing well. The fins are pristine, and the white patchy material on one of them appears to be improving, however still not gone completely. I wish I had an ID for this, looked everywhere, and even Jay H. wasn't 100% sure, however it seems to be in remission. I am feeding high quality foods soaked in Selcon, in an effort to boost fish immunity and get rid of the white patches. Any other suggestions would be amazing. Thanks.

Could the white splotches have been blanched areas were small ich trophonts were attaching and you just couldn't see them yet? That would account for you seeing ich spots just two days later. Emperor angelfish are the poster child for getting those - they get big white blotches all over before they get actual spots. I've only worked with a few semilarvartus over the years and never had one get ich, so maybe they do the same things?

Jay
 

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