Help with disease ID

[vlad2spinn]

First I would like to say that I quarantine and treat all of my fish, but I also understand that even that may not be foolproof. I have not introduced any new fish in months, and I do not even remember adding any new inverts or corals within last six months or so. So, I am very perplexed as to how this disease was introduced into my tank.



About two month ago one of my Anthias died. They have been in the tank for over six months without any sign of problems. Dead fish looked like it was missing some scales. At the time I was not sure if this was caused by crabs after the fish died (see first picture). Few days later I noticed similar sign on couple other Anthias. Few of my other tangs started showing signs of discomfort by scratching. I noticed few spots but was not sure if they were caused by scratching on rocks or a parasite. It did not look like ick. Scratching continued on and off for few weeks but eventually went away; and, after the initial week, I did not see any spots, just shaking and scratching. I decided that there was a chance they had flukes so I treated the tank with Poszipro twice, seven days apart. After the second treatment I notice one of the Anthias had stringy white poop (ie intestinal parasites). I did not start any treatment yet for this. At about the same time, I decided to do some maintenance and used power head to blow off the rocks which I have not done before. After this I noticed all of my Anthias disappeared for several days. One of the larger females came out fairy quickly and the male few days later. I could see two other females hiding in the rocks for another week or so. Now the two females came out of hiding but are just sitting on the sand bed and the remaining 3 females are nowhere to be seen and by now I assume they are dead. The two females that are sitting on the sand bed seem to have slightly lighter blotches, and are similar to earlier Anthias that died with what looked like missing scales. See second picture. The blotches are more noticeable under actinic lights so I will try to take another picture tonight.



Now I am not sure if missing Anthias and Anthias that are not swimming or eating is related to:

• Disease that killed the first Anthias or
• PoziPro treatment or
• Intestinal parasites or
• Stress from blowing off the rocks with the power head.

Any suggestion as to disease ID and recommended treatment would be appreciated. The Anthias that are not swimming have been like this for over two weeks, so I do not think they will live much longer unless that starts swimming and eating again.



I have one more very unlikely theory. Since I cannot figure out how this was introduced into my tank, I wonder if there are any parasites or viral infections that are spread though bird poop, or saltwater spray from the ocean, and can survive in fresh water. I use rain water to backwash my sand filter and I live in very close proximity to the ocean. After backwashing with rainwater, the sand filter is rinsed with saltwater, but I am sure some rainwater is not completely flushed out. Rainwater goes through sediment filter, carbon block, and UV light first. Theoretically, UV should kill any bacteria and parasites, but it is possible flow rate is too high and UV is not 100% effective. Does anyone who is fish disease expert know if it is possible to introduce disease with not properly treated rainwater? I figure this is very farfetched idea.

 

[WIReefer]

@Jay Hemdal

 

[Jay Hemdal]

First I would like to say that I quarantine and treat all of my fish, but I also understand that even that may not be foolproof. I have not introduced any new fish in months, and I do not even remember adding any new inverts or corals within last six months or so. So, I am very perplexed as to how this disease was introduced into my tank.



About two month ago one of my Anthias died. They have been in the tank for over six months without any sign of problems. Dead fish looked like it was missing some scales. At the time I was not sure if this was caused by crabs after the fish died (see first picture). Few days later I noticed similar sign on couple other Anthias. Few of my other tangs started showing signs of discomfort by scratching. I noticed few spots but was not sure if they were caused by scratching on rocks or a parasite. It did not look like ick. Scratching continued on and off for few weeks but eventually went away; and, after the initial week, I did not see any spots, just shaking and scratching. I decided that there was a chance they had flukes so I treated the tank with Poszipro twice, seven days apart. After the second treatment I notice one of the Anthias had stringy white poop (ie intestinal parasites). I did not start any treatment yet for this. At about the same time, I decided to do some maintenance and used power head to blow off the rocks which I have not done before. After this I noticed all of my Anthias disappeared for several days. One of the larger females came out fairy quickly and the male few days later. I could see two other females hiding in the rocks for another week or so. Now the two females came out of hiding but are just sitting on the sand bed and the remaining 3 females are nowhere to be seen and by now I assume they are dead. The two females that are sitting on the sand bed seem to have slightly lighter blotches, and are similar to earlier Anthias that died with what looked like missing scales. See second picture. The blotches are more noticeable under actinic lights so I will try to take another picture tonight.



Now I am not sure if missing Anthias and Anthias that are not swimming or eating is related to:

• Disease that killed the first Anthias or
• PoziPro treatment or
• Intestinal parasites or
• Stress from blowing off the rocks with the power head.

Any suggestion as to disease ID and recommended treatment would be appreciated. The Anthias that are not swimming have been like this for over two weeks, so I do not think they will live much longer unless that starts swimming and eating again.



I have one more very unlikely theory. Since I cannot figure out how this was introduced into my tank, I wonder if there are any parasites or viral infections that are spread though bird poop, or saltwater spray from the ocean, and can survive in fresh water. I use rain water to backwash my sand filter and I live in very close proximity to the ocean. After backwashing with rainwater, the sand filter is rinsed with saltwater, but I am sure some rainwater is not completely flushed out. Rainwater goes through sediment filter, carbon block, and UV light first. Theoretically, UV should kill any bacteria and parasites, but it is possible flow rate is too high and UV is not 100% effective. Does anyone who is fish disease expert know if it is possible to introduce disease with not properly treated rainwater? I figure this is very farfetched idea.

Sorry, I missed your message yesterday. It is unlikely, but not impossible that a disease got into your system from outdoors...people who use unfiltered seawater have this happen. More likely, this is bacterial and/or Uronema, as these pathogens are in every aquarium, and just need the wrong conditions to bring them out. Anthias are very sensitive to Uronema and it looks like an injury on them.
Prazipro sometimes lowers the oxygen level and can stress the fish. The stringy feces may or may not be a treatable issue...
Are there other fish in the tank? How do they look? Are the invertebrates all doing well?

Jay

 

[vlad2spinn]

Thank you Jay Hemdal for your reply,
Knowing that Pozipro may cause oxygen drop, I lowered the skimmer level to avoid overflows but continued to run it to oxygenate the water.

All other fish look great except Anthias and Blue Hippo tang that has some white spots on leading edge of his fins. He had this for a while. I suspect this could be caused by a large anemone that blocks part of the opening to a rock cave where he sleeps every night ( could also be Lymphocystis ). Spots on the fins are hard to see in the pictures, but they are actually very noticeable. Also, my sailfin tang seems to be more agitated then normal, shakes from time to time, and spends more time with the cleaner shrimp, but there are no visible signs of spots or injury. I may just be over sensitive to his behavior. All inverts seems to be doing fine.

I have been fighting dinoflagellates for several month. Now they are mostly under control. I did notice that when dinos were bad, my BTA developed very deformed tentacles. Actually, when the dino outbreak started after my phosphates dropped to zero and water turned red from huge dino population in the water column almost overnight, I lost most of my SPS and the BT anemone almost died. Once it started to recover, it developed deformed tentacles. After I installed large VU, dosed bacteria, phosphates, and nitrates, I now have dinos mostly under control and noticed BTA started re growing normal looking tentacles with bubbles. Is it possible that dinos or some bacteria caused deformation of the BTA and the same bacteria could have caused problems with the Anthias? At the time when dinos were bad, I started to use carbon to minimize impact on the fish and did not notice any issues. Anthias started having issues some time after the start of dino outbreak so I did not think they were related.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

That is one FAT tang - very nice! I'm afraid I'm not up on dinoflagellates and the exotoxins they can produce. I'm still thinking Uronama and/or bacterial infection on the Anthias. I've never seen Uronema on a hepatus tang, so hopefully it won't spread.

One trick for future reference; when you have a freshly dead fish like the anthias, give it a 10 minute FW dip and scan the water for flukes - sometimes you get lucky and can do a post-mortem diagnosis that way.

Jay

 

[vlad2spinn]

@Jay Hemdal ,

I have finally been able to take a decent picture at night with actinic lights. As you can see the blotchy coloration of the skin is very noticeable under these lights. I am also including another daytime photo. You can barley tell the discoloration under normal lighting conditions. The fish continues not to swim and just stays in one spot on the sand. It does appear a bit more active then before and moves from time to time. With the new pictures does this change your Uronama and/or bacterial diagnosis? What treatment would you recommend?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The blochiness under actinic is normal night time coloration, but can also be a general stress response like is seen in the second photo. It isn’t specific to any one disease.

Is the anthias breathing rapidly? Have you tried a 5 minute FW dip on it ?

Jay

 

[vlad2spinn]

Fish is breathing normal. I had another anthias that was breathing rapidly when all of the anthias problems started. This one had the same blotchy skin and what looked like missing scales at the front half of it's body. That is why I thought it was flukes and did PozyPro treatment. They are in my 1000 gallon reef tank so catching the one that was having problems at the time, and doing fresh water dip was nearly impossible. Since then that anthias and 3 more have disappeared and are presumed dead. I am quire certain I can catch this one since it is just sitting on the bottom and does not respond to any fish swiming close to it or cleaning magnet. I have considered fresh water dip, but my only hesitation was that I don't think the fish has been eating for over 3 weeks and extra stress may kill it. On the other hand the fish is not getting better so it will most likely die if i do not try to save it. By the way, I do not see this discoloration on the remaining 2 healthy anthias. As you stated, it may be stress response.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I know this sounds harsh but if the FW dip kills the fish, that means it would have died soon anyway. The symptoms just keep pointing to possible flukes, and a dip would confirm or rule that out.
Jay

 

[lba4590]

Just wanted to add, I had an anthias die of uronema that presented very similarly to yours. Three other fish in QT had the stereotypical vertical open sores in the middle of their body, the anthias did not, but I am absolutely sure that’s what it was. I read somewhere that in very clean systems, uronema, which is found in every tank, can “run out of” detritus and instead infect fish... take that with a grain of salt.. I have no idea how true that is.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Just wanted to add, I had an anthias die of uronema that presented very similarly to yours. Three other fish in QT had the stereotypical vertical open sores in the middle of their body, the anthias did not, but I am absolutely sure that’s what it was. I read somewhere that in very clean systems, uronema, which is found in every tank, can “run out of” detritus and instead infect fish... take that with a grain of salt.. I have no idea how true that is.

Actually, the reverse is true - systems with a lot of uneaten food fosters the growth of Uronema. What people notice is that it is common to see it in bare quarantine tanks, but what they don’t realize is that these tanks lack a normal microbiome and Uronema gets a jump start under those conditions.
I’ve been circling back and forth on this case, but the fish living so long while showing symptoms is keeping me from concluding it is Uronema.
Jay

 

[vlad2spinn]

I know this sounds harsh but if the FW dip kills the fish, that means it would have died soon anyway. The symptoms just keep pointing to possible flukes, and a dip would confirm or rule that out.
Jay

Good news, fish survived FW dip. Bad news (well maybe good news), no flukes. Are there fungal infections that could be effecting the scales and skin? What about intestinal parasites? Could they cause fish not to want to swim or eat?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

External fungal infections are almost heard of in marine fish. Could be bacterial, and then Uronema keeps coming up.

 

[rebels23]

Will a H2O2 bath help if it is Uronema?

 

[vlad2spinn]

Just wanted to add, I had an anthias die of uronema that presented very similarly to yours. Three other fish in QT had the stereotypical vertical open sores in the middle of their body, the anthias did not, but I am absolutely sure that’s what it was. I read somewhere that in very clean systems, uronema, which is found in every tank, can “run out of” detritus and instead infect fish... take that with a grain of salt.. I have no idea how true that is.

Thank you, this looks very similar to what my fish have. Now thinking back, over a year ago I did receive 10 anthias from online supplier that all but one died in my QT from uronema within few days of arrival. The one I saved, I isolated into another QT. I do not remember what treatment I used. The fish that survived ended up in my display but eventually died. I remember that before it died it did not want to swim, but did not see the skin discoloration. At the time,I did not think it was uronema, since all other fish that died had red sores and died very quickly, but the one that survived did not have red sores. If this is uronema then most likely that is how it was introduced into my display. Strange thing is that the 12 anthias that have been in my display for about a year showed no symptoms until recently. I do keep all my fish very well fed (heavy feeding of homemade fish food, 3 times per day). So my fish could be more resistant to disease and parasites. Blowing off the rocks with the power head could have stirred up the parasite and infected the fish. I will start uronema treatment tomorrow and see if the fish improves. Fomaldin dip followed up with feeding food soaked with MetroPlex. Hopefully the fish will start eating after the dip.