Help with Royal Gramma with Frayed Fin (high quality pictures)

[ariellemermaid]

Recently I received a shipment of cardinal fish with frayed fins. All fish we're talking about here are in a QT. Despite treating with neoplex/metroplex/furan-2 for basically 2 rounds, all fish that arrived with frayed fins died. All fish without frayed fins have looked great and done well for 2-3 weeks; in fact I added my first dose of copper last night (1/5th dose). Except.....

This is my Royal Gramma 2 weeks ago:

And this is my Royal Gramma today:

Bullying?
He's quarantining with 2 small cardinals and a small yellow tang. There is one bully cardinal but only towards the other cardinal; they ignore the gramma. The tang is another story. The gramma is frightened of the tang. As the tang gets around the tank a lot, every time the tang comes near the gramma hides and the tang does seem to have some curiosity with the gramma. That said, I have never once seen the tang actually nip or act aggressively towards the gamma. He just comes near, the gramma hides, and everything is ok. I've even seen the gramma get a bit braver and free swim when the tang was nearby with no conflict. The gramma comes right back out when the tang swims away.

Fin rot (or other disease) resistant to neoplex/metroplex/furan-2?
As per the link above, 3 cardinals arrived with frayed fins and they all died despite antibiotics/fungals. So while bullying is one possibility, it would seem quite the coincidence that I had fish with frayed fins and now the gramma has frayed fins too.

What should I do?
These are my thoughts:

1. Stop the copper, treat again for a full course with antibiotics. Maybe switch the neoplex to kannaplex? Add anything else? Or since those antibiotics didn't knock it out, use a single, completely different antibiotic?
2. Keep going with copper, hope he lives/recovers.
3. Keep going with copper (or not), but put him in an HOB isolation box I recently purchased in case it's bullying? Or just to let him recover in safety.

I feel like I'm losing the frayed fin game so far. Granted, the 3 cardinals that died arrived that way, but I feel like I should have been able to save them. Now a fish that's been healthy since the beginning is sick .

 

[MnFish1]

1. Its best not to mix 2 quarantine batches together - i.e. - dont add fish to an already quarantined batch (It seems like you did this - but its unclear - so sorry if misunderstood)
2. Frayed fins usually means 'bullying' - as compared to diseases or copper or something else (IME - those cause fraying from the outside in - rather than 'splits'.
3. I GUESS that whats happening is that in the smaller QT area there is bullying going on.

 

[ariellemermaid]

1. Its best not to mix 2 quarantine batches together - i.e. - dont add fish to an already quarantined batch (It seems like you did this - but its unclear - so sorry if misunderstood)
2. Frayed fins usually means 'bullying' - as compared to diseases or copper or something else (IME - those cause fraying from the outside in - rather than 'splits'.
3. I GUESS that whats happening is that in the smaller QT area there is bullying going on.

Thanks. I watch the tank a lot and have never seen anything directly bother the gramma but that is my hope...just a little bullying. I was leaning towards isolating him so I’ll give that a shot. Good to know about the fin difference; when I first noticed this to the naked eye it looked like a split, but after taking pictures it looks more generally frayed.

We do typically order a few fish to QT at the same time but haven’t mixed batches per se. All fish were received around the same time from the same source (minus the replacement cardinals offset by a week). I am anxious to complete the copper QT because the tang in particular needs more space. Doing the antibiotic treatments has meant he’s already been in there weeks longer than hoped.

 

[MnFish1]

JME - sometimes more treatment does not equal better results. You can just introduce more trouble. I have no clue whats causing the problem - my guess is that a fin 'split' is not that big a deal - if it can be prevented from happening again ( i.e. likely trauma) - but 'decaying' fins from the outside in - is another story @Jay Hemdal

 

[Spieg]

Near as I can tell, the photo only shows damage to the tail correct? Pectoral, abdominal and dorsal fins seem to be intact? Tail chewing is pretty common among fish establishing territorial boundaries (more common in cramped conditions often found in QTs). As long as it remains limited to the tail, I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks. I watch the tank a lot and have never seen anything directly bother the gramma but that is my hope...just a little bullying. I was leaning towards isolating him so I’ll give that a shot. Good to know about the fin difference; when I first noticed this to the naked eye it looked like a split, but after taking pictures it looks more generally frayed.

We do typically order a few fish to QT at the same time but haven’t mixed batches per se. All fish were received around the same time from the same source (minus the replacement cardinals offset by a week). I am anxious to complete the copper QT because the tang in particular needs more space. Doing the antibiotic treatments has meant he’s already been in there weeks longer than hoped.

That sure looks like fin damage from bullying. It can be very difficult to see the attacks: while you are watching the fish, they are busy watching you! In addition, just one or two bites per day can result in this amount of damage, and your chances of seeing that is nil. I would try the isolation box, with places for the gramma to hide so that it feels secure.
Jay

 

[gentlefish]

You did extensive therapy on the fish. Presuming that therapy worked and no aggression, apart from flukes nothing makes it to mind. Did you do a freshwater bath?
I lost one fish with frayed fins, rapid breathing, poor appetite only to find flukes after he passed. I misread the situation as finrot (antibiotics) and then copper for rapid breathing.

 

[ariellemermaid]

Yes, so far just the tail fin, everything else looks good. Hopefully isolation will work. I haven’t done FW dips because I hate to stress a sick fish further. I did get one into FW soon after death and didn’t see anything that looked like flukes. Doesn’t rule it out.

 

[gentlefish]

You would be able to see flukes on a dead fish...so that’s not it.

 

[ariellemermaid]

New developments; Gramma has died.

Yesterday (hiding in a crevice):

Today (in FW):

Despite being in isolation, his tail fin loss continued (notice ventral fin involvement now). He's so small I didn't even notice until I started processing this photo that he now has some large (for his size) white spots! Now a caveat here is that he died sometime between 2AM and 8AM but this picture wasn't taken until noon, so could this just be something opportunistic working on the corpse? At 2AM he was hiding in a crevice not looking great but he wasn't gasping; I don't have enough experience yet to say whether his gill beats were elevated. About 10 oval white spots have detached in his post mortem FW bath. They aren't moving around in the water though, just floating on the bottom.

Come to think of it, maybe I didn't miss them the first time. Maybe they were invisible but TURNED opaque in FW, like flukes are supposed to do.

1) Hopefully this is a huge development in my QT fish graveyard situation. In the second OP photo of the same side of his body, these spots were not present before or at least not big or opaque enough to be seen. Name those spots! Flukes?

2) Moving forward: I have 3 living fish remaining in the QT. The tang has had rare flashing behavior however what I've seen I've attributed to him challenging his reflection in the glass. He does seem to brush up against objects sometimes though. He breaths fast compared to all the other fish I've owned, but I've never owned a tang so I don't know what's normal.

Can I get a recipe for dealing with this? I have prazipro on hand, but I could run out and buy some general cure instead (closest store is like 1 hour round trip). I know prazipro isn't recommended with copper but I'm only at 2/5th's dose right now; I could also do a water change then do prazipro. FW Dip also? None of the fish seem to be in imminent danger at the moment and according to humblefish it doesn't work if this involved gill flukes.

Thanks!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

New developments; Gramma has died.

Yesterday (hiding in a crevice):

Today (in FW):

Despite being in isolation, his tail fin loss continued (notice ventral fin involvement now). He's so small I didn't even notice until I started processing this photo that he now has some large (for his size) white spots! Now a caveat here is that he died sometime between 2AM and 8AM but this picture wasn't taken until noon, so could this just be something opportunistic working on the corpse? At 2AM he was hiding in a crevice not looking great but he wasn't gasping; I don't have enough experience yet to say whether his gill beats were elevated. About 10 oval white spots have detached in his post mortem FW bath. They aren't moving around in the water though, just floating on the bottom.

Come to think of it, maybe I didn't miss them the first time. Maybe they were invisible but TURNED opaque in FW, like flukes are supposed to do.

1) Hopefully this is a huge development in my QT fish graveyard situation. In the second OP photo of the same side of his body, these spots were not present before or at least not big or opaque enough to be seen. Name those spots! Flukes?

2) Moving forward: I have 3 living fish remaining in the QT. The tang has had rare flashing behavior however what I've seen I've attributed to him challenging his reflection in the glass. He does seem to brush up against objects sometimes though. He breaths fast compared to all the other fish I've owned, but I've never owned a tang so I don't know what's normal.

Can I get a recipe for dealing with this? I have prazipro on hand, but I could run out and buy some general cure instead (closest store is like 1 hour round trip). I know prazipro isn't recommended with copper but I'm only at 2/5th's dose right now; I could also do a water change then do prazipro. FW Dip also? None of the fish seem to be in imminent danger at the moment and according to humblefish it doesn't work if this involved gill flukes.

Thanks!

Sorry for your loss. Those are Neobenedenia flukes. I’m at work right now, with limited resources, but you might want to search “Drum and Croaker” 2020 - There is a great article in it that you can read online. Hyposalinity is the best treatment for this.
Jay

 

[ariellemermaid]

Sorry for your loss. Those are Neobenedenia flukes. I’m at work right now, with limited resources, but you might want to search “Drum and Croaker” 2020 - There is a great article in it that you can read online. Hyposalinity is the best treatment for this.
Jay

I think this is the article you’re referring to. I’m not sure how to convert g/l to sg or ppt but combined with this post I’ll assume a SG of 1.009. The post was written towards treating ich for 30 days but under pro’s, as well as with the article, it appears a shorter course might work?

My take away is that hypo works better than prazi but that either could work. So maybe doing both (sequentially) could work better? Either way I don’t want to lose any more fish so I’m inclined to start the one I can do immediately, prazi (vs. 48h acclimation for hypo).

 

[blitzkragz]

This might be a gramma thing. Mine has had the same fin issue for about a year now, while no other fish in the tank have shown anything similar. All 50 or so fish in the tank went through prophylactic qt, and the gramma was fine for almost a year before his tail fin looked rotted. Other than that he has been perfectly healthy. It used to look a lot worse than it does now. He does like to swim upside down when structure is overhead, quirky

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I think this is the article you’re referring to. I’m not sure how to convert g/l to sg or ppt but combined with this post I’ll assume a SG of 1.009. The post was written towards treating ich for 30 days but under pro’s, as well as with the article, it appears a shorter course might work?

My take away is that hypo works better than prazi but that either could work. So maybe doing both (sequentially) could work better? Either way I don’t want to lose any more fish so I’m inclined to start the one I can do immediately, prazi (vs. 48h acclimation for hypo).

Yes - that is Barrett's article. Sorry - I had forgotten how much "extra" information it contained (grin). While 1.009 SG will work, that is actually lower than you need to go, and may stress some fish out. 15 ppt is equal to a specific gravity of around 1.011

Praziquantel just doesn't do anything about the eggs - even doses spaced a week apart won't catch all of the eggs and then, they hatch out later and the fish get reinfected. There is no harm though, in dosing with Prazi and then the next day, begin dropping the SG.

Jay

 

[gentlefish]

Jay, thank you. Could you elaborate on
- any pH issues you may have encountered
- how do you end hypo after 30 days? Do you tank transfer and observe or just raise salinity and observe in the same tank.
This is most valuable as I seem to battle the same.

 

[ariellemermaid]

Jay, thank you. Could you elaborate on
- any pH issues you may have encountered
- how do you end hypo after 30 days? Do you tank transfer and observe or just raise salinity and observe in the same tank.
This is most valuable as I seem to battle the same.

PH is why I was asking about the duration. The 30 days it seems is more for ich while a course of 5 days+ seems to be effective in some studies for flukes (although one did hypo for 60! Days). My thinking is that 5 days shouldn’t be a huge problem in terms of PH but if we’re talking about 30 we’d be looking at cooking up some baking soda (per the Humblefish post I linked).

Acclimation is my other concern as well; in both directions. Getting there- would a 25% water replacement with DI x3 spaced over 48 hours be too aggressive? My thinking is that 35ppt x0.75x0.75x0.75=14.8. In reverse something similar could be done. What I don’t want is the cure to be worse than the disease.

I was going to do a water change (to reduce the copper) then treat with prazi as a first step, however, I didn’t have saltwater ready so today will be treatment day. The fish that have died have died pretty suddenly without much warning, gramma included (went from noticing fin loss to death in just a few days). Would you recommend a 4-5 minute FW dip for immediate protection, then start hypo acclimation? Or do prazi for immediate relief then do hypo? Except- in order to do hypo I’d have to remove water and therefore drug; prazipro is one tsp per 20gallons so we’re talking unmeasurable amounts to replace it. So it seems I’d have to do a full course of prazi then a full course of hypo or vise versa.

 

[blitzkragz]

New developments; Gramma has died.

Yesterday (hiding in a crevice):

Today (in FW):

Despite being in isolation, his tail fin loss continued (notice ventral fin involvement now). He's so small I didn't even notice until I started processing this photo that he now has some large (for his size) white spots! Now a caveat here is that he died sometime between 2AM and 8AM but this picture wasn't taken until noon, so could this just be something opportunistic working on the corpse? At 2AM he was hiding in a crevice not looking great but he wasn't gasping; I don't have enough experience yet to say whether his gill beats were elevated. About 10 oval white spots have detached in his post mortem FW bath. They aren't moving around in the water though, just floating on the bottom.

Come to think of it, maybe I didn't miss them the first time. Maybe they were invisible but TURNED opaque in FW, like flukes are supposed to do.

1) Hopefully this is a huge development in my QT fish graveyard situation. In the second OP photo of the same side of his body, these spots were not present before or at least not big or opaque enough to be seen. Name those spots! Flukes?

2) Moving forward: I have 3 living fish remaining in the QT. The tang has had rare flashing behavior however what I've seen I've attributed to him challenging his reflection in the glass. He does seem to brush up against objects sometimes though. He breaths fast compared to all the other fish I've owned, but I've never owned a tang so I don't know what's normal.

Can I get a recipe for dealing with this? I have prazipro on hand, but I could run out and buy some general cure instead (closest store is like 1 hour round trip). I know prazipro isn't recommended with copper but I'm only at 2/5th's dose right now; I could also do a water change then do prazipro. FW Dip also? None of the fish seem to be in imminent danger at the moment and according to humblefish it doesn't work if this involved gill flukes.

Thanks!

Tail rot aside, if you suspect flukes an alternative to a FW dip is a rally bath, which might actually help with the rot as well. I give all of my fish this bath right after they graduate quarantine just before they go into the display.

Make a bath of 1 teaspon of Ruby Reef Rally in a gallon of saltwater (temp and salinity matched to qt) aerated with an airstone. Put the fish in it for around 80 minutes.

 

[gentlefish]

I would start with FW bath for immidiate relief. Prazi has a 80% cure rate that does not cut it for me.
I started to remove salt water and have it topped up with r/o .
Prazi is possible, but I see it as a secondary strategy only, with little use after recent FW dip.
I do not know the rationale for 30 days.

Hypo seems lethal for adults and juveniles. It seems to prevent hatching-but does it delay it-?

I contemplate to add some commercial 8.4 to the top up water, but need to check absence of significant Na.

 

[gentlefish]

I would start with FW bath for immidiate relief. Prazi has a 80% cure rate that does not cut it for me.
I started to remove salt water and have it topped up with r/o .
Prazi is possible, but I see it as a secondary strategy only, with little use after recent FW dip.
I do not know the rationale for 30 days.

Hypo seems lethal for adults and juveniles. It seems to prevent hatching-but does it delay it-?

I contemplate to add some commercial 8.4 to the top up water, but need to check absence of significant Na.

I lost my fight to neobenedenia 0:2. . FW dip 27.12, Prazi 27.12. Hypo 15 x 30.12.....so bad...... don’t know where the silver lining is , maybe that I do QT?

 

[ariellemermaid]

I lost my fight to neobenedenia 0:2. . FW dip 27.12, Prazi 27.12. Hypo 15 x 30.12.....so bad...... don’t know where the silver lining is , maybe that I do QT?

Sorry for your loss! While I agree 80% cure isn’t good enough on its own for the DT, I like the idea of doing prazi then hypo or vise versa. Both have a certain success/failure rate and it looks like each only costs about a week. I think after this experience I’m going to treat every new batch for flukes. Of the 3 fish I lost, two had visibly frayed fins but the other 1 looked and acted fine until he just upped and died; never would have guessed there was a problem. And the gramma looked great until the frayed fin, within days his tail was completely gone and he was dead. I suppose FW dipping every new fish could rule flukes in or out but some of the fish I’ve received have been really traumatized by shipping, and it still doesn’t rule out gill flukes.

My remaining 3 are looking ok for now after prazi. I didn’t realize until yesterday that the tang actually does have some rough skin spots around his eyes/forehead area. Hopefully now that the flukes are being dealt with he’ll be able to heal. On one of the cardinals I noticed asymmetry with his eyes but after prazi they look normal again. Fingers crossed!

It does seem in this hobby that by the time you notice something is wrong, it’s just too late.