Home-study of fish disease/parasites

[GHsaltie]

Another small update. Today was the fourth dose of Kanaplex and the fifth day of copper treatment. He's gotten a lot of his color back, I didn't even realize how much better he looks until I compared today's video with the previous one.

P.S. please ignore the scrabbling/banging noises in the background. My cat has decided that the nori is delicious and therefore she must destroy the box to get to it.

 

[melypr1985]

Wow! He's looking so much better! Keep up the good work!

 

[Humblefish]

I love it when a fish's life is being saved!

 

[Valkyrie]

Looks amazing! I'm so happy that he's doing so well!!

 

[Craigwood]

Looking good. Feeding well swimming well and colour coming back all good signs
.

 

[GHsaltie]

So I have a not so good update this time (don't worry he's not dead!), I had noticed about a week ago that he developed a "lump" on his dorsal fin. I decided to monitor it for a little while since he wasn't showing any other symptoms. It has definitely gotten larger in size, not huge but noticeable. I suspect Lymphocystis, and so I am not too worried about that, but would appreciate a second opinion. The other development that worries me a great deal more is that his sides appear to be flaked? I'm not even sure how to describe it, but it's almost as though the scales appear to be raised or separating from the body. His fins are also very ragged and his color has dulled again a little bit. These symptoms I have noticed for about two maybe three days, but I didn't realize just how bad he appears until today when I took a good long look at him. He is still eating very well, mysis and nori, his color is mostly vibrant, despite the slight recession and he is swimming well, although I have noticed a slight twitch or vibrate every now and then. I am not entirely sure why he is doing that, he hasn't done any twitching or scratching for about two weeks now. He is on day 18 of copper treatment and the last dose of Kanaplex was the 13th. Copper treatment has remained stable throughout treatment, although I have a hard time seeing the difference between the 2.0ppm and the 4.0ppm colors, so it is possible that it's higher than 2.0ppm.

The first pic shows his sides the best, the other three you can see the suspected Lympho, ragged fins, and general appearance. Out of about 120 pictures these were the only four that turned out somewhat decent .

 

[melypr1985]

The dorsal fin has lymph on it. Good eye there. I've never seen a fish that was flaky like that ( well maybe a fish with brook, though I don't think that's the case here). We will need @Humblefish to teach us something on that one.

 

[Humblefish]

Does the flaking look anything like this?

 

[GHsaltie]

Similar yes, but it's hard for me to tell on the pyramids if those are more like lumps than this flaky skin stuff. I'm on my phone right now so I'll look at the pictures again when I have access to a pc. I hope it's not the same, I remember reading that thread.
I did however find something last night that I wonder if it is the cause. I tested the ammonia and it was reading at 0.25 ppm with salifert. AND I did a water change earlier yesterday morning, so the ammonia levels could very well have been higher. I feel like such an idiot, the ammonia badge never changed color and so I got a bit lax with the water changes. Do you think it's likely that ammonia burn could cause his symptoms? Or does it look like something more sinister? Oh and would you mind posting the link to that thread with the pyramids so I can read it again? I can't remember where to find it.....
P.S. I'm doing another water change today to remove the rest of the ammonia and will be more diligent about it. So hopefully if that was the cause, or contributing factor, it will help him some.

 

[GHsaltie]

After closer inspection of the pictures, it looks similar but not quite the same. It's difficult to say though, because I can only see it on him at an angle like you see in the first picture, otherwise you wouldn't even know anything is there.

 

[Humblefish]

Testing for ammonia while meds are in the water (especially copper) will often yield a false positive. The alert badge will still work though.

I have seen a fish's skin flake if exposed to too high a copper level.

 

[melypr1985]

I have seen a fish's skin flake if exposed to too high a copper level.

That's interesting. I hadn't seen that before.

 

[GHsaltie]

Testing for ammonia while meds are in the water (especially copper) will often yield a false positive. The alert badge will still work though.

I have seen a fish's skin flake if exposed to too high a copper level.

Hmm, I was suspicious of that. The copper level shouldn't be higher than 2.0ppm, because when I first dosed the tank I tripled check the amount to dose. But it is a possibility that through water changes the levels have gotten a little higher than they are supposed to be. That will be problematic if that's the cause as I am not good at seeing the difference between the higher colors, but I will have one of my sisters give a second opinion on the copper reading.
Is there anything that I should do to try and help him recover or is it one of those things that I have to sit back and monitor?

 

[Humblefish]

Is there anything that I should do to try and help him recover or is it one of those things that I have to sit back and monitor?

Just ensure the Cu level always stays between 1.5 - 2.0 ppm for the rest of his treatment. You don't want it to go any higher or any lower.

 

[omykiss001]

Similar yes, but it's hard for me to tell on the pyramids if those are more like lumps than this flaky skin stuff. I'm on my phone right now so I'll look at the pictures again when I have access to a pc. I hope it's not the same, I remember reading that thread.
I did however find something last night that I wonder if it is the cause. I tested the ammonia and it was reading at 0.25 ppm with salifert. AND I did a water change earlier yesterday morning, so the ammonia levels could very well have been higher. I feel like such an idiot, the ammonia badge never changed color and so I got a bit lax with the water changes. Do you think it's likely that ammonia burn could cause his symptoms? Or does it look like something more sinister? Oh and would you mind posting the link to that thread with the pyramids so I can read it again? I can't remember where to find it.....
P.S. I'm doing another water change today to remove the rest of the ammonia and will be more diligent about it. So hopefully if that was the cause, or contributing factor, it will help him some.

I am a huge fan of the the instant ocean bio-spira (I get mine at Petco here the only place that carries it Amazon has it too). Many times over and over a bottle of that stuff if the date on the bottom is more than a year away will cycle my QT or hospital tanks overnight. Goes from detectable ammonia to nitrate in <24 hours, often never even see the nitrite spike at all especially when dealing with ammonia levels a fish puts off in hospital. I've used this many times when I need to set up a hospital tank in a hurry. I think it really helps reduce stress on the fish from having ammonia build up while they are potentially hypoxic from the infection and the repetitive water changes that are needed to keep the ammonia in check. I highly recommend the stuff. There are other products out there, but this product has worked over and over for me so I recommend this brand highly. I generally keep a bottle around just in case.

 

[omykiss001]

Hmm, I was suspicious of that. The copper level shouldn't be higher than 2.0ppm, because when I first dosed the tank I tripled check the amount to dose. But it is a possibility that through water changes the levels have gotten a little higher than they are supposed to be. That will be problematic if that's the cause as I am not good at seeing the difference between the higher colors, but I will have one of my sisters give a second opinion on the copper reading.
Is there anything that I should do to try and help him recover or is it one of those things that I have to sit back and monitor?

When I am using copper I check the level daily or at a minimum after I complete a water change just to make sure the level has not changed due small deviations in levels in the new water.

 

[lewis.maryann08]

Good luck with the fish ... mine didnt make it

 

[GHsaltie]

This time I have bad news, and it feels like a punch in the gut. The angel, who my sisters had named Lips, passed away today while I was at work. I don't think it was related to the treatment, I had gotten everything back to normal and aside from the lympho he healed up and looked great again. I am actually very suspicious that there was stray electrical currents in the water. Some, or many, of you may know about tropical storm Hermine that came through this weekend. Thankfully where I live didn't get hit by the brunt of it, but I did lose power Friday morning from 4:00-7:30. It took a while before the lineman found the problem, but during that time they kept trying to turn the electricity on and it caused multiple power surges throughout the house. I had gotten up to check on all my fish, but I was too groggy after going back to bed to have more than a slight thought that I should unplug the equipment while they were doing that. I noticed yesterday the angel took longer to come out of the pvc pipe for breakfast, which was unusual for him. Today he was real sluggish, didn't touch any food and kept having slight spasms that reminded me of seizures. I should have known better and acted immediately. And his death was just insult to injury. Before that I found my McCoskers wrasse, Nessy, dead on the floor behind the tank yesterday morning. I'm still grieving over that one. Nessy was my first, and favorite, saltwater fish, he had so much personality and was always the first to greet me in the morning. I know wrasses are jumpers and I feel awful now that I kept putting off building the lid, but I am suspicious that electrical currents in the tank may have spooked him and caused him to jump. At least I would like to think that. Over all this has been a very sad, gray weekend.....

 

[Humblefish]

Very, very sorry to hear.

If you have a piece of equipment in either tank that is leaking stray voltage, that can be checked using a volt meter: http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/aquariummaintenancecare/a/aastrayvoltage.htm

 

[GHsaltie]

Since Lips has passed I'm going to let this thread die out for a little bit. I have limited space for QT and I'm hoping to pick up a new fish or two for my own tank this weekend when I head to Jacksonville, Fl. It will probably be a month or two before I take on another project fish, but I will definitely update this thread when I do.