Ich, lympho or something else?

lagatbezan · Jul 23, 2019

Coral beauty been in qt for the past 4 weeks. Went through a week of hypo to treat prophylacticly for flukes and currently at 12th day of copper power at 2.34 tested with Hanna checker. The last 3-4 days it has had these white spots pop on it which look like ich. Is that possible while in copper?
No flashing, scratching or other symptoms.
Here is a video. Sorry for the poor iphone video quality.

What you guys think?
#reefsquad @HotRocks @4FordFamily @Big G @Humblefish

ndrwater · Jul 23, 2019

Looks like possible ich.

4FordFamily · Jul 24, 2019

Those spots don’t look like lympho to me, they do look like ich to me as well.

Has copper been above 2.0 PPM for the full 12 days?

Have you tested with another copper method just to be sure?

I know you treated for flukes but I’d do a freshwater dip in a dark bucket to see if any fall off. You may have a prazi resistant strain. They’ll often look like sesame seeds.

lagatbezan · Jul 24, 2019

4FordFamily said:
Those spots don’t look like lympho to me, they do look like ich to me as well.

Has copper been above 2.0 PPM for the full 12 days?

Have you tested with another copper method just to be sure?

I know you treated for flukes but I’d do a freshwater dip in a dark bucket to see if any fall off. You may have a prazi resistant strain. They’ll often look like sesame seeds.

Yes, It has been above 2.0 for the entire 12 days. I got it up to 1.75, kept it there for two days and increased it to 2.2-2.3 which it has been for 12 days now (above 1.75 for 14 days).
The Hanna tester results matched the dosage recommendation listed so i'm assuming its reading correctly. The coral beauty is in there with 3 other fish (small clown, Bristletooth tang and heniochus butterfly) and i saw one spot last night on the butterfly as well. I removed them all from copper last night and moved into a new 10g qt and dosed .4g of CP. The tang wasn't happy this morning and didn't eat.
I would imagine the 5 days in hypo (1.009) would have treated any flukes if present.
It would be crazy if in fact is ich that survived high concentration of copper power.

4FordFamily · Jul 24, 2019

lagatbezan said:
Yes, It has been above 2.0 for the entire 12 days. I got it up to 1.75, kept it there for two days and increased it to 2.2-2.3 which it has been for 12 days now (above 1.75 for 14 days).
The Hanna tester results matched the dosage recommendation listed so i'm assuming its reading correctly. The coral beauty is in there with 3 other fish (small clown, Bristletooth tang and heniochus butterfly) and i saw one spot last night on the butterfly as well. I removed them all from copper last night and moved into a new 10g qt and dosed .4g of CP. The tang wasn't happy this morning and didn't eat.
I would imagine the 5 days in hypo (1.009) would have treated any flukes if present.
It would be crazy if in fact is ich that survived high concentration of copper power.

There are some pretty resilient flukes out there... Try the FW dip see what you get.
Do the spots stay in the exact same place? Or slowly move?

If they stay for only 3-5 days or so it's probably ich. Ich has been relatively easy to remove with copper and CP so that would be shocking.

Switching to CP from copper often leads to appetite loss for 24-48 hours. The first 24 hours in CP in any event can inhibit appetite but it seems to come rolling back relatively quickly afterward in many cases unless you have a species that is "known" to be CP sensitive or the individual fish doesn't tolerate it well.

lagatbezan · Jul 25, 2019

4FordFamily said:
There are some pretty resilient flukes out there... Try the FW dip see what you get.
Do the spots stay in the exact same place? Or slowly move?

If they stay for only 3-5 days or so it's probably ich. Ich has been relatively easy to remove with copper and CP so that would be shocking.

Switching to CP from copper often leads to appetite loss for 24-48 hours. The first 24 hours in CP in any event can inhibit appetite but it seems to come rolling back relatively quickly afterward in many cases unless you have a species that is "known" to be CP sensitive or the individual fish doesn't tolerate it well.

Thanks for the reply. While in copper I didn't really pay close attention to see if the spots stayed or moved, but from my observation it seemed to change which is why I personally also suspect ich.
I will give it a few more days in cp and then do a FW dip and see if anything falls. Curious to see if the spots change while in CP.
The Bristletooth tang has started a hunger strike which has me concerned. Not sure if its the CP, the confined space of 10g qt or something else. hopefully it will resume eating again soon.

4FordFamily · Jul 25, 2019

lagatbezan said:
Thanks for the reply. While in copper I didn't really pay close attention to see if the spots stayed or moved, but from my observation it seemed to change which is why I personally also suspect ich.
I will give it a few more days in cp and then do a FW dip and see if anything falls. Curious to see if the spots change while in CP.
The Bristletooth tang has started a hunger strike which has me concerned. Not sure if its the CP, the confined space of 10g qt or something else. hopefully it will resume eating again soon.

With CP make sure you stay on top of prime dosing. Dose every day in a tank that small. Ammonia could be your culprit.

lagatbezan · Jul 28, 2019

4 days into cp treatment and all the spots still present and some new ones have developed. It seems like the old ones are getting a tad bigger. Did 6 min FW dip and saw nothing fall off and no change to the spots either.
This is how it's looking as of last night.

lagatbezan · Aug 22, 2019

not sure what I'm dealing with. Treated with RX CP and lost the tang in the 13th day of treatment. During the CP treatments the spots didn't change either and new ones seem to appear.
Took them out and put in a new qt for about two weeks and still see the spots. They are very similar looking to ich and velevt. the butterfly is showing signs too. I started copper treatment again a couple of days ago and going to keep the level at 2.5 for two weeks and see what happens.

Pbh-reef · Aug 24, 2019

maybe try a formalin or peroxide bath at this point?

@HotRocks @4FordFamily what do you two think?

HotRocks · Aug 24, 2019

Have you treated these fish with prazi of any sort yet?

lagatbezan · Aug 25, 2019

Yes, did 3 rounds of GC after cp treatment. They also went through a week of hypo initially when I first got them to treat for flukes.

LAReefer4Life · Sep 1, 2019

How are the fish? The spots look like lymph to me which is why I think none of the meds are having any positive effect on the fish.

tgrick · Sep 1, 2019

None of the above.

It's an allergic reaction to meds. I have a flame angel that did this. I moved him into a clean tank and voila...he became perfect and those white things he had disappeared. I started a thread on this a few months ago on this and never really followed it.

My advice. Move to clean tank and lets see what happens. STOP all meds. Then get back to us. If it's ick it will get better and then come back. If it's velvet it only gets worse...quickly.