Identification of Disease

[LikeRichMahogany]

A few days ago, my sailfin tang and gem tang exhibited a single cloudy eye each. There were no other symptoms and I thought maybe it’s flukes, but it may go away on its own, and trying to catch my tangs might stress them out and make it worse. Yesterday, my ato reservoir was dry and my return pump was shooting bubbles, and the water in the tank had dropped from 78 to around 74-75 before I corrected it.

Today, my sailfin tang and gem tang both look like they are covered in a splotchy film. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the gem, he’s a shy fish, but see attached photo of sailfin tang.

I had a whitetail tang and a mandarin pass away about a month ago from the exact same symptoms. This looks like flukes to me, but I want a second opinion. It doesn’t look like ich/white spot and it wouldn’t make sense if it was, because it killed the mandarin.

I am tempted to purchase PraziPro and treat the whole display. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I don’t want to do anything too drastic but my gem tang is too expensive to let die and my sailfin tang is 20+ years old, and I’d hate to see him go like this. All this started a few days after adding 40+ corals from a local frag swap

 

[luis angel]

#fishmedic

 

[vetteguy53081]

A few days ago, my sailfin tang and gem tang exhibited a single cloudy eye each. There were no other symptoms and I thought maybe it’s flukes, but it may go away on its own, and trying to catch my tangs might stress them out and make it worse. Yesterday, my ato reservoir was dry and my return pump was shooting bubbles, and the water in the tank had dropped from 78 to around 74-75 before I corrected it.

Today, my sailfin tang and gem tang both look like they are covered in a splotchy film. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the gem, he’s a shy fish, but see attached photo of sailfin tang.

I had a whitetail tang and a mandarin pass away about a month ago from the exact same symptoms. This looks like flukes to me, but I want a second opinion. It doesn’t look like ich/white spot and it wouldn’t make sense if it was, because it killed the mandarin.

I am tempted to purchase PraziPro and treat the whole display. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I don’t want to do anything too drastic but my gem tang is too expensive to let die and my sailfin tang is 20+ years old, and I’d hate to see him go like this. All this started a few days after adding 40+ corals from a local frag swap

Based on size looks to be velvet including appearance of dots on eyes.
With velvet, fish will scratch body against hard objects, lethargic behavior, Loss of appetite and weight loss, Rapid, labored breathing, Fins clamped against the body, and typically stay at the surface of the water, or remain in a position where a steady flow of water is present in the aquarium.
Ich always shows spots at first. They are less visible in some species such as your gem tang, and long term, the spots coalesce into mucus, but it is never seen in just the gills. After flukes, bacterial gill disease is probably the second most common of these symptoms. Velvet is purely a gill disease and does stop fish from eating, but the fish breath really fast.
You will need to place fish in Quarantine tank and treat with Coppersafe at 2.25 For a FULL 30 days (do not interrupt this 30 day period) monitored by a reliable Copper Test kit such as Hanna Brand- No API brand. Also monitor Ammonia levels while in quarantine with a reliable test kit and add aeration during treatment using an air stone.
The display tank will have to be kept fishless (FALLOW) for 6-8 weeks to assure the existing parasites go through their life cycle without a host fish and die off and with occupants exposed, they too should go into quarantine
A quarantine tank can be as simple as a tank from a second hand store or a starter kit from Walmart which most of the needed essentials.

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

Can I get one or two more individuals with consensus on this? Unfortunately I have been through velvet before, and this does manifest the same in terms of appearance, but seems to be much slower in terms of spreading to other fish.

The fish are breathing maybe a little bit fast, but are showing other signs of velvet, such as swimming into my powerheads

 

[Uncle99]

All I see is 3-4 dots the rough size of ick, or a grain of sand.

Ick can kill mandarins as well.

I’d give it a few days to see where this is going, or not going.

If it is ick, it will be back in numbers.

If it’s velvet, you have maybe 24-36 hours. I don’t see any much signs of velvet.

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

@Jay Hemdal @Humblefish If you are around and you don’t mind

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

All I see is 3-4 dots the rough size of ick, or a grain of sand.

Ick can kill mandarins as well.

I’d give it a few days to see where this is going, or not going.

It’s not little white dots at all like ich- possibly complicating diagnosis a little as that this sailfin tang has lymphocystis on its pectoral fins, and has had it for years.

 

[Uncle99]

It’s not little white dots at all like ich- possibly complicating diagnosis a little as that this sailfin tang has lymphocystis on its pectoral fins, and has had it for years.

You are likely absolutely right, in the pics, very hard to tell anything, and I’m not hearing much of any other symptoms.

But there are three distinct white dots which to me, at least, resemble a first stage ick parasite.

They don’t appear to be on the glass, but maybe.

 

[vetteguy53081]

It’s not little white dots at all like ich- possibly complicating diagnosis a little as that this sailfin tang has lymphocystis on its pectoral fins, and has had it for years.

Need pics under brighter white light - no blue as sailfin looks covered on phoneo screen

 

[vetteguy53081]

I just looked larger screw and see a difference
The dots can be start of protozoan but wait 24 hours as ich will move and multiply on fish
Prepare to treat in case. If dots are not on Botha sides- likely not parasitical

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

I just looked larger screw and see a difference
The dots can be start of protozoan but wait 24 hours as ich will move and multiply on fish
Prepare to treat in case. If dots are not on Botha sides- likely not parasitical

It is covered but it’s not dots like ich, or tiny small dots like velvet in my experience. It’s more like a slime coat that’s like super thick and visible if you know what I mean. It is both sides

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

I’ll try to get some photos under whiter light. I just adjusted and they are all hiding. The lighting in the pic with the sailfin is already pretty white

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

Again hard to get pics of gem tang, but here is sailfin. I’m becoming more and more convinced of velvet.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I’ll try to get some photos under whiter light. I just adjusted and they are all hiding. The lighting in the pic with the sailfin is already pretty white

It will help

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

It will help

I added a photo, I just didn’t reply to you

 

[vetteguy53081]

Again hard to get pics of gem tang, but here is sailfin. I’m becoming more and more convinced of velvet.

As suspected - Velvet and follow what I recommended.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Again hard to get pics of gem tang, but here is sailfin. I’m becoming more and more convinced of velvet.

It could be velvet, but typically, you won't see any spots with that until the fish are very close to death. Rapid breathing and not eating (and sometimes hanging in the pump flow) is usually the primary symptoms for Amyloodinium (velvet). I can't rule out ich in this case - ich spots can be a few large spots or many small ones, depending on how the infection progresses. In either case, coppersafe at 2.5 ppm in a hospital tank is the best treatment for that.

I'm interested in the sump running dry - when the suction side of a pump catches air, the pressure can create a supersaturation event. In severe cases, you can see actual air bubbles in the fins and in the gills (tough to see that in a a live fish though). Cloudy skin and rapid breathing is a common symptom of supersaturation though. Large fish swimming in open water get hit the worst by this. Smaller fish, that can hide, or swim near the bottom are less effected (the supersaturation in the water is not continuous throughout the water column.

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

It could be velvet, but typically, you won't see any spots with that until the fish are very close to death. Rapid breathing and not eating (and sometimes hanging in the pump flow) is usually the primary symptoms for Amyloodinium (velvet). I can't rule out ich in this case - ich spots can be a few large spots or many small ones, depending on how the infection progresses. In either case, coppersafe at 2.5 ppm in a hospital tank is the best treatment for that.

I'm interested in the sump running dry - when the suction side of a pump catches air, the pressure can create a supersaturation event. In severe cases, you can see actual air bubbles in the fins and in the gills (tough to see that in a a live fish though). Cloudy skin and rapid breathing is a common symptom of supersaturation though. Large fish swimming in open water get hit the worst by this. Smaller fish, that can hide, or swim near the bottom are less effected (the supersaturation in the water is not continuous throughout the water column.

This is very interesting to me, as all of my other fish are fine. I have a dozen blue-green chromis, a pair of clowns, a yellowtail tamarin wrasse, a royal pencil wrasse, a Formosa wrasse and a melanarus wrasse that are all displaying zero signs of infection.

My thoughts on approach to this would be to put in a fish trap and try to catch an “infected” fish with as little stress as possible and if I can, do a gill scraping with a slide and examine under a microscope. I have bookmarked a humble fish article with videos of the major parasites under different levels of magnification. If I identify a parasite, proceed with treatment?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

This is very interesting to me, as all of my other fish are fine. I have a dozen blue-green chromis, a pair of clowns, a yellowtail tamarin wrasse, a royal pencil wrasse, a Formosa wrasse and a melanarus wrasse that are all displaying zero signs of infection.

My thoughts on approach to this would be to put in a fish trap and try to catch an “infected” fish with as little stress as possible and if I can, do a gill scraping with a slide and examine under a microscope. I have bookmarked a humble fish article with videos of the major parasites under different levels of magnification. If I identify a parasite, proceed with treatment?

A skin and gill clip (if done carefully!) can show external protozoan parasites. If you can get a video during the clip I can help you identify the organism.

 

[LikeRichMahogany]

I’m not very comfortable with doing a gill clipping without anesthesia, but I plan to do the skin scrape however I have a hard time getting a video with my microscope because my phone switches between cameras.

I watched a few videos on the subject and know to look for movement and it’s important to analyze the scrape quickly because movement ceases with relative speed