is this normal for a fish in copper treatment?

[BilboB]

The first 2 mornings of treatment the fish appears to be shedding... is this the dead parasites and cysts, or could it be the fish's slime coat?

 

[vetteguy53081]

The first 2 mornings of treatment the fish appears to be shedding... is this the dead parasites and cysts, or could it be the fish's slime coat?

This is either bacterial and/or flukes. What copper level are you running and were you treating for ich or precautionary?
Coppersafe or cupramine?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

The first 2 mornings of treatment the fish appears to be shedding... is this the dead parasites and cysts, or could it be the fish's slime coat?

Are you treating for ich? This may be “stale ich”, it looks different than when the fish first start to show spots. Coppersafe can take up to 5 days to really start working.

 

[BilboB]

I'm using 2.2 ppm Copper Power to treat for ich - this fish is from the 125g fish + inverts tank I mentioned last week. While I was (and still am) considering doing the 30-day hyposalinity treatment (removing the inverts first), the clown trigger - with the most cysts - stopped eating. I moved it to a 10g non-conditioned tank and started copper. Then the next day I found my saddleback butterfly lying on the sand in my DT, breathing heavily. I moved it in with the clown trigger but it died overnight. The clown trigger is OK but I'm worried about that stuff that's sloughing off.

In the last few days, ich cysts have appeared on my lunare wrasse and hawkfish in my DT. Strangely, the sailfin tang still looks fine. I was hoping all the fish would overcome the ich but OK but I guess I need to start the hyposalinity treatment.

 

[BilboB]

I just realized - my UV has been off for about a week. One of my anemones was getting dangerously close to the intake for the pump... I'll turn it back on.

Someone suggested I dose formalin with the copper, in case the clown trigger has brooklynella, but I'm worried about adding a 3rd insult to the parasite and copper.

 

[winxp_man]

Had this happened to a maroon clown. It was not brook. Ended up being bacterial. If the fish was infested with ich, the mucus layer has weaknesses. So bacterial issues can set in.

At that time though it was brook from a quick glance, so I did a Ruby rally pro bath. 3ml RRP per gal of SW. 90 min. Ruby has some antibacterial attributes. This is what I did but it was bacterial upon closer inspection. It helped the maroon though. And it made a good recovery. She was invested with ich, and I let that QT tank slip a bit too long without a WC. I think about a week. And it was when she developed that issues.

Can you post more details about the QT tank, how long it’d been running, WC schedule, and how is the fish? Breathing level, eating, and so on.

 

[BilboB]

Had this happened to a maroon clown. It was not brook. Ended up being bacterial. If the fish was infested with ich, the mucus layer has weaknesses. So bacterial issues can set in.

At that time though it was brook from a quick glance, so I did a Ruby rally pro bath. 3ml RRP per gal of SW. 90 min. Ruby has some antibacterial attributes. This is what I did but it was bacterial upon closer inspection. It helped the maroon though. And it made a good recovery. She was invested with ich, and I let that QT tank slip a bit too long without a WC. I think about a week. And it was when she developed that issues.

Can you post more details about the QT tank, how long it’d been running, WC schedule, and how is the fish? Breathing level, eating, and so on.

It's a 10-gallon tank, not running prior to use. I added water, copper and the fish Tuesday, then did a full water+copper change both Wednesday and today (Thursday) due to ammonia. I didn't try feeding it until today, and it readily ate the piece of shrimp I gave it. But it's just hovering, not swimming around.

I have nitrofurazone - I'll add that to the QT.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I'm using 2.2 ppm Copper Power to treat for ich - this fish is from the 125g fish + inverts tank I mentioned last week. While I was (and still am) considering doing the 30-day hyposalinity treatment (removing the inverts first), the clown trigger - with the most cysts - stopped eating. I moved it to a 10g non-conditioned tank and started copper. Then the next day I found my saddleback butterfly lying on the sand in my DT, breathing heavily. I moved it in with the clown trigger but it died overnight. The clown trigger is OK but I'm worried about that stuff that's sloughing off.

In the last few days, ich cysts have appeared on my lunare wrasse and hawkfish in my DT. Strangely, the sailfin tang still looks fine. I was hoping all the fish would overcome the ich but OK but I guess I need to start the hyposalinity treatment.

So, the trigger was in copper less than 48 hours? This looks like severe, uncontrolled ich to me. Copper doesn't always work fast enough to save fish from severe infections (the five days I mentioned). There could also be a secondary bacterial infection going on....

How does it look this morning?

 

[BilboB]

So, the trigger was in copper less than 48 hours? This looks like severe, uncontrolled ich to me. Copper doesn't always work fast enough to save fish from severe infections (the five days I mentioned). There could also be a secondary bacterial infection going on....

How does it look this morning?

It looks the same this morning (3rd morning) as it did the first two mornings. I started add nitrofurazone yesterday. The emperor angelfish in my DT (vid posted last week) stopped eating today, so I’m going to add it to the clown trigger in the QT after I change the water.

 

[BilboB]

I just moved the angel… splotches and breathing hard but no white spots.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I just moved the angel… splotches and breathing hard but no white spots.

That big splotch looks more bacterial to me. Also, emperor angels are really prone to flukes - have you ever done a FW dip on a fish before? That can help diagnose Neobenedenia flukes (the cloudy eyes are typical of that type of fluke).

 

[BilboB]

The nitrofurazone should help, if the fish has a bacterial infection. I've done freshwater dips before, though never on the emperor angel. I'll do one tomorrow. How long would you recommend?

 

[winxp_man]

The nitrofurazone should help, if the fish has a bacterial infection. I've done freshwater dips before, though never on the emperor angel. I'll do one tomorrow. How long would you recommend?

Get fresh RODI in a small black bucket if possible to see if anything drops off the fish during the dip. Bring the water up to the same temp at the tank the fish is currently in. Next get an aerator and get it bubbling in the bucket a good 20 min before putting the fish in the bucket. Last put fish in the bucket and set a timer for 5 min no longer.

This is the fresh water dip processes I run. And read it some years back I think form Jay.

 

[BilboB]

Get fresh RODI in a small black bucket if possible to see if anything drops off the fish during the dip. Bring the water up to the same temp at the tank the fish is currently in. Next get an aerator and get it bubbling in the bucket a good 20 min before putting the fish in the bucket. Last put fish in the bucket and set a timer for 5 min no longer.

This is the fresh water dip processes I run. And read it some years back I think form Jay.

Thanks. Jay has a procedure on this site. However, I'm a little nervous about doing a dip since the fish is already sick and hasn't eaten in 2 days. I also read that transferring the fish from freshwater back to saltwater is more harmful than the dip, so I may do a 1:1 bath after the dip.

 

[christinna77]

Thanks. Jay has a procedure on this site. However, I'm a little nervous about doing a dip since the fish is already sick and hasn't eaten in 2 days. I also read that transferring the fish from freshwater back to saltwater is more harmful than the dip, so I may do a 1:1 bath after the dip.

You need to weigh the risks, because the longer you wait, the worse it might get if it's flukes. You could try a shorter FW dip (I use tap water and buffer pH with baked baking soda), just 3 minutes instead of 5, I believe that should be enough for some flukes to fall off for a diagnosis.

My tilefish had a fluke infestation for about a month without showing many symptoms. Then one day, one of them suddenly started getting worse by the minute. Not eating, lots of mucus on the head (to the point where I suspected brook), one cloudy eye, and heavy breathing. A FW dip saved him. More than 20 flukes dropped off and it bought me enough time to start hyposalinity. He was a bit tired after the dip, but started eating again the next day or so.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thanks. Jay has a procedure on this site. However, I'm a little nervous about doing a dip since the fish is already sick and hasn't eaten in 2 days. I also read that transferring the fish from freshwater back to saltwater is more harmful than the dip, so I may do a 1:1 bath after the dip.

There is a risk in doing a FW dip on a heavily parasitized fish - when the flukes all drop off, the fish literally bleeds out from all the holes that remain. Trouble is, there is no way to treat flukes without causing them to all drop off. In another recent thread, I show this as an example why treating before the flush becomes clinically ill is important.

 

[BilboB]

The angelfish died overnight in the QT, but the clown trigger is alive with sloughed-off goo like the first 3 mornings. I put the angelfish in freshwater for 5 minutes but no flukes came off, so the fish likely died from a bacterial infection. I wish I’d started it on nitrofurazone when I first noted the splotches.

In my DT, turning on the UV has eliminated the ich spots on the wrasse and hawkish. However, my Niger trigger is lying on a rock, breathing hard, and my sailfin tang looks like this:

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

The angelfish died overnight in the QT, but the clown trigger is alive with sloughed-off goo like the first 3 mornings. I put the angelfish in freshwater for 5 minutes but no flukes came off, so the fish likely died from a bacterial infection. I wish I’d started it on nitrofurazone when I first noted the splotches.

In my DT, turning on the UV has eliminated the ich spots on the wrasse and hawkish. However, my Niger trigger is lying on a rock, breathing hard, and my sailfin tang looks like this:

Sorry to hear. The sailfin shows uncontrolled ich to me. Multiple infections are a huge issue though - the tang could be showing ich, but also have flukes at the same time. The worst situation is fish that have ich and velvet at the same time - but the tang doesn't seem to be breathing too fast, so I don't think that is it.

 

[winxp_man]

Yes that is ich on the tang. And a bad case of it.

I will try to get some pics, with how many fish I have QT’ed I lose track of pictures, but had an emperor that developed bacterial issues as a secondary infection because of ich sadly. Not uncommon to see it depending on water quality of the DT or QT tank the fish is in.


Is it possible to get a picture in a sharper image quality or video, and under bright white lights? That would be super helpful to us.

 

[BilboB]

I moved the Niger trigger to the QT, but it looks like he has little chance. I wasn’t able to move the sailfin tang - which had no spots yesterday - since it moves so fast. At least the clown trigger in QT looks better; it’s swimming now and chomps down on the shrimp I give it.