Looking for opinions or personal experiences

[Euphyllia97]

Hello guys!

So here is my story in short. 4 months ago I have had a case of marine velvet or severe ich in my Fowlr tank. I have lost 5 out of 10 fish and managed to get all the other through a copper treatment of 30 days followed by a 3 week observation. In the meantime my tank ran fallow at 81F for 80 days.

All fish went through the treatment without much problems. They were introduced to the main tank and are healthy and happy with no signs of disease for about 2 months now.

The only exception is my blue tang. She developed a mucus plug on her body. Her tailfin and dorsal fin was looking damaged. She was only about 2inches at that time and in the QT with 1 other clownfish. After seeking help on r2r everything pointed out to or agression from the clown or bacterial infection. (Looking back it was probably the clown).

I separated them and treated them using kanaplex to treat possible bacterial infection and to physically separate them.

They both looked fine a couple of days after removal of the kanaplex and both were moved to the display.

Now the real problem begins.

Introducing the tang she immediately went to the sandbed and turned out she had some swim bladder issue. More specific negatively buoyant. Her tail was angled up (about 45 degrees) and she was lethargic. I gave her time and only fed her nori, which she picked a little bit after 3 days. She wasn’t able to swim forward or come of the sand for even a millimeter. As I was expecting a digestive problem due to using anti-bacterials I was hoping to see improvement fast.

Fast-forwarding to today (she has been struggling for 5 weeks). I have seen her hovering, attempting to go mid-level a couple of times, picking rocks, eating and acting much better than she was during week 1 and 2. She looks fairly happy… but she still doesn’t swim. Her posture has improved a lot, and she is able to hover when she wants to (however it might her be compensating as she is always using her fins) I’m sure her buoyancy has improved a lot since the beginning of this.

This week, I noticed that she hasn’t been improving and she has been attempting her open swims less . Now… I caught my clowns in the act of being agressive towards her. Clowns have been removed and they are now temporarily in the sump until the tang is able to take care of herself.

Anybody who has had a negatively buoyant tang that had chronic problems? Any other suggestions that you guys have to help my tang recover? If she doesn’t recover fully due to her swim bladder being permanently damaged, will her swimming ever improve or are these cases always stuck to the bottom of the tank?

Actions taken:

- Clowns in sump (her only tankmate now is a leopard wrasse)
- Low flow
- Reduced light schedule

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello guys!

So here is my story in short. 4 months ago I have had a case of marine velvet or severe ich in my Fowlr tank. I have lost 5 out of 10 fish and managed to get all the other through a copper treatment of 30 days followed by a 3 week observation. In the meantime my tank ran fallow at 81F for 80 days.

All fish went through the treatment without much problems. They were introduced to the main tank and are healthy and happy with no signs of disease for about 2 months now.

The only exception is my blue tang. She developed a mucus plug on her body. Her tailfin and dorsal fin was looking damaged. She was only about 2inches at that time and in the QT with 1 other clownfish. After seeking help on r2r everything pointed out to or agression from the clown or bacterial infection. (Looking back it was probably the clown).

I separated them and treated them using kanaplex to treat possible bacterial infection and to physically separate them.

They both looked fine a couple of days after removal of the kanaplex and both were moved to the display.

Now the real problem begins.

Introducing the tang she immediately went to the sandbed and turned out she had some swim bladder issue. More specific negatively buoyant. Her tail was angled up (about 45 degrees) and she was lethargic. I gave her time and only fed her nori, which she picked a little bit after 3 days. She wasn’t able to swim forward or come of the sand for even a millimeter. As I was expecting a digestive problem due to using anti-bacterials I was hoping to see improvement fast.

Fast-forwarding to today (she has been struggling for 5 weeks). I have seen her hovering, attempting to go mid-level a couple of times, picking rocks, eating and acting much better than she was during week 1 and 2. She looks fairly happy… but she still doesn’t swim. Her posture has improved a lot, and she is able to hover when she wants to (however it might her be compensating as she is always using her fins) I’m sure her buoyancy has improved a lot since the beginning of this.

This week, I noticed that she hasn’t been improving and she has been attempting her open swims less . Now… I caught my clowns in the act of being agressive towards her. Clowns have been removed and they are now temporarily in the sump until the tang is able to take care of herself.

Anybody who has had a negatively buoyant tang that had chronic problems? Any other suggestions that you guys have to help my tang recover? If she doesn’t recover fully due to her swim bladder being permanently damaged, will her swimming ever improve or are these cases always stuck to the bottom of the tank?

Actions taken:

- Clowns in sump (her only tankmate now is a leopard wrasse)
- Low flow
- Reduced light schedule

Hepatus and powder blue susceptible to skin irritations and not always is ich present
At times you can observe while coppersafe will address it

 

[Euphyllia97]

Hepatus and powder blue susceptible to skin irritations and not always is ich present
At times you can observe while coppersafe will address it

She definitely had ich. But was successfully treated for that, more concerned with her recovery of the swimbladder. No signs of external parasites on the fish since copper treatment. (Free of symptoms for about 3/4 months in total now)

 

[MnFish1]

Sometimes fish swim like that when threatened - i.e. head down. The fact that you stated that she immediately changed when being put back in the tank suggests injury or a marked difference in specific gravity. Any injured fish is more likely to be 'picked on' so separating them is a good idea. As far as how long swim bladder issues can take (if this is a swim bladder issue) to resolve some never resolve. some in a couple days. As to treating the mucus plug if you're sure that you treated the fish with the proper protocol with proper copper levels I would watch for any other signs of Ich. If you don't see any - I would just watch it for now.

By the way the initial disease was likely ich as compared to velvet. If you saw spots on your fish. Velvet usually causes breathing difficulty in Marine fish as compared to freshwater. Though you can sometimes see the 'velvet sheen' in advanced cases. Lets see if @Jay Hemdal has anything to add

 

[Jay Hemdal]

A video would really help here.....

How long did you dose the Kanaplex for? Did you deviate from their treatment instructions at all?

 

[Euphyllia97]

A video would really help here.....

How long did you dose the Kanaplex for? Did you deviate from their treatment instructions at all?

I have used it as per instruction. Every 48 hours dosing , 3 times.

Eyes are clear, breathing is calm when she is resting and slightly elevated when she is swimming (looks like she needs quite some effort to do so). She doesn’t look bloated and her body/belly is symmetric.

To my feeling as you can see on video 1 her buoyancy or compensation…
improved compared to week 1 where she couldn’t get of the sand at all.

Video: One of the few attempts I have seen her doing to “swim in the open”. This was about 2 weeks ago.

Video 2: How she is behaving most of the time. (On sandbed or hovering slightly but dropping down when she stops putting in effort)

3 videos

 

[Euphyllia97]

Sometimes fish swim like that when threatened - i.e. head down. The fact that you stated that she immediately changed when being put back in the tank suggests injury or a marked difference in specific gravity. Any injured fish is more likely to be 'picked on' so separating them is a good idea. As far as how long swim bladder issues can take (if this is a swim bladder issue) to resolve some never resolve. some in a couple days. As to treating the mucus plug if you're sure that you treated the fish with the proper protocol with proper copper levels I would watch for any other signs of Ich. If you don't see any - I would just watch it for now.

By the way the initial disease was likely ich as compared to velvet. If you saw spots on your fish. Velvet usually causes breathing difficulty in Marine fish as compared to freshwater. Though you can sometimes see the 'velvet sheen' in advanced cases. Lets see if @Jay Hemdal has anything to add

Yeah exactly. I think the mucus plug was caused by a wound from the ich infestation or maybe a wound due to clownfish bite.

I also agree on ich instead of velvet. It looked like velvet on my clownfish that also passed away, but compared it with other clown cases.And I think it was a combination of fairly new immature tank and high stress due to the new environment that made the fish susceptible to ich. (I had a leopard wrasse in the tank without any symptom, so I think velvet was unlikely). Anyway… copper treatment and fallow should have taken care of that.

I have not seen signs of ich on any of my fish anymore for 3 months. Given that my blue tang definitely is stressed, I would have assumed if ich was still a factor to have seen some visible symptoms by now. (No scratching, flashing or white spots)

As far as the posture, it was very clear that it was not only behavioural in the sense of going tail up due to feeling threatened. Of course might have been a combination, but something physical was definitely going on here aswell. (Have kept 2 other blue tangs for years in another system)

I was actually planning to treat prazipro in the display tank (no corals or feather dusters) as soon as all my planned livestock was in the tank. All new additions go in a qt with 30 days of copper and 3 weeks of observation after. So they have been qt’d for most likely diseases except for flukes or black ich.

What are your thoughts on maybe flukes/gill flukes playing a role here and delaying any improvement in energy/muscle power?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yeah exactly. I think the mucus plug was caused by a wound from the ich infestation or maybe a wound due to clownfish bite.

I also agree on ich instead of velvet. It looked like velvet on my clownfish that also passed away, but compared it with other clown cases.And I think it was a combination of fairly new immature tank and high stress due to the new environment that made the fish susceptible to ich. (I had a leopard wrasse in the tank without any symptom, so I think velvet was unlikely). Anyway… copper treatment and fallow should have taken care of that.

I have not seen signs of ich on any of my fish anymore for 3 months. Given that my blue tang definitely is stressed, I would have assumed if ich was still a factor to have seen some visible symptoms by now. (No scratching, flashing or white spots)

As far as the posture, it was very clear that it was not only behavioural in the sense of going tail up due to feeling threatened. Of course might have been a combination, but something physical was definitely going on here aswell. (Have kept 2 other blue tangs for years in another system)

I was actually planning to treat prazipro in the display tank (no corals or feather dusters) as soon as all my planned livestock was in the tank. All new additions go in a qt with 30 days of copper and 3 weeks of observation after. So they have been qt’d for most likely diseases except for flukes or black ich.

What are your thoughts on maybe flukes/gill flukes playing a role here and delaying any improvement in energy/muscle power?

In reviewing the history and the videos, I think you're correct - this is a negative buoyancy issue. I was suspecting the Kanaplex as that can be nephrotoxic, which in turn might cause body fluid issues. However, you dosed it correctly, so I'd rule that out.

If it is some damage to the swim bladder, there is no treatment for that other than supportive care (as you have been).

I really do not see any signs of flukes here.

 

[Euphyllia97]

In reviewing the history and the videos, I think you're correct - this is a negative buoyancy issue. I was suspecting the Kanaplex as that can be nephrotoxic, which in turn might cause body fluid issues. However, you dosed it correctly, so I'd rule that out.

If it is some damage to the swim bladder, there is no treatment for that other than supportive care (as you have been).

I really do not see any signs of flukes here.

Have you seen cases of negatively buoyant fish that turned close to normal after months? Or do you think the fact I’m seeing a recovery plateau points to her reaching final “compensation”?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Have you seen cases of negatively buoyant fish that turned close to normal after months? Or do you think the fact I’m seeing a recovery plateau points to her reaching final “compensation”?

I don't recall seeing fish recover well from this, but many learn to compensate.

Most (all?) of the negatively buoyant fish that I see are captive raised fish that have a swim bladder developmental problem. Do you know, was your tang wild caught or captive raised?

 

[Euphyllia97]

I don't recall seeing fish recover well from this, but many learn to compensate.

Most (all?) of the negatively buoyant fish that I see are captive raised fish that have a swim bladder developmental problem. Do you know, was your tang wild caught or captive raised?

So I guess time will tell then… Wanted to confirm if I have done everything which is in my power, or that I was completely wrong and overlooking something with my diagnose. She is a wild caught hepatus :)

 

[Euphyllia97]

Update:

For the people struggling with this negative buoyancy problem. As I have noticed that not a lot of info is available on this type of problem. I will post some updates regarding the recovery of my blue tang.

So we just entered week 8 after she was introduced in the main tank and I have noticed that the recovery is progressing in steps and not linear. I saw no improvement over a period of 2 weeks (week 5 - 7) and accepted the fact that she would stay on the sandbed for 95% of her life.

As I have seen a couple of moments of good buoyancy (using fins, but definitely not dropping like a rock) I started to look into the fact that a big part of the problem might also be behavioural. The blue tang became comfortable in her usual safe spot in low flow and easy to grab dinner.

So, I turned on my red sea reefwave 45 and disturbed her normal pattern by introducing my quarantined fish who were waiting to be transferred from QT to DT. Since 3 days she has been practicing swims in the mid-level of the water. Clearly she still drops when she stops swimming, but not violently. The swimming is controlled, but only around 20 seconds at most.

- In general she is resting a lot less.
- First 6 weeks she was resting a lot on her side or against rocks, she never had issues to get back up
- Shows more interest during feeding times
- More interaction with other fish (Even territorial behaviour)

Looks like recovery is still ongoing or she has started to compensate well for her buoyancy issue. Maybe she has to get back into “normal” behaviour and use of the muscles.

I am wondering if her growing will make it easier for her as she becomes stronger, or if it gets worse because she will be heavier…