New tilefish, new flukes?

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Today's update: I'm very happy with how the head wound continues to heal, with no signs of infection.

I'm seeing some gill redness/a red bump on one side of the larger tilefish. The other side is clear.

The eye is still healing as well, albeit slowly. I'm a bit unsure about the belly. It seems fuller than I normally remember seeing, even after a heavy feeding. I've seen some pairing behavior before separating them, so could it be that it's a female and gravid? Or just bloated? I really don't know. Still acting normal, eating, etc.

There are a variety of causes of abdominal swelling. You usually cannot tell the cause from how it looks. Here is a short article I posted on this:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/causes-of-abdominal-swelling-in-fishes.1098720/

 

[christinna77]

There are a variety of causes of abdominal swelling. You usually cannot tell the cause from how it looks. Here is a short article I posted on this:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/causes-of-abdominal-swelling-in-fishes.1098720/

Thank you for the link. I read through it.

1. Overfeeding - I don't think it's an issue. I've been feeding frozen food only with no excess air, and he's not swimming head down. It's also not been sudden.
2. Intestinal blockage - possible. I'd be surprised if he was constipated, though. I've been feeding spirulina brine, LRS, mysis, etc.
3. Swelling from unreleased eggs - the gradual onset could fit.
4. Edema - possible since we went with hyposalinity. I don't see the other eye protruding or any raised scales though.
5. Ascites - possibly? I'm not sure how liver disease would happen. I've been extremely careful with dosing any meds.
6. Tumors - it's symmetrical, so I think we can rule that one out.
7. Internal parasites - I think I'd have noticed the swelling much sooner. It's been around 6 weeks since I brought them home.

Anyway, I'll keep monitoring it.

 

[christinna77]

Here we are today. The eye is still very slowly clearing up. Breathing seems back to normal for both tilefish. They're both eating and coming out regularly to hover at the front of the tank and chill. I don't see any more flashing or head twitching either.

The belly is still swollen, but I wouldn't say it got any worse.

Tomorrow it'll be 10 days since dosing NFG. The recommended course is 10-14 days, but I think he's recovering really well, so I'm going to take him off after 10 days so I can reestablish the biofilter.

Here's some pictures of the belly, as well as a video:

 

[winxp_man]

Is the poop normal? Maybe some mysis to get poop moving out if that’s what it is. Had one of my tanks during QT only eat pellets so his/her stomach bulged out a bit. I changed it to Mysis and seems to have cleared up. Keep an eye on it. Otherwise looks to be on the road to recover with the eye. What a road trip this was.

 

[christinna77]

Is the poop normal? Maybe some mysis to get poop moving out if that’s what it is. Had one of my tanks during QT only eat pellets so his/her stomach bulged out a bit. I changed it to Mysis and seems to have cleared up. Keep an eye on it. Otherwise looks to be on the road to recover with the eye. What a road trip this was.

Thank you. I'll have to watch for poop and report back.
I feed spirulina brine, mysis, plankton and LRS Reef Frenzy mix, so it shouldn't be food related, but maybe I'll up the brine.

And yeah! Very happy with the progress so far. I had tears in my eyes watching the larger one try to eat but missing because he couldn't see. I had to keep blowing food right next to him, and wait for him to finally vacuum it up. He's been such a fighter. I really hope he'll fully recover. I learned so much too since I've never done hypo before.

Anyway, this is my last time I'm buying fish from this LFS. Don't get me wrong, they're really great and I could spend hours there just chatting with the owner, but.... I've gotten 3 batches from them and every single time they either had flukes or ich. Or some kind of untreatable fungal disease (rip butterfly).

 

[christinna77]

Update: Both are doing great today! I did notice a bit of a bacterial bloom, but yesterday was the last day of NFG, so today I'm doing another very large WC, adding carbon, and tomorrow hopefully re-establishing the biofilter (I've got some pre-seeded sponges ready in my DT, as well as a bottle of bacteria).

The larger tilefish's belly is still somewhat swollen, but it's definitely not getting any worse, so I'm not super concerned about it.

Here's some pictures and a video from today:

 

[christinna77]

Just a quick update today.

Both tilefish are doing well. Yesterday, I removed the divider and they've been reunited, since it was getting challenging to maintain the tank with it in place and they could both use some more swimming space.

I'll keep monitoring them for any signs of aggressive pairing behavior from the bolder smaller tilefish, but so far they've been living in harmony.

I'll be posting less frequent updates from now on, unless anything changes with their condition while they're in hypo.

Thank you everyone for your advice and for following along so far, especially @Jay Hemdal.

 

[christinna77]

Here we are today. They're both swimming around, breathing normally and eating aggressively.

I've seen one or two prolonged yawns and a few very minor infrequent twitches from the larger tilefish, but it's a night and day difference from before hypo. I'm guessing they might still be a little itchy from the fluke hooks or maybe the bubbles getting to them, since I've got four airstones running.

I definitely don't see any aggressive twitching or flashing anymore.

The larger tilefish's eye is also still healing. The area right above its eye still seems to have a lighter color, but I don't see any redness. I'm not sure if I should be worried about it. I've stopped all medications and I'm only running hypo now.

Here's a video from today's feeding:

 

[larrysaltisfun]

Abdomen is not really swollen IMO They look great , TFM, ( Tile fish mom)

 

[winxp_man]

Fish are looking good for sure. Glad to hear and see the road to recovery going well for you!

I have not gone back to read when you started hypo. So going to ask is your time almost up?

Also are you doing any selcon or vitachem to their food as additional supplements?

 

[christinna77]

Fish are looking good for sure. Glad to hear and see the road to recovery going well for you!

I have not gone back to read when you started hypo. So going to ask is your time almost up?

Also are you doing any selcon or vitachem to their food as additional supplements?

Thank you. Hypo started on June 19. I'll unfortunately have to cut it short and start ramping the salinity back up by July 10 at the latest, since I'm traveling for work on July 19-25 and don't want them in hypo while I'm not home. I'll have an experienced SW guy come check on them every day, but still.

If I have to restart hypo after I get home, that's fine. I just don't want them in hypo while I'm not around.

And yeah, I'm using Selcon and I'm also feeding a mix of LRS Reef Frenzy, spirulina brine, mysis and plankton, so they should be getting all the nutrition they need.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thank you. Hypo started on June 19. I'll unfortunately have to cut it short and start ramping the salinity back up by July 10 at the latest, since I'm traveling for work on July 19-25 and don't want them in hypo while I'm not home. I'll have an experienced SW guy come check on them every day, but still.

If I have to restart hypo after I get home, that's fine. I just don't want them in hypo while I'm not around.

And yeah, I'm using Selcon and I'm also feeding a mix of LRS Reef Frenzy, spirulina brine, mysis and plankton, so they should be getting all the nutrition they need.

That’s cutting it close, but an expert on Neo says the life cycle can be broken in around 21 to 23 days of 1.012 hypo. I use 30 days because people often get confused about not including the time it takes to go in and out of hypo, and as a margin of safety.

 

[christinna77]

That’s cutting it close, but an expert on Neo says the life cycle can be broken in around 21 to 23 days of 1.012 hypo. I use 30 days because people often get confused about not including the time it takes to go in and out of hypo, and as a margin of safety.

Thanks, Jay. Yeah, I'm definitely accounting for the ramp down and ramp up, I only started counting once we hit 1.012. It's been hovering around 1.010 to 1.011, just to make sure we never go over 1.012. I'd much prefer to go longer, but I really don't have a choice since I have to take this work trip and nobody else will be home.

 

[christinna77]

So unfortunately, I don't have a good update I noticed the larger tilefish started getting somewhat lethargic over the last two days, which I attributed to a possible stress from hypo, but today he barely ate and seemed to get much worse over the last 12 hours.

He's having a really hard time swimming normally. One minute he'll swim fine around the tank for a bit, then the next he looks really tired and starts swimming tail up and tilting. It's like he doesn't have enough energy.

I also noticed the smaller tilefish started nipping at him again. I've been watching them them a hawk and replaying the camera footage every day and I never saw any bullying until today. I wonder if perhaps something happened last night, because today the larger tilefish suddenly looked much worse. The smaller one is still very active, eating, breathing normally etc., so I don't think it's a water quality issue (ammonia 0.5, pH 7.8, salinity 1.010-11).

I separated them again, but I don't know if he's going to make it overnight. I feel like the smaller tilefish might've been slowly wearing him down behind the scenes or at night, where even the cameras couldn't see. Yesterday he was still eating, although a bit slower, and today he's just looking awful.

I feel really guilty for removing the barrier. I never saw any signs until today. They were always both out and eating happily together. I guess the lesson is that even fish as peaceful as tilefish can bully each other in ways that are really hard to notice.

This is from today, first video shows the nipping, second video shows the larger tilefish swimming with his tail up.

 

[christinna77]

Update: He's still alive, but he's very positively buoyant now and swimming vertical and tail up, unless he spends a lot of energy. I put some PVC pipes in so he can anchor himself better, since he keeps trying to wedge himself into places to sleep at night. Not sure what else to do though.

 

[christinna77]

Here we are this morning. Considering ending hypo 2 days earlier and slowly raising salinity if that's something that could help.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Update: He's still alive, but he's very positively buoyant now and swimming vertical and tail up, unless he spends a lot of energy. I put some PVC pipes in so he can anchor himself better, since he keeps trying to wedge himself into places to sleep at night. Not sure what else to do though.

You know - I just saw a random video yesterday of a group of tilefish in a dealer's tank - they were all feeding from the surface. You want to avoid that with these fish, they are not well adapted to avoiding swallowing air bubbles when they feed like that (since in the wild, they never really see the air/water interface, not like freshwater fish do). Are you sure it never fed from the surface?

 

[christinna77]

You know - I just saw a random video yesterday of a group of tilefish in a dealer's tank - they were all feeding from the surface. You want to avoid that with these fish, they are not well adapted to avoiding swallowing air bubbles when they feed like that (since in the wild, they never really see the air/water interface, not like freshwater fish do). Are you sure it never fed from the surface?

Thanks for that. I've heard of that happening with other fish too, and I know it's not really ideal for any deep water species.

He definitely never fed from the surface as I use a feeding tube to disperse frozen food directly into the water column. But I did see him yawning/opening his mouth in the airstone stream several times, so it's possible he swallowed some of the bubbles coming out of it. I'm still not sure why he sometimes does that...

 

[christinna77]

Just a quick update: He's alive and trying to eat, but it's still challenging because he's still very buoyant. I also think his injured eye makes him miss his food about 50% of the time. I wonder, if he ends up losing the eye, can he still live a normal life? Will he be able to eventually adapt?

Anyway, I built several platforms like this so he can move around the tank without constantly floating to the surface. It really seemed to help and he doesn't look as exhausted anymore.

Both tilefish have been reacting well to the salinity increase too. We're at 1.017 now, and I haven't seen any signs of distress from either of them.

 

[winxp_man]

Just a quick update: He's alive and trying to eat, but it's still challenging because he's still very buoyant. I also think his injured eye makes him miss his food about 50% of the time. I wonder, if he ends up losing the eye, can he still live a normal life? Will he be able to eventually adapt?

Anyway, I built several platforms like this so he can move around the tank without constantly floating to the surface. It really seemed to help and he doesn't look as exhausted anymore.

Both tilefish have been reacting well to the salinity increase too. We're at 1.017 now, and I haven't seen any signs of distress from either of them.

Yes they can make do without an eye. It will be tough in a tank that possibly has more tank mates, but they can make it.