RedSeareefkeeper
Community Member
Hello,
My Orchid dottyback has a slightly emaciated stomach and black lumps on it
The lumps aren't very well pronounced in the image but are present irl, they appeared today. I bought him two days ago, due to a few errors on my part and being short on time I ended up putting him in my display tank, luckily he is the only inhabitant except a skunk cleaner shrimp who went in first some time back, the store where I bought him had a salinity of 1.015, I only knew this too late and the poor thing was subjected to a 11 point salinity rise over a period of about 2 hours due to my incompetence, he showed no immediate signs of illness during purchase or after being put in the tank except being a touch thin and having a small faint black line (not a dot, and also it appeared to be below the skin not on top) on right, slightly above and behind his plectoral fins. I looked for any information about such a symptom and came up empty and thought that the slight emaciated was due to being in a small tank with a dozen other orchid dottybacks outcompeteing him for food. Fast forward Two days and besides the lightly more emaciated appearance and the aforementioned lumps, the following has happened: the faint black line has disappeared being replaced by the recent lumps, the fish is rather time never leaving his territory which consists of a few tunnels and arches that are about half the tank, acting as if afraid of a predator that isn't there, and he only eats a few pieces of mysis out of a whole cube, most he seems either too mortified to swum out and grab while with what little comes his way he disregards if it is too small or if he is distracted by something else.
What could this be? Although they seem to me internal could this be some kind of fluke? The lumps are black and don't look like most photos of flukes I have seen, and why would they cause a loss of appetite?
Is there any specific internal affliction that shows up as black lumps on a fish's stomach alongside the usual emaciation and lack of appetite?
In terms of treatments at my disposal at the moment I have a 5 gallon tank and cycled biomedia that I can use to set up a qt, I currently have some api general cure available, problem is I need to first know should I dose it based on the praziquantel dosing regime or the metronidazole one depending on is this a protozoan or a worm type thing. Any advice? Fish meds for internal parasites are very hard to come by where I live so I don't want to misuse the general cure only to then have none available for days or weeks while the poor guy is being eaten from the inside out.
Thanks.
My Orchid dottyback has a slightly emaciated stomach and black lumps on it
The lumps aren't very well pronounced in the image but are present irl, they appeared today. I bought him two days ago, due to a few errors on my part and being short on time I ended up putting him in my display tank, luckily he is the only inhabitant except a skunk cleaner shrimp who went in first some time back, the store where I bought him had a salinity of 1.015, I only knew this too late and the poor thing was subjected to a 11 point salinity rise over a period of about 2 hours due to my incompetence, he showed no immediate signs of illness during purchase or after being put in the tank except being a touch thin and having a small faint black line (not a dot, and also it appeared to be below the skin not on top) on right, slightly above and behind his plectoral fins. I looked for any information about such a symptom and came up empty and thought that the slight emaciated was due to being in a small tank with a dozen other orchid dottybacks outcompeteing him for food. Fast forward Two days and besides the lightly more emaciated appearance and the aforementioned lumps, the following has happened: the faint black line has disappeared being replaced by the recent lumps, the fish is rather time never leaving his territory which consists of a few tunnels and arches that are about half the tank, acting as if afraid of a predator that isn't there, and he only eats a few pieces of mysis out of a whole cube, most he seems either too mortified to swum out and grab while with what little comes his way he disregards if it is too small or if he is distracted by something else.
What could this be? Although they seem to me internal could this be some kind of fluke? The lumps are black and don't look like most photos of flukes I have seen, and why would they cause a loss of appetite?
Is there any specific internal affliction that shows up as black lumps on a fish's stomach alongside the usual emaciation and lack of appetite?
In terms of treatments at my disposal at the moment I have a 5 gallon tank and cycled biomedia that I can use to set up a qt, I currently have some api general cure available, problem is I need to first know should I dose it based on the praziquantel dosing regime or the metronidazole one depending on is this a protozoan or a worm type thing. Any advice? Fish meds for internal parasites are very hard to come by where I live so I don't want to misuse the general cure only to then have none available for days or weeks while the poor guy is being eaten from the inside out.
Thanks.
