Please help ID this parasite

[Rae567]

I'm looking for help identifying the parasite on my Canthigaster punctatisima and some treatment advice, or does anyone have a referal for a vet who will do a remote consult?

The puffer arrived with the parasite and has been in quarantine for 2 months now, and I still don't know how to help him.

I'm assuming it is a crustacean because it appears hard, but I have not been able to ID it. It has not changed or moved since arrival (7/31). There is only one that I have seen, there haven't been any new parasites observed in the tank, on the puffer or the Centropyge flavicauda (very dark blue dwarf angelfish) that arrived in the same shipment. The angel was removed about a week ago from the QT. I moved it to my 40g FOWLR after a freshwater dip.


The puffer was quite emaciated when it arrived and wouldn't eat for about the first week. I have not had luck with treating puffers in the past, so initially I was just doing full water changes every 2-3 days to try limit any more parasites in the tank and focused on getting the puffer over the stress of collection/shipping and eating well. I have been researching, trying to figure out what the parasite is and what treatments the puffer might tolerate.


After about a month, I tried adding a cleaner wrasse to the QT, he tried a few times to remove the parasite, which seemed quite firmly attached, before giving up.

4 days ago I tried a 0.5 ml/gallon formalin dip (suggested by the place I purchased the puffer from). It was well aerated and temp controlled (5 gallons of treatment water in a 10 gallon aquarium). He is so conditioned to handling from all the QT tank cleaning that he will just cooperate and calmly swim into a transfer cup at this point, so he was not stressed going into the treatment tank and just swam around picking at the heater etc, until he reached his toxicity threshold around 12-13 mins and I had to pull him. He lost equilibrium, eyes dialated, and changed to stress colors. He responded well in the recovery bath and has been steadily improving since. The formalin dip had no visible impact on the parasite.


If you can provide an id and/or treatment suggestion for the puffer I would greatly appreciate it. He seems to be thriving despite the parasite. I just see him flash occasionally. I'm wondering if this is a parasite that can complete it's lifecycle and reproduce in a closed system, or if the puffer is better off just living with the parasite instead of attempting more stressful treatments.



Thank you

 

[vetteguy53081]

I'm looking for help identifying the parasite on my Canthigaster punctatisima and some treatment advice, or does anyone have a referal for a vet who will do a remote consult?

The puffer arrived with the parasite and has been in quarantine for 2 months now, and I still don't know how to help him.

I'm assuming it is a crustacean because it appears hard, but I have not been able to ID it. It has not changed or moved since arrival (7/31). There is only one that I have seen, there haven't been any new parasites observed in the tank, on the puffer or the Centropyge flavicauda (very dark blue dwarf angelfish) that arrived in the same shipment. The angel was removed about a week ago from the QT. I moved it to my 40g FOWLR after a freshwater dip.


The puffer was quite emaciated when it arrived and wouldn't eat for about the first week. I have not had luck with treating puffers in the past, so initially I was just doing full water changes every 2-3 days to try limit any more parasites in the tank and focused on getting the puffer over the stress of collection/shipping and eating well. I have been researching, trying to figure out what the parasite is and what treatments the puffer might tolerate.


After about a month, I tried adding a cleaner wrasse to the QT, he tried a few times to remove the parasite, which seemed quite firmly attached, before giving up.

4 days ago I tried a 0.5 ml/gallon formalin dip (suggested by the place I purchased the puffer from). It was well aerated and temp controlled (5 gallons of treatment water in a 10 gallon aquarium). He is so conditioned to handling from all the QT tank cleaning that he will just cooperate and calmly swim into a transfer cup at this point, so he was not stressed going into the treatment tank and just swam around picking at the heater etc, until he reached his toxicity threshold around 12-13 mins and I had to pull him. He lost equilibrium, eyes dialated, and changed to stress colors. He responded well in the recovery bath and has been steadily improving since. The formalin dip had no visible impact on the parasite.


If you can provide an id and/or treatment suggestion for the puffer I would greatly appreciate it. He seems to be thriving despite the parasite. I just see him flash occasionally. I'm wondering if this is a parasite that can complete it's lifecycle and reproduce in a closed system, or if the puffer is better off just living with the parasite instead of attempting more stressful treatments.



Thank you

The lighting is somewhat dark but appears as ich but before concluding as such, please provide a video under bright white light intensity to clearly see skin , breathing rate and overall fish. They can handle coppersafe or copper power safely at 2.25ppm. For reasons as you found out, I dont condone use of formalin which is risky to both fish and humans from atmospheric exposure to dosage error.
Cleaner wrasse will not control ich as they are often regarded to do and crustacean mentioned may be an isopod or worm but also needs to be identified under better light

 

[Rae567]

I'm looking for help identifying the parasite on my Canthigaster punctatisima and some treatment advice, or does anyone have a referal for a vet who will do a remote consult?

The puffer arrived with the parasite and has been in quarantine for 2 months now, and I still don't know how to help him.

I'm assuming it is a crustacean because it appears hard, but I have not been able to ID it. It has not changed or moved since arrival (7/31). There is only one that I have seen, there haven't been any new parasites observed in the tank, on the puffer or the Centropyge flavicauda (very dark blue dwarf angelfish) that arrived in the same shipment. The angel was removed about a week ago from the QT. I moved it to my 40g FOWLR after a freshwater dip.


The puffer was quite emaciated when it arrived and wouldn't eat for about the first week. I have not had luck with treating puffers in the past, so initially I was just doing full water changes every 2-3 days to try limit any more parasites in the tank and focused on getting the puffer over the stress of collection/shipping and eating well. I have been researching, trying to figure out what the parasite is and what treatments the puffer might tolerate.


After about a month, I tried adding a cleaner wrasse to the QT, he tried a few times to remove the parasite, which seemed quite firmly attached, before giving up.

4 days ago I tried a 0.5 ml/gallon formalin dip (suggested by the place I purchased the puffer from). It was well aerated and temp controlled (5 gallons of treatment water in a 10 gallon aquarium). He is so conditioned to handling from all the QT tank cleaning that he will just cooperate and calmly swim into a transfer cup at this point, so he was not stressed going into the treatment tank and just swam around picking at the heater etc, until he reached his toxicity threshold around 12-13 mins and I had to pull him. He lost equilibrium, eyes dialated, and changed to stress colors. He responded well in the recovery bath and has been steadily improving since. The formalin dip had no visible impact on the parasite.


If you can provide an id and/or treatment suggestion for the puffer I would greatly appreciate it. He seems to be thriving despite the parasite. I just see him flash occasionally. I'm wondering if this is a parasite that can complete it's lifecycle and reproduce in a closed system, or if the puffer is better off just living with the parasite instead of attempting more stressful treatments.



Thank you

The lighting is somewhat dark but appears as ich but before concluding as such, please provide a video under bright white light intensity to clearly see skin , breathing rate and overall fish. They can handle coppersafe or copper power safely at 2.25ppm. For reasons as you found out, I dont condone use of formalin which is risky to both fish and humans from atmospheric exposure to dosage error.
Cleaner wrasse will not control ich as they are often regarded to do and crustacean mentioned may be an isopod or worm but also needs to be identified under better light

The puffer does not have ich.
There is one single parasite that is circled in one photo (the best pic I have of this thing) and indicated with arrows on a couple others. It is grey at the attachment site with a couple sets of appendages (??) and then has an iridescent hard shaft that trails away from the attachment site. I'm assuming it is a copepod, but I have not found anything similar to make a positive ID.

I was advised formalin by the place I got the puffer from, and that seemed my best bet for a treatment the puffer could tolerate. I don't believe there is a treatment for puffers that doesn't also come with a high chance of mortality.

I can assure you, you will not see the parasite in a video. It is terrible to try and photograph, it definitely isn't showing up in a video, and I don't need an assessment of his resperatory rate or the rest of his body. I have hundreds of photos of this thing, most of it is irridescent, so it's blown out and basically invisible in the photos taken under bright lights. I have tried different cameras, settings, lenses and lighting. I included the bright closeup and the images where you can best see where the parasite is on the body, how it is attached and hangs off of him.

I tried the cleaner wrasse because they do sometimes remove parasites from fish (it did try, and I'm not trying to treat ich). it was the option that was least likely to harm the puffer, because I don't want to use harsh chemicals if I don't have ... which is another reason I'm trying my best to id the actually species so that I can know if there is a risk of this thing reproducing in a closed system, or if the puffer is better off just living with it and I can go ahead and transfer him out of quarantine.