Purple Tilefish Help

[FrankenTank]

I’m very worried about my purple tilefish and could use some advice. I’ve had her about 4 months, and she has been great. She’s comfortable in the tank, and not too shy. She’s has generally hangs out higher than in the water column but not necessarily with her head out of the water. She has been living in a burrow on the right side of my tank with my pistol shrimp, govt never paired back up when I moved to the bigger tank. She can be a vivacious eater and had rich colors. I noticed about a week and a half ago a small abrasion near her tail, but thought she might have scraped herself on the rock work. I had added and change up some rock work with some new additions. I also noticed she looked a bit “limp”. Then a couple days later I saw she had some raised “blisters”, not white or red spots, just what can best be described as body colored blisters and she was swimming a bit odd. A little more erratic, and darty. I wanted to post earlier but getting a picture or video has been almost impossible, until today. She is and continues to eat, there is no one bullying her or being aggressive. It’s a 6ft, 210 display with plenty of rock work. She has switched to the left side of the tank, but she not has two different burrows and a cave that she goes in between. I’m just concerned with her colors and the blisters which are still there and that sorta limpness. I do have a QT but I have no clue how I would ever get her out of this tank. Unless this is something that we think needs to be treated in copper. I have tried feeding Dr. G’s with praziquintal and I soaked the food in seacheam metroplex and focus. Any idea what this is and how to treat?

 

[FrankenTank]

Here is some more pictures of her, you can see that abrasion on her pretty good in some of these. She is pretty camera shy and darts quickly.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Here is some more pictures of her, you can see that abrasion on her pretty good in some of these. She is pretty camera shy and darts quickly.

This may be due to itching/scratching from flukes which they are prone to. Have you noticed heavy breathing, sudden darting or scratching by this fish?

 

[Fish Fan]

I'm sorry to see your fish in distress!

@christinna77 is very good with these fish, maybe she would have some additional insight here.

Good luck!

 

[FrankenTank]

Here is some more pictures of her, you can see that abrasion on her pretty good in some of these. She is pretty camera shy and darts quickly.

This may be due to itching/scratching from flukes which they are prone to. Have you noticed heavy breathing, sudden darting or scratching by this fish?

It does seem like her odd swimming could be itching. Although I haven’t seen her rubbing on rocks or swimming into the powerheads. It’s those raised blisters that have me perplexed but thinking it’s something internal. That’s why I tried feeding prazi and metro, but honestly it was a shot in the dark guess.

 

[FrankenTank]

I'm sorry to see your fish in distress!

@christinna77 is very good with these fish, maybe she would have some additional insight here.

Good luck!

Thanks, I’m really hoping to find out what I’m up against and how to try and work through it from the great knowledge bank here

 

[christinna77]

I had added and change up some rock work with some new additions.

I'm curious, what were the new additions, and were they all quarantined?

Tilefish are very sensitive to changes around their burrows and rockwork. Mine gets visibly annoyed when a snail or something blocks one of his cave entrances. They're also sensitive to any new fish that may be semi aggressive. Even when those fish don't chase them directly, they can still get stressed from any secondary aggression.

So the fact that she moved to the other side of the tank also makes me think something may be bullying her, even if you haven't witnessed it.

Watching the video, the way she's skimming the surface and poking her head out has been normal behavior for my skunk tilefish for about a year now, although in her case it somewhat looks more 'desperate'. I never figured out why they do that and think it may just be a weird quirk of theirs, as I've now seen 3 different tilefish in my care do that. The only one that did not was my yellow tilefish.

That said, the injury on her head is concerning. My purple tilefish had something similar when he had Neobenedenia flukes and was flashing against the sand bed. He usually flashed inside his cave, so I couldn't really see it happening. His partner, another purple tilefish, was also nipping at his head at the same time. I now think it may have been because his fluke infestation was more severe and the other fish saw him as weak.

That aggression was also very hard to catch. I only noticed it after going through hours and hours of camera footage.

So, imo, there are two possibilities. Either she has flukes and has been scratching herself out of sight, or another fish is bullying her. Toward the end of the video, there's a very obvious head twitch, which makes me believe it's flukes...

Now, how to catch her... I've found tilefish to be naturally very curious. Whenever I put a large acclimation box in my tank, my skunk is always the first one to swim inside and explore it, I don't even have to feed him anything. Last time it only took him about an hour to go in.

I'd try using the acclimation box and a FW dip to see if anything comes off her. All my tilefish handled FW dips very well, but keep in mind they are extremely jumpy. I usually cover the black container with a black net so they don't hurt themselves trying to jump out against a solid lid, while still allowing me to see them.

I follow Jay's article about FW dips: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/freshwater-dips.968263/

As far as I know, Prazi should be dosed into the water column, not added to food, when treating possible external parasites like flukes. Mine were very stubborn and only cleared up with hyposalinity...

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I’m very worried about my purple tilefish and could use some advice. I’ve had her about 4 months, and she has been great. She’s comfortable in the tank, and not too shy. She’s has generally hangs out higher than in the water column but not necessarily with her head out of the water. She has been living in a burrow on the right side of my tank with my pistol shrimp, govt never paired back up when I moved to the bigger tank. She can be a vivacious eater and had rich colors. I noticed about a week and a half ago a small abrasion near her tail, but thought she might have scraped herself on the rock work. I had added and change up some rock work with some new additions. I also noticed she looked a bit “limp”. Then a couple days later I saw she had some raised “blisters”, not white or red spots, just what can best be described as body colored blisters and she was swimming a bit odd. A little more erratic, and darty. I wanted to post earlier but getting a picture or video has been almost impossible, until today. She is and continues to eat, there is no one bullying her or being aggressive. It’s a 6ft, 210 display with plenty of rock work. She has switched to the left side of the tank, but she not has two different burrows and a cave that she goes in between. I’m just concerned with her colors and the blisters which are still there and that sorta limpness. I do have a QT but I have no clue how I would ever get her out of this tank. Unless this is something that we think needs to be treated in copper. I have tried feeding Dr. G’s with praziquintal and I soaked the food in seacheam metroplex and focus. Any idea what this is and how to treat?

This looks like either damage from multiple strikes against surfaces of the tank (possibly by being attacked by another fish and darting away?) or Neobenedenia flukes.

Oral praziquantel can work against flukes, but the dose must be calculated carefully - the dose for Neobenedenia is 100 mg per kg of fish mass daily for three days. That is REALLY difficult to calculate on a small fish like this.

Dosing the whole tank is easier:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dosing-praziquantel-pzq.1105700/

That said, prazi sometimes fails to stop Neobenedenia infections because they have really tough eggs. As mentioned, hyposalinity works better (but cannot be done in a tank with corals and invertebrates of course, while prazi can).