Redish Scales on Auriga Butterflyfish

[Habit-]

Hi

Today I noticed that my Auriga was laying on the sandbed and a died 30 minutes later, the fish looked fine a couple of hours earlier and did eat as normal.
As you can see he have redish scales, what could the reason be behind his death? What disease should I treat for before my other fish gets it?
Im relative new in the saltwater hobby and any help would be very helpfull.

Best regards
Habit-

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

I'm sorry to hear that about your butterflyfish. What other fish do you have in the tank? How long did you have the auriga? It could be a systemic bacterial infection, but I'm leaning towards it being a protozoan infection known as Uronema. Here is an excerpt that I wrote about this issue:

Uronema marinum (Red band disease)

Cause

Uronema is an elongate, oval, ciliated, motile protozoan, up to 40 um in length, that can become an opportunistic pathogen in marine aquariums. Because it is so generic-looking, identification in the field is always provisional. Most professional aquarists actually mean “Uronema-like” when they say “Uronema.”

Uronema infections have been seen in six families of fishes (in roughly descending order of frequency): Pomacentridae (damselfishes, specifically of the genus Chromis); Serranidae (subfamily Anthiinae the Anthias); Syngnathidae (seahorses and seadragons); Labridae (the wrasses); Chaetodontidae (the butterflyfishes); and, occasionally, Pomacanthidae (the angelfishes). There are, no doubt, other species of fish that can be infected.

Symptoms

This moderately common protozoan disease has symptoms that include the rapid development of a red mark in the hypodermis (fat and muscle) region of the fish, often following rows of scales so that the lesion is typically elongate and angled downward as it progresses front to back along the flank of the fish. Within a day or two of the development of the primary lesion, the fish will become lethargic and stop feeding and its respiration rate will increase. Scales above the lesion can be dislodged easily due to the massive trauma to the underlying tissue. Death follows rapidly, with few fish surviving beyond three days after the primary lesion develops.
Almost universally, aquarists who do not have access to a microscope will identify this disease as a “secondary bacterial infection resulting from some injury.” In fact, “capture damage” is often cited as the original cause due to the often-linear nature of the lesion, which looks much like a bruise from being hit with a net frame, for example. The rapid onset of the lesion (often many days after capture) and the fact that it develops internally and then erupts externally both point to another cause.


Treatment

A variety of treatments have been suggested for Uronema infections, but full control is rarely seen following most of these treatments. Part of the issue seems to be that Uronema is ubiquitous (naturally occurring in marine aquariums) and re-infection is commonplace.

Bath treatments may fail because the medication used does not target the intercellular protozoans, only those living externally on the skin of the fish. Copper treatments may reduce the numbers of these ciliates, but good control is not seen until ionic copper levels reach 0.23 ppm, and this is too close to the lethal limit for many species of fish. Formalin baths of various concentrations and durations have been proposed, but this treatment is also mostly effective against external protozoans.

The most commonly used treatment is chloroquine at 15 ppm for 30 days.

Jay

 

[Habit-]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

I'm sorry to hear that about your butterflyfish. What other fish do you have in the tank? How long did you have the auriga? It could be a systemic bacterial infection, but I'm leaning towards it being a protozoan infection known as Uronema. Here is an excerpt that I wrote about this issue:

Uronema marinum (Red band disease)

Cause

Uronema is an elongate, oval, ciliated, motile protozoan, up to 40 um in length, that can become an opportunistic pathogen in marine aquariums. Because it is so generic-looking, identification in the field is always provisional. Most professional aquarists actually mean “Uronema-like” when they say “Uronema.”

Uronema infections have been seen in six families of fishes (in roughly descending order of frequency): Pomacentridae (damselfishes, specifically of the genus Chromis); Serranidae (subfamily Anthiinae the Anthias); Syngnathidae (seahorses and seadragons); Labridae (the wrasses); Chaetodontidae (the butterflyfishes); and, occasionally, Pomacanthidae (the angelfishes). There are, no doubt, other species of fish that can be infected.

Symptoms

This moderately common protozoan disease has symptoms that include the rapid development of a red mark in the hypodermis (fat and muscle) region of the fish, often following rows of scales so that the lesion is typically elongate and angled downward as it progresses front to back along the flank of the fish. Within a day or two of the development of the primary lesion, the fish will become lethargic and stop feeding and its respiration rate will increase. Scales above the lesion can be dislodged easily due to the massive trauma to the underlying tissue. Death follows rapidly, with few fish surviving beyond three days after the primary lesion develops.
Almost universally, aquarists who do not have access to a microscope will identify this disease as a “secondary bacterial infection resulting from some injury.” In fact, “capture damage” is often cited as the original cause due to the often-linear nature of the lesion, which looks much like a bruise from being hit with a net frame, for example. The rapid onset of the lesion (often many days after capture) and the fact that it develops internally and then erupts externally both point to another cause.


Treatment

A variety of treatments have been suggested for Uronema infections, but full control is rarely seen following most of these treatments. Part of the issue seems to be that Uronema is ubiquitous (naturally occurring in marine aquariums) and re-infection is commonplace.

Bath treatments may fail because the medication used does not target the intercellular protozoans, only those living externally on the skin of the fish. Copper treatments may reduce the numbers of these ciliates, but good control is not seen until ionic copper levels reach 0.23 ppm, and this is too close to the lethal limit for many species of fish. Formalin baths of various concentrations and durations have been proposed, but this treatment is also mostly effective against external protozoans.

The most commonly used treatment is chloroquine at 15 ppm for 30 days.

Jay

Hi thank you very much for your answer.
Chloroquine is nothing I heard of before.
Where do you buy it?, is it available in most fish stores?

In the tank I have the following

1 Chaetodon lunula
2 Ocellaris Clownfish
1 Zebrasoma scopas
1 Brittle Starfish
2 cleaner shrimps and varius snails.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Chloroquine is difficult to find right now due to its misuse for treating Covid. Hopefully, none of your other fish will develop an issue- but watch the Chaetodon lunula closely. You wouldn’t be able to treat your tank with invertebrates present .
Jay