snapper: popeye + something else?

[fishnerd37]

Hi, I've been doing a lot of reading (there is so much great information here! Thank you all!), but my fish's current situation has me unsure of how to proceed with treatment. Sorry for the length-- just want to provide as much info as possible

Some background:
She's a snapper. Her only other tank mate is a turbo snail. Tank has a HOB filter. I caught her wild as a baby (<1 yr. This was legal; there are no state laws on snapper) and never quarantined. For the past few years, she had been living in bay water with bay sand, and was fed wild caught grass shrimp & stray bits of leftover filet meat with no problems. An occasional yawn or flash, but never often enough to cause any concern.
We moved recently (no more bay access) and she's now in mostly mixed water (though about 30% of her old tank's water was put into the "new" tank after the move). Her hidey decoration and a bag of biomedia were kept wet during the move. I put those into the new tank for a few days before re-introducing her. The tank hasn't seen any spikes since I set it up post-move. Hardness is a little high, but I used reef crystals instead of the regular marine salt, so that's expected. I am in the the process of building a tank stand for a bigger tank, so she doesn't have substrate right now (didn't want to disturb it to transfer it over). She has been in this post-move setup for a little over a month.
Since we moved, I've been feeding her flakes (garlic flakes, actually). It seemed like a chore for her to get the flakes given her mouth orientation and I wanted to make sure she had a full belly before I left for a 3-day camping trip, so I decided to buy fish from the grocery store to feed her. (Bad idea, I now realize.) I froze it & rinsed it before giving it to her, so I thought it would kill anything that could cause a problem. Apparently I was wrong. ...lesson learned.

Here's what's going on (photos below):
Day 1: About 7 days after feeding the fish, both eyes were a little bigger and a maybe little cloudy. She was still acting fine-- curious with a voracious appetite. (Note that I had gone back to flakes after I got back from my trip, so the issue shouldn't have been building from repeated feedings of contaminated food, just from that first feeding.)
Day 2: Eyes definitely cloudy, body dark, less interested in food. I thought it might be flukes or a bacterial infection. I did a 20% water change and ordered PraziPro (LFS was out).
Day 3: Reclusive. No interest in food. Remembered I had GC. Prazi still hadn't arrived by mid-afternoon, so I gave her the first dose of GC.
Day 4: A little wobbly with each flap of pectoral fin, spent most of her time hiding, though not in her usual spot.. she was closer to the filter outflow. Her back end hovers right on the bottom of the tank, but her head is up a little. Little white bits on the bottom of the tank, but I wasn't sure if they were new, so I siphoned everything up to see if more would appear.
Day 5 (today): She looks much worse, but did come over to see me, which is a behavioral improvement from yesterday. One eye is larger than it had been. The lighter parts on her face/head are, I think, a layer that's on top of her (rather than just a light coloration)-- this is also new. After cleaning the bottom of the tank, there are now little white bits that look soft. I can't tell whether the light colors on her body are regular pigment v. more "stuff" on top of her scales (she likes to mottle and stripe, and the lighter parts of her stripe patterns match the lighter parts in the photo).

Because of the grocery store fish food, I'm leaning strongly toward bacterial infection, but I don't want to treat for that and miss a different issue. Today's development makes me wonder about brook, but I've never dealt with that before, so don't want to misdiagnose and treat unnecessarily.
Questions:
- Am I correct that I shouldn't mix antibiotics with another form of treatment?
- Her next dose of GC should be this afternoon. Should I continue with that, or do a water change and switch to something else?

Any information/suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[fishnerd37]

I should also note that she hasn't eaten since Day 2, so I don't think the soft white bits on the bottom of the tank are poop.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The grocery store fish wouldn’t be an issue as long as it was good enough for human consumption (and the timing is wrong for that as well).
Have you tested the tank water for ammonia? If it was Brook, you would likely see clamped fins and rapid breathing. I would continue with the GC. If you try an antibiotic, you could use Maracyn 1 which is good for eye issues.
Jay

 

[fishnerd37]

Jay, thank you so much for your reply! That's good to know about the grocery store fish. I really thought that was the culprit, since it's the only recent change.

I don't have an ammonia test kit, but I have strips that tell me nitrate and nitrite. Nitrite has been 0. Nitrate was between 0 & 20 on Day 2, but went to (and has stayed at) 0 after a 20% water change. I'll pick up a better test kit today to confirm ammonia is 0.
Her breathing is a little more rapid than usual, but she's not gasping. I probably wouldn't have noticed without her other behavioral changes. Fins seem normal (pectoral & caudal are fully splayed), though dorsal has been a bit more down than usual. Pelvics are almost always tucked, so not the best indicator.

I'll continue GC and keep my fingers crossed. Thanks for the antibiotic recommendation, as well. My LFS is only open on weekends now, so from the nearby chain pet stores, my options seem to be Furan-2, Erythromycin, or Triple Sulfa.
Assuming I can match schedules, would it be irresponsible to try one of these before the GC treatment is done?

Also, because I've never used GC before-- I understand it will take a few days to see any noticeable changes. Of course everything is case-specific, but typically, would a fish get worse before it gets better? Or should symptom progression stop when treatment starts?

Thanks again for your advice! I've been trying to keep a calm and rational mind about this, but you know how parents of only children can get Hopefully my tough little monster can pull through

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yes, it is very common for fish to get worse (or even die!) during a treatment- it all has to do with how soon the issue was caught, and if the treatment is the right one (all we can really do is make our best informed guess as to treatments).

Erythromycin=Maracyn 1, so if you go that route, you can substitute.Jay

 

[fishnerd37]

Thanks. That's good to know for the future. She actually died yesterday afternoon, before I could give her the second dose of GC. I really thought she had another day before things got dire.

In case anyone with a similar issue is reading & wants more info: I put her in fresh water ~15 mins after she died and didn't see any flukes. There were tiny floaties in the water, but were too small for me to identify as anything.. may have just been from normal decomposition processes. I saved the water to look at under a microscope, but I don't have preservative beyond a refrigerator, so I'm not sure I'll get to look at it before any potential parasites are no longer identifiable. I'll update again if I'm able to see anything worth noting.