shkeats
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- Joined
- Dec 18, 2024
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Hello all,
My tailspot blenny is very unwell with a swollen abdomen and I wanted to check in to see if I'm missing anything obvious or if anything can be done to help. I appreciate the answer to that question may be no, but any expert advice would be appreciated. There's a bit of a story where I treated one set of symptoms (possibly to excess) and arrived at another. Pictures included throughout and I've attempted to attach a video of the fish struggling about trying to feed.
Some pictures of the tailspot when (at least to my amateur eyes) it was well/happy earlier in year:
Initial symptoms
- Flashing. (In retrospect this started ocassionally in late March but it took time for it to progress enough for me to be sure.)
Progressively worse from mid-late April:
- Eating little to nothing, this was a gradual reduction.
- Spitting food when it did try to eat.
- Rapid gills, this started later on.
- Lethargy.
- Faded/dull looking eyes.
Treatment
- I suspected flukes and tried to catch the fish several times to perform a fresh water dip to verify, but was unable to do so. (This definitely added stress and caused the fish to behave differently in my presence.)
From mid May:
- I purchased some API general cure and began to treat as instructed (half a pack as the recommended dose for my aquarium size), removing carbon and water changing as instructed.
- This showed promising signs of improvements after the recommended two treatments and the fish began to eat again and showed fewer signs of irratition without ever completely resolving.
- I noticed immediately after adding the treatment a small white patch appearing behind the gills, this seemed to be continous and not a collection of small dots as with ich. This sort of faded white marking is still present across the body now.
- Each time after showing improvement with dosing, the fish would then slowly return to symptoms again and stop eating.
- I repeated this process 3 times, and then in a moment of potential madness added one final 'double' dose. which may have been a critical mistake. The fish reacted poorly to this immediately, with heavy breathing and lethargy, so I performed a 25% water change straight away and added carbon to try to offset.
Current symptoms
- Has a symetrically, quite severely distended abdomen. The fish when well fed and healthy did normally have a bit of a pot belly but this is markedly more extreme.
- Loss of weight in other areas of the body, ridges (bones?) visible through body and in tail.
- A faded white colouration on the surface of the skin, unsure if this is a loss of colour generally, skin irritation or parasite/infection.
- A prominent vein(?) / artery visible on one side of the abdomen.
- Has totally abandoned his normal cave in the rocks and now spends his time on top of the rock structure.
- After a long hunger strike, has begun eating again in the last 3-4 days, quite voraciously, seems particularly keen but also struggling to grab food from water column effectively.
- Has been producing a mixture of normal looking poo and also stringy white/empty ones. Some contain what looks like grit/sand from the subtrate.
Pictures of the fish now:
My tank:
I'm a new reefer with a small Fluval 5 gallon Evo tank, the tank was setup late last year and stocked in December.
I do weekly 25% water changes, I've only missed one delayed to about 10 days or so due to a holiday.
I run a two layer sponge (one slice of the stock fluval filter and one finer layer of biopad M). I run a small bag of fluval activated carbon (except when medicating). Both of these I change weekly.
I use distilled water from a reputable source mixed with aquaforest reef salt to about 34ppt.
I have an ATO that tops up the same distilled water.
Feeding:
I feed a mix of: supa algae wafers (fishmeal/spurilina etc.) [A favorite with the fish as they break down easily], Hakarri seaweed extreme, frozen mysis chopped down a bit, and mysis RS flake. I feed a larger amount of food once a day with ocassionall pinches of flake throughout when I'm there which is most days.
A break in normal routine.
I took a 10 day holiday in early April where my parents visited every other day and fed a slightly larger amount of a pre portioned mix of the various dried foods except mysis. No water change during this time, I did that on return, but they filled the ATO and changed the filter sponges once. I kept an eye on the tank with a webcam and all seemed well, apart from a slight build up in Algae and dirt in the tank that was probably proportional to the lack of water change.
Other inhabitants:
All doing well except Blenny. No other fish.
- 1 dwarf blue legged hermit
- 1 black legged hermit that started the same size and is now terrifyingly big.
- 1 turbo trochus snail.
Corals:
All doing well throughout this, aside from small short tem negative reaction during API General Cure dosing. (sliming etc.)
Kenya tree, GSP, Toadstool leather, 3 different mushrooms.
The fish and corals were all purchased in person from AAC who are a reputable here in the UK, I took advice on appropriate stocking and settled on just one fish.
Water tests
I've seen nothing of concern in my regular water tests, ammonia neglible, almost undetectable nitrate. Included are the my ICP test results from early May while the fish was symptomatic, which broadly match my own testing and didn't flag anything of particular concern to me.
Video of fish feeding:
Taken today
I've read https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/causes-of-abdominal-swelling-in-fishes.1098720/ and understand that some kind of organ failure is a likely explanation, which I suppose could be related to excessive dosing of API General Cure?
Probably unrelated but there has been a bit of an outburst of brownish flatworms on the glass of the tank in the past two months. I tend to clean them away with the scraper intermittently.
Any other theories from fish medics are welcomed and if there's anything I could or should try, e.g. treating for internal parasites please let me know. I don't have a hospital tank or quarantine option but I do have containers and a spare heater and pump that could be fashioned to some purpose to try a non reef-safe intervention. I suppose the return of appetite is a cause for some hope here but otherwise I understand this is not a promising symptom.
Thanks in advance for your time.
Regards,
Shaun
My tailspot blenny is very unwell with a swollen abdomen and I wanted to check in to see if I'm missing anything obvious or if anything can be done to help. I appreciate the answer to that question may be no, but any expert advice would be appreciated. There's a bit of a story where I treated one set of symptoms (possibly to excess) and arrived at another. Pictures included throughout and I've attempted to attach a video of the fish struggling about trying to feed.
Some pictures of the tailspot when (at least to my amateur eyes) it was well/happy earlier in year:
Initial symptoms
- Flashing. (In retrospect this started ocassionally in late March but it took time for it to progress enough for me to be sure.)
Progressively worse from mid-late April:
- Eating little to nothing, this was a gradual reduction.
- Spitting food when it did try to eat.
- Rapid gills, this started later on.
- Lethargy.
- Faded/dull looking eyes.
Treatment
- I suspected flukes and tried to catch the fish several times to perform a fresh water dip to verify, but was unable to do so. (This definitely added stress and caused the fish to behave differently in my presence.)
From mid May:
- I purchased some API general cure and began to treat as instructed (half a pack as the recommended dose for my aquarium size), removing carbon and water changing as instructed.
- This showed promising signs of improvements after the recommended two treatments and the fish began to eat again and showed fewer signs of irratition without ever completely resolving.
- I noticed immediately after adding the treatment a small white patch appearing behind the gills, this seemed to be continous and not a collection of small dots as with ich. This sort of faded white marking is still present across the body now.
- Each time after showing improvement with dosing, the fish would then slowly return to symptoms again and stop eating.
- I repeated this process 3 times, and then in a moment of potential madness added one final 'double' dose. which may have been a critical mistake. The fish reacted poorly to this immediately, with heavy breathing and lethargy, so I performed a 25% water change straight away and added carbon to try to offset.
Current symptoms
- Has a symetrically, quite severely distended abdomen. The fish when well fed and healthy did normally have a bit of a pot belly but this is markedly more extreme.
- Loss of weight in other areas of the body, ridges (bones?) visible through body and in tail.
- A faded white colouration on the surface of the skin, unsure if this is a loss of colour generally, skin irritation or parasite/infection.
- A prominent vein(?) / artery visible on one side of the abdomen.
- Has totally abandoned his normal cave in the rocks and now spends his time on top of the rock structure.
- After a long hunger strike, has begun eating again in the last 3-4 days, quite voraciously, seems particularly keen but also struggling to grab food from water column effectively.
- Has been producing a mixture of normal looking poo and also stringy white/empty ones. Some contain what looks like grit/sand from the subtrate.
Pictures of the fish now:
My tank:
I'm a new reefer with a small Fluval 5 gallon Evo tank, the tank was setup late last year and stocked in December.
I do weekly 25% water changes, I've only missed one delayed to about 10 days or so due to a holiday.
I run a two layer sponge (one slice of the stock fluval filter and one finer layer of biopad M). I run a small bag of fluval activated carbon (except when medicating). Both of these I change weekly.
I use distilled water from a reputable source mixed with aquaforest reef salt to about 34ppt.
I have an ATO that tops up the same distilled water.
Feeding:
I feed a mix of: supa algae wafers (fishmeal/spurilina etc.) [A favorite with the fish as they break down easily], Hakarri seaweed extreme, frozen mysis chopped down a bit, and mysis RS flake. I feed a larger amount of food once a day with ocassionall pinches of flake throughout when I'm there which is most days.
A break in normal routine.
I took a 10 day holiday in early April where my parents visited every other day and fed a slightly larger amount of a pre portioned mix of the various dried foods except mysis. No water change during this time, I did that on return, but they filled the ATO and changed the filter sponges once. I kept an eye on the tank with a webcam and all seemed well, apart from a slight build up in Algae and dirt in the tank that was probably proportional to the lack of water change.
Other inhabitants:
All doing well except Blenny. No other fish.
- 1 dwarf blue legged hermit
- 1 black legged hermit that started the same size and is now terrifyingly big.
- 1 turbo trochus snail.
Corals:
All doing well throughout this, aside from small short tem negative reaction during API General Cure dosing. (sliming etc.)
Kenya tree, GSP, Toadstool leather, 3 different mushrooms.
The fish and corals were all purchased in person from AAC who are a reputable here in the UK, I took advice on appropriate stocking and settled on just one fish.
Water tests
I've seen nothing of concern in my regular water tests, ammonia neglible, almost undetectable nitrate. Included are the my ICP test results from early May while the fish was symptomatic, which broadly match my own testing and didn't flag anything of particular concern to me.
Video of fish feeding:
Taken today
I've read https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/causes-of-abdominal-swelling-in-fishes.1098720/ and understand that some kind of organ failure is a likely explanation, which I suppose could be related to excessive dosing of API General Cure?
Probably unrelated but there has been a bit of an outburst of brownish flatworms on the glass of the tank in the past two months. I tend to clean them away with the scraper intermittently.
Any other theories from fish medics are welcomed and if there's anything I could or should try, e.g. treating for internal parasites please let me know. I don't have a hospital tank or quarantine option but I do have containers and a spare heater and pump that could be fashioned to some purpose to try a non reef-safe intervention. I suppose the return of appetite is a cause for some hope here but otherwise I understand this is not a promising symptom.
Thanks in advance for your time.
Regards,
Shaun
