Difficult decision. I think once it appears listless in the water you may want to consider that.
Tilefish ich or sand?
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Update: The butterfly just passed. I held him one last time and told him it was okay to go. He passed within the hour.
Picture taken just before passing:
Post mortem pictures:
Any further diagnostic insights, @Jay Hemdal, that could help my tilefish in the same QT tank? It’s been in a full 2.2–2.4 ppm copper for two days now, and it’s still very active and eating without any symptoms similar to the butterfly.
Picture taken just before passing:
Post mortem pictures:
Any further diagnostic insights, @Jay Hemdal, that could help my tilefish in the same QT tank? It’s been in a full 2.2–2.4 ppm copper for two days now, and it’s still very active and eating without any symptoms similar to the butterfly.
Jay Hemdal
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Update: The butterfly just passed. I held him one last time and told him it was okay to go. He passed within the hour.
Picture taken just before passing:
Post mortem pictures:
Any further diagnostic insights, @Jay Hemdal, that could help my tilefish in the same QT tank? It’s been in a full 2.2–2.4 ppm copper for two days now, and it’s still very active and eating without any symptoms similar to the butterfly.
Sorry to hear.
It's too late now, but giving a deceased fish a FW dip can help diagnose if the fish had Neobenedenia (the fluke that is common with this species). Trouble is, that has to be done within an hour or so of death.
OP
OP
Update:
It's been one week at 2.2 copper. I just saw the tilefish flash today - it did it 1-2 times each time right after/during feeding only, not at any other time. It flashed against the sand, not the decorations.
Not sure if it's related, but I've noticed it hunting the sand lately - could it be trying to disturb it with its body? I've only ever seen other tilefish blowing at the sand, not rubbing against it like this.
I also noticed tiny speckles on it again, but because of the flashing I can't tell if it's ich or just sand.
So my question is: what's going on? Is it still a reaction to ich? I did two rounds of GC when I first got it (before copper), so I don't think it's flukes. It's still eating and acting normally otherwise, aside from the flashing after/during feedings. Could it be the copper irritating its gills? So confused!
It's been one week at 2.2 copper. I just saw the tilefish flash today - it did it 1-2 times each time right after/during feeding only, not at any other time. It flashed against the sand, not the decorations.
Not sure if it's related, but I've noticed it hunting the sand lately - could it be trying to disturb it with its body? I've only ever seen other tilefish blowing at the sand, not rubbing against it like this.
I also noticed tiny speckles on it again, but because of the flashing I can't tell if it's ich or just sand.
So my question is: what's going on? Is it still a reaction to ich? I did two rounds of GC when I first got it (before copper), so I don't think it's flukes. It's still eating and acting normally otherwise, aside from the flashing after/during feedings. Could it be the copper irritating its gills? So confused!
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OP
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One more thing, I noticed it yawning a few times too:
Charles2465
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Hi there I'm not too much of an expert, but I'd say the yawning isn't too much of a worry it's normal for a fish to do it once in a while. If it is excessive it can be a problem. I just did a treatment with copper pipes. People reccomend against the old school method but I've kept using it because it has always worked for me. My flasher wrasse (species sensitive to copper) at one stage was yawning excessively as if it was trying to spit something out and proceeded to hide and hyperventilate, had to put him in qt that had no copper. Thats what too much copper would look like. The scraping might just be him getting over the ich.
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Two rounds of prazi doesn’t always control flukes, I typically go with at least 3. Did you see my article on dosing prazi?
Dosing Praziquantel (PZQ)
Using Praziquantel (PZQ) to treat flukes Overview In the early 1990’s, a researcher at the New York Aquarium published a paper on using Praziquantel (PZQ) to help control flukes, a parasitic flatworm. Also known as monogenean trematodes, these fish parasites can cause significant mortality in...
www.reef2reef.com
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Thank you, that makes sense. I just woke up and noticed even more white dots on the tilefish. I'm really confused about how they were able to attach again if I've been maintaining 2.0+ copper for the past week.
Two rounds of prazi doesn’t always control flukes, I typically go with at least 3. Did you see my article on dosing prazi?
Dosing Praziquantel (PZQ)
Using Praziquantel (PZQ) to treat flukes Overview In the early 1990’s, a researcher at the New York Aquarium published a paper on using Praziquantel (PZQ) to help control flukes, a parasitic flatworm. Also known as monogenean trematodes, these fish parasites can cause significant mortality in...
Could all these symptoms still be just ich reaction, or does it most likely have flukes too - should I start dosing GC? I'm worried about combining it with copper (I do have lots of aeration).
I considered a fw dip to confirm, but this fish stresses really easily whenever I need to capture it, as well as tries to jump out the entire time, so that'd be the last resort only.
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Don't do a diagnostic FW dip unless you have a microscope, as about 75% of the flukes on marine fish are too small to see without one.
Running coppersafe/copper power along with GC can be done, but there will be more stress than seen in running just one at a time. Of course, when you aren't sure of which medication to use first, running both at once is less of a problem than choosing the wrong one would be.
OP
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Update: I did a WC and administered GC yesterday (1.3 packets for a 15-gallon QT AIO). I tried to wait two more days, but I still saw the tilefish flashing, so I decided to go ahead and combine GC with copper.
For the first 6-8h the tilefish was fine, but now about 12h later I found it completely freaking out, trying to jump out and breathing fast. It can't be due to low oxygen, since there are two airstones and plenty of surface agitation. Could the flukes falling off its gills be what's agitating it? I've no idea what to do or how to help it :(
Jay Hemdal
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It could be from the flukes dropping off or a combination of the GC and copper. Looks like your ammonia badge is at zero/low so it isn’t that.
Be aware that in REALLY severe fluke infections, when prazi knocks all of the flukes off, the fish can bleed out from all the open holes that were left. No way around that though.
OP
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Thank you. Hopefully this isn't the case.
I just noticed the fish is now swimming directly above the airstone. Perhaps the bubbles are helping massage the wounds from the flukes? Can't figure out why else it'd be doing that, unless there's really not enough oxygen.
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I'm wondering if I should continue with the GC when the tilefish is struggling so much, and whether doing WC to dilute it would help, or if I should wait some more.
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It is trying to get more oxygen, but those bubbles are going to produce as much oxygen as the water can really hold, so turning the air up won’t help much.
Warmer water holds less oxygen - 75 to 79 degrees f would be best.
Sorry - I wish there was more advice I could give you.
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I'll turn up the AC some more, temp is around 78 now. I can't thank you enough for taking your time to respond.
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78 degrees is fine, don’t drop below 75, that can also stress the fish.
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Ok, I set it to 76. Would you recommend a WC if it doesn't improve? I don't know how much longer the tilefish can keep this up, it's been swimming like this for the past 2h, not taking any breaks.
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Update: It looks like it calmed down a bit and it's resting now. I still see it yawning and also noticed it twitching, hoping that's a good sign.
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Another update for anyone following this thread:
The tilefish started eating again. Still looks quite uncomfortable, but it's recovering. I'm very hesitant to do another dose in 5 days after seeing its reaction today, especially since I already did two rounds when I picked it up from LFS 2 weeks ago.
I might just transfer it to DT the next weekend, which would be around 18 days in copper, as I really think the stress is getting to it.
The tilefish started eating again. Still looks quite uncomfortable, but it's recovering. I'm very hesitant to do another dose in 5 days after seeing its reaction today, especially since I already did two rounds when I picked it up from LFS 2 weeks ago.
I might just transfer it to DT the next weekend, which would be around 18 days in copper, as I really think the stress is getting to it.
OP
OP
Did about 70% WC today, and it helped a lot. The tilefish seems much calmer and is back to begging for food. I can't imagine feeding it only once a day - it has such a high metabolism and is always on the move, always looking for more food. Now that it's on all the medications and copper, I feed it every few hours, and that really seems to help.
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