Treating Uronema

[Reefahholic]

Just want to say that Uronema has been tuff everytime I run into it. This time around it's proven to be resistant to 60mg of Chloroquine Phosphate. I was shocked that it had no affect. This was pharmaceutical grade straight from the pharmacy. I also did 3x 50 minute dips with Formalin MS 37% without success. The fish were also on a prophylactic antibiotic treatment with Metronidazole, Furan- 2, and Kanaplex without success against Uronema. I am now trying to treat with Arciflavine MS. If this medication is unsuccessful I'll try Copper as a last resort. I've lost two clowns so far and now 1 yellow tang that was very healthy and fat from the beginning. It looked like he got the life sucked right out of him. Dropped a tremendous amount of weight in very short time. Never quit eating though and didn't show much sign of the disease other than some red tinting under the skin and in the fins. Found him stuck to the filter yesterday. It's funny that out of all the research I've done...nobody seems to know how to treat it. It definitely prays on the weak. It has periods where it stops the attack I guess because the fish are not weak and able to tolerate. This makes it hard to treat or understand because it's there and then it's gone. Well not really gone, but not attacking the fish.

 

[SoreninKL]

Just want to say that Uronema has been tuff everytime I run into it. This time around it's proven to be resistant to 60mg of Chloroquine Phosphate. I was shocked that it had no affect. This was pharmaceutical grade straight from the pharmacy. I also did 3x 50 minute dips with Formalin MS 37% without success. The fish were also on a prophylactic antibiotic treatment with Metronidazole, Furan- 2, and Kanaplex without success against Uronema. I am now trying to treat with Arciflavine MS. If this medication is unsuccessful I'll try Copper as a last resort. I've lost two clowns so far and now 1 yellow tang that was very healthy and fat from the beginning. It looked like he got the life sucked right out of him. Dropped a tremendous amount of weight in very short time. Never quit eating though and didn't show much sign of the disease other than some red tinting under the skin and in the fins. Found him stuck to the filter yesterday. It's funny that out of all the research I've done...nobody seems to know how to treat it. It definitely prays on the weak. It has periods where it stops the attack I guess because the fish are not weak and able to tolerate. This makes it hard to treat or understand because it's there and then it's gone. Well not really gone, but not attacking the fish.

hi,
how did you diagnose uronema in your c I'm asking because I have maroon with similar/same symptoms. at first they ate well but then one stopped eating and started breathing heavily. first thoughts were on external parasites. now I have one left and the fish stopped eating 2 days ago and started to stay ar the bottom of the qt.
I did a freshwater dip yesterday and didn't see anything white inside the bucket, that rules out flukes I guess.

i treat with ick shield powder since 19th March and still seeing this symptoms coming up......

have a look at the link it is actually about seahorses and uronema but maybe we can adapt some of the treatments.

http://www.rasoc.org/forums/printthread.php?&t=2720

thanks for sharing this, it's an eye opener for me, and good luck with your fishes

cheers

 

[Humblefish]

One tricky thing about uronema is that fish can be internally infected with it. If a chromis is getting skinny and no white stringy poop is seen, odds are uronema is "eating up" his insides.

Since medication dosed into water probably doesn't help much with internal diseases, your only hope is to soak the fish food with metronidazole.

 

[SoreninKL]

One tricky thing about uronema is that fish can be internally infected with it. If a chromis is getting skinny and no white stringy poop is seen, odds are uronema is "eating up" his insides.

Since medication dosed into water probably doesn't help much with internal diseases, your only hope is to soak the fish food with metronidazole.

I found a oral liquid metronidazole suspension and tube feed (her/him) with that medication 50mg/kg.
I cut the tube of a butterfly needle and inserted the tube into the mouth. the procedure went well and smooth.

for the first treatment I had to measure the weight and adjust the dosage accordingly.
so, given the fish survive the next 72 hours I'll do a second treatment.

do you mind having a close look at the pic? I can't see anything wrong with the fish....

thanks [emoji4]

 

[Humblefish]

@SoreninKL I don't see any visible symptoms on the fish. Do you suspect uronema or brook?

 

[SoreninKL]

@SoreninKL I don't see any visible symptoms on the fish. Do you suspect uronema or brook?

after reading this thread I thought of uronema. but of course I could be terribly wrong. I'm feeding ocean nutrition f1 and the poop usually looks reddish with that food, that's why my logic rules out internal parasite [emoji15]

 

[Reefahholic]

One tricky thing about uronema is that fish can be internally infected with it. If a chromis is getting skinny and no white stringy poop is seen, odds are uronema is "eating up" his insides.

Since medication dosed into water probably doesn't help much with internal diseases, your only hope is to soak the fish food with metronidazole.

That's pretty much what happened to that yellow tang. He was fat and healthy since the beginning and then rapidly declined to his death. Literally the life seemed to be sucked right out of him.

 

[Reefahholic]

Update:

I treated the fish with one dose that was recommended on the bottle. Didn't re-dose or change the water during that 3 days. Tonight I did 100% water change and bleached the tank. I did a 5 min FW dip before they went into the tank. Then I dosed 30 drops per 15/G of Formalin.

Observations:

Fish seemed to be a lot more active. Tolerated well. Hopefully they are cured. The treatment appeared to work well.

 

[Humblefish]

Formalin is awesome stuff ... I just wish it wasn't a carcinogen.

 

[Reefahholic]

Formalin is awesome stuff ... I just wish it wasn't a carcinogen.

Formalin works well on some fish, but it didn't seem to work for Uronema. I noticed a lot more positive response with Acriflavine. The fish were a lot more active, eating more, and just overall seemed to be doing better.

The only thing I didn't like about Acriflavine was that it clouded my water. After 3 days I couldn't observe the fish anymore which is why I did a water change last night, FW dip, and dosed Formalin.

Another thing I disliked was it stained my hands. It also stained the white part on my Clown slightly. I'm sure it will go away but it's kinda annoying. Let me do a after Acriflavine video, so you guys can see that I still have the 3 fish left. I only lost the yellow tang at the beginning of treatment. The last 3 have survived for 3 days and that tells me that the medication did have an affect. Can't say it was affective yet, but it did seem to help them a lot.

 

[Reefahholic]

 

[SoreninKL]

Another thing I disliked was it stained my hands. It also stained the white part on my Clown slightly. I'm sure it will go away but it's kinda annoying.

I guess you should invest in disposable latex gloves. they come in handy for all cleaning purposes, chlorox and other nasty stuffs. cutting meats, lubricate bicycle chain, applying hot rubs on sore shoulders and so on. just buy those without any powder [emoji2]

cheers

 

[Reefahholic]

I guess you should invest in disposable latex gloves. they come in handy for all cleaning purposes, chlorox and other nasty stuffs. cutting meats, lubricate bicycle chain, applying hot rubs on sore shoulders and so on. just buy those without any powder [emoji2]

cheers

I have a bunch, but didn't realize it would stain my hands. For me...the visibility was the biggest issue.

 

[Reefahholic]

 

[SoreninKL]

@SoreninKL I don't see any visible symptoms on the fish. Do you suspect uronema or brook?

@Humblefish

now I'm totally puzzled as the fish has a kinda odd shape now. its looks like swollen right after the head and before the first white marking. further, this morning I discovered some white stuff which is not poop, it doesn't look like to me and the fish have not eaten for week.

I would be glad if you have a look at the pics.

thanks

 

[SoreninKL]

I siphon it out

 

[Humblefish]

@SoreninKL That doesn't look like anything that would come out of or off of a fish. My initial thought was "flatworms" aka red planaria. Do they break apart or remain solid when you handle them?

 

[Reefahholic]

What in the world are those red things? Lol

 

[SoreninKL]

@SoreninKL That doesn't look like anything that would come out of or off of a fish. My initial thought was "flatworms" aka red planaria. Do they break apart or remain solid when you handle them?

sorry my explanation wasn't to the dot. I was referring to the white stuff. the red stuff are food pellets.... [emoji15]

it doesn't look like ordinary white poop to me, that's why I was asking, sorry again for the lousy explanation [emoji15] [emoji15]

 

[SoreninKL]

What in the world are those red things? Lol

ocean nutrition f1 pellets [emoji15] [emoji15]