What’s on my Black Tang

[MrsBugmaster]

Need help with id as to what is on my black tang. He’s in QT and been through CP /General Cure treatment for 2 weeks then transferred to clean sterile qt. Has had two prazi pro treatments all in last 6 weeks. Today I see these sting looking things on the fish. One is above eye and 3 on tail. Caught fish and tried to remove it to look at under microscope. Using tweezers I was able to pull off a few pieces of the string. See photos below

My husband who is a scientist, but not in marine stuff thought it looked like some kind of a flagellate Anyone have any ideas? The fish also keeps twitching.

 

[Big G]

Some sort of Roundworm, perhaps. Treat with Formalin:

Formalin

FORMALIN Formalin (37% formaldehyde) What It Treats – Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium), Brooklynella, Uronema, Flukes (Monogeneans), Black Ich (Turbellarians). How To Treat – In order for Formalin to be fully effective, the product you are using should contain 37% formaldehyde. At present...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[MrsBugmaster]

@Humblefish , @HotRocks, @4FordFamily
Still having this problem.
I treated as some kind of worm as suggested but with Dimlin X not formalin as I had it on hand. Again the tang looked good with no visible signs of anything on it. But the 3 neon bluestripe gobies are constantly cleaning the tang, which is what made me think something was not right. I did another peroxide dip and this is what I saw. After about 2 minutes or less in the dip, I started seeing these white spots and could see something dropping off and falling to the bottom of the container.

I looked at one under the microscope and again saw what looked like the same thing I saw the first time.

I plan to do the TTM Hybrid treatment now. As soon as I put the tang back in a clean qt tank it looked completely normal again. But this time I put the 3 gobies in another qt tank. Not sure what it is.

This is the tang back in qt tank after the peroxide dip. No spots or anything. (The spot you see on the dorsal fin are one the glass not the fish)

Any other ideas? Please help!

 

[4FordFamily]

Wow this is beyond my expertise, I am tagging @Humblefish also. I'd say perhaps peroxide treatments would be your best bet but he's in the weeds studying that, I have ZERO experience with it.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

@4FordFamily Thanks for the reply. Why is it I always seem to get these weird things!? lol

 

[Humblefish]

Probably nematodes which is just a fancy way of saying roundworms. Look here: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa091

Formalin is one treatment option, but fenbendazole or levamisole would be gentler on the fish.

 

[Humblefish]

So, Noga lists these treatment options:

1. Organophosphate bath
2. Fenbendazole, levamisole or piperazine
3. A commercial water-borne preparation containing trichlorphon and mebendazole

 

[Humblefish]

I personally would try Fenbendazole or Formalin.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

@Humblefish Thank you so much. I will get some Fenbendazole or Formalin.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

I personally would try Fenbendazole or Formalin.

So I was reading on Fenbendazole and it says it needs to be added to the food and eaten to work. Is this correct? Thanks

 

[Big G]

So I was reading on Fenbendazole and it says it needs to be added to the food and eaten to work. Is this correct? Thanks

from @Humblefish

Fenbendazole

** This information was originally posted here: https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/fenbendazole.18/ ** Fenbendazole (dewormer) What It Treats – Flukes (Monogeneans), and gastrointestinal parasites (worms). Particularly useful to treat strains of flukes & intestinal worms which are...

www.reef2reef.com

"Noga also discusses using fenbendazole to treat monogeneans (flukes) in his book Fish Disease: Diagnosis and Treatment 2nd Edition. He recommends a 12 hour bath treatment at 25 mg/L (95 mg/gallon). It would be advisable to transfer the fish into a sterile QT following the bath treatment (to prevent reinfection), and to perform a second bath + transfer 1 week later to eliminate any hatchlings. (Same as using praziquantel.)

At the time of this writing, it is still unclear just how “safe” prolonged immersion of fenbendazole is at 95 mg/gallon. Meaning, can it be used the same as praziquantel in a QT: Dosed once, and in 5-7 days perform a 25% water change and dose again (to eliminate eggs/hatchlings). The lower 7.6 mg/gallon dosage appears safe for in-tank use, but is that concentration strong enough to kill skin & gill flukes? One issue with fenbendazole is that it’s not easily water soluble, and turns the water cloudy/milky for at least 12 hours:"

 

[Pbh-reef]

Here’s a thread that discusses people’s experiences using fendobendazole for flukes. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/prazi-resistant-flukes-experience-thread.545008/

 

[Big G]

@Pbh-reef Great thread.

I've come across roundworms like this quite a bit while processing fish I've caught in the ocean. The worms can be found almost anywhere in the fish. Sometimes the worms are just under the skin; sometimes they are mid depth in the flesh; sometimes they are on the inside of fish's body cavity. And sometimes the entire organ area is covered with them. Almost every fish has at least one worm if you look closely enough.

I would highly recommend the second dose to make sure the fish is completely dewormed.

 

[Humblefish]

Noga also discusses using fenbendazole to treat monogeneans (flukes) in his book Fish Disease: Diagnosis and Treatment 2nd Edition. He recommends a 12 hour bath treatment at 25 mg/L (95 mg/gallon). It would be advisable to transfer the fish into a sterile QT following the bath treatment (to prevent reinfection), and to perform a second bath + transfer 1 week later to eliminate any hatchlings. (Same as using praziquantel.)

At the time of this writing, it is still unclear just how “safe” prolonged immersion of fenbendazole is at 95 mg/gallon. Meaning, can it be used the same as praziquantel in a QT: Dosed once, and in 5-7 days perform a 25% water change and dose again (to eliminate eggs/hatchlings). The lower 7.6 mg/gallon dosage appears safe for in-tank use, but is that concentration strong enough to kill skin & gill flukes? One issue with fenbendazole is that it’s not easily water soluble, and turns the water cloudy/milky for at least 12 hours:

+1 The only thing I can add is I have successfully tested the 25 mg/L dosage in a running QT. Fish were fine, bacteria levels remained stable (no ammonia spike). The only issue is the water did remain cloudy for several days before clearing up in some instances. But you can just run carbon after 12 hours to fix that. Don't forget to do a second treatment in ~ 1 week.

More info: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fenbendazole.640230/

 

[vetteguy53081]

I would do a freshwater bath followed by a formalin bath and see where it goes from there.
I do wonder if these are detrious worms which besides the fish will travel on glass also but other possibility is a copepod type works found on tangs and marine angels with scientific name Serpentisaccus magnificae which is classified as parasite and visible to the naked eye

 

[Humblefish]

I would do a freshwater bath followed by a formalin bath and see where it goes from there.
I do wonder if these are detrious worms which besides the fish will travel on glass also but other possibility is a copepod type works found on tangs and marine angels with scientific name Serpentisaccus magnificae which is classified as parasite and visible to the naked eye

I've dealt with those before. They are white and burrow into the fish.

There are good pics here (and also where the quote below was taken): http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/disease.html

Quote Leslie Harris "An internal copepod parasite called Serpentisaccus magnificae which lives on the orange fire fish Nemateleotris magnificae. What you have appears to be the same or a similar parasite. The genus name of the parasite - Serpentisaccus - describes the 2 long curly egg sacs. The rest of the body is deeply embedded in the fish's body. Even if you pull off the egg strings, unless the parasite is so damaged that it dies it will just grow new egg sacs. This type of parasite usually doesn't kill the fish and if the fish is healthy it should be able to tolerate the parasite. The life cycle of this parasite isn't known. Similar copepods go through up to 11 developmental stages starting with planktonic forms before they become the final adult form. Some species require an intermediate host like a snail but others don't; once they stop being planktonic they find a host fish to live on. Without knowing the life cycle it's impossible to predict if the eggs can survive long enough to become additional parasites. Hopefully they will be eaten or removed through your tank's filtration. these parasites tend to be very specific about which fish they live on so it's unlikely that they would attach to any other fish in your tank." Unquote.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I've dealt with those before. They are white and burrow into the fish.

There are good pics here (and also where the quote below was taken): http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/disease.html

Quote Leslie Harris "An internal copepod parasite called Serpentisaccus magnificae which lives on the orange fire fish Nemateleotris magnificae. What you have appears to be the same or a similar parasite. The genus name of the parasite - Serpentisaccus - describes the 2 long curly egg sacs. The rest of the body is deeply embedded in the fish's body. Even if you pull off the egg strings, unless the parasite is so damaged that it dies it will just grow new egg sacs. This type of parasite usually doesn't kill the fish and if the fish is healthy it should be able to tolerate the parasite. The life cycle of this parasite isn't known. Similar copepods go through up to 11 developmental stages starting with planktonic forms before they become the final adult form. Some species require an intermediate host like a snail but others don't; once they stop being planktonic they find a host fish to live on. Without knowing the life cycle it's impossible to predict if the eggs can survive long enough to become additional parasites. Hopefully they will be eaten or removed through your tank's filtration. these parasites tend to be very specific about which fish they live on so it's unlikely that they would attach to any other fish in your tank." Unquote.

INTERNAL copepod ??? Yikes

 

[Pbh-reef]

+1 The only thing I can add is I have successfully tested the 25 mg/L dosage in a running QT. Fish were fine, bacteria levels remained stable (no ammonia spike). The only issue is the water did remain cloudy for several days before clearing up in some instances. But you can just run carbon after 12 hours to fix that. Don't forget to do a second treatment in ~ 1 week.

More info: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fenbendazole.640230/

That is really good to know

 

[MrsBugmaster]

I ordered both Fenbendazole and Formalin. The fenbendazole will get here first so I will do 2 treatments of fenbendazole first and see how it goes. If I am still have problems then I will use the Formalin. Since the gobies were in with the tang for 2 months I am going to treat them as well. However, tomorrow is the next scheduled tank transfer so I will go ahead and do a peroxide dip again.

There is no white stringy poop from the tang , he just lets out a big cloud . but one of the gobies still have white stringy poop.

Thanks for everyone's help! I will keep this thread updated.

 

[Pinback]

Wow. Following. This is most interesting.