White spot after copper treatment

[TheShrimpNibbler]

My flame hawks finished thirty days of cupramine at therapeutic levels last weekend. I removed the copper and have been watching them closely this week. When I went to move them from the qt to the dt tonight, there was a single white spot on the back of one of them. I’m pretty sure it was ich. So my question is, what do I do now? Two explanations that I can think of are that a tomont managed to stay in closed throughout the entirety of the treatment and then released it’s the theronts at some point during the week, or there is copper resistant ich. Should I do another copper treatment, try to find chloroquine phosphate, or take another route?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I would wait 36 hours. If the same spot is in the same location and no new spots develop then it likely isn’t ich. I always wait at least two weeks after the final treatment day before moving the fish to DT. Have you treated this fish with prazi?
Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ich or Flukes ?

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

I would wait 36 hours. If the same spot is in the same location and no new spots develop then it likely isn’t ich. I always wait at least two weeks after the final treatment day before moving the fish to DT. Have you treated this fish with prazi?
Jay

I did give the fish a prazi bath earlier this week following the guidelines that humble fish gave. Since they will be staying in the qt longer, I will do the other treatment recommended on the bottle next week.
I will follow your advice and wait 36 hours to see if the spot is still there. If it is and no new spots have developed, what would you recommend doing? And if it does end up being ich, what treatment would you recommend?

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

Ich or Flukes ?

It looked like ich. I have not seen any sign of flukes at any point on these fish.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I did give the fish a prazi bath earlier this week following the guidelines that humble fish gave. Since they will be staying in the qt longer, I will do the other treatment recommended on the bottle next week.
I will follow your advice and wait 36 hours to see if the spot is still there. If it is and no new spots have developed, what would you recommend doing? And if it does end up being ich, what treatment would you recommend?

IDK - this is just a means to perform a differential diagnosis, once the spot has been observed, then the next step can be chosen...and that isn't clear to me at this point.

I don't suppose the spot would show up in a picture?


Jay

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

IDK - this is just a means to perform a differential diagnosis, once the spot has been observed, then the next step can be chosen...and that isn't clear to me at this point.

I don't suppose the spot would show up in a picture?


Jay

I did try to get pictures, but the spot doesn’t show up. I’m using a phone camera, so that combined with the bad lighting on the tank results in quite bad photos.

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

The white spot is no longer there and there are no others as far as I can tell, but both fish are acting strange. The larger one is just sitting under the filter and hasn’t moved all day from what I’ve seen, and neither one ate last night or tonight. I’m beginning to worry, but I’m not sure what to do. Do you all have any ideas?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The change in their feeding habit can be a serious sign, something more going on than the single white spot. Does the water check out ok? Are they breathing rapidly?
Jay

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

The change in their feeding habit can be a serious sign, something more going on than the single white spot. Does the water check out ok? Are they breathing rapidly?
Jay

The salinity was good, and there was no ammonia, so I don’t think that was the problem. The larger fish was breathing rapidly. I ended up moving both of them to my invert quarantine tank, and they seem much happier today. They are breathing slower.
I did discover last night that a bag of carbon had fallen underneath the filter pad in the qt, and was in there the whole time. I don’t know how I missed it. I’m assuming that I will need to retreat them with copper now. Lesson learned there, always test copper levels regularly during the treatment.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Carbon isn't super-efficient at removing complexed copper, but it may have pulled enough to keep you under therapeutic dose. I'm still concerned about the rapid breathing and lack of feeding response. Have they begun feeding how that they are in the new tank? If not, you might consider a FW dip, just to buy some time. What is your game plan now? You could do a major water change on your QT and get the copper up and move them back.

Jay

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

They both ate tonight, and are both looking healthy. The larger one is also breathing slower. My plan from here is to watch them in this tank for a week or so while I clean up the qt, and then treat them with copper power.