Wrasse has ick - please confirm

[tenurepro]

Hi All,
I got this 8-line flasher wrasse 8 days ago. It went straight into my fully cycled 10 gal QT system. test chem and 0 ammonia 0 nitrites.
Wrasse was very shy over the first 6 or so days, so didn't get a chance to observe it at all, but i did eat the NLS pellets. Today i finally managed to observe it swimming around the tank and i noticed what appear to be white dots on the fish's tail, dorsal fin, head and possibly eye. I am suspecting Ick, but please have a look to confirm my diagnosis.

Fish seems otherwise healthy. I do have coperamine on hand, but i heard that it can be difficult on wrasses. Also considering TTM? I would appreciate your thoughts, especially from wrasse experts... @evolved - hoping you can chime in!

as always - thanks a billion!

 

[evolved]

That's probably velvet, but I am not a disease expert.

 

[Greenstreet.1]

Let’s see if we can get the fish Doc’s to look at it

@Humblefish , @4FordFamily.

 

[tenurepro]

That's probably velvet, but I am not a disease expert.

Yikes... thanks for responding. that would leave me only with coperamine... let’s see what others think

 

[hdsoftail1065]

I'm leaning towards velvet.

 

[tenurepro]

Ok that’s 2 velvet vs 1 ich...

 

[DLHDesign]

It's got the body coverage of velvet, for sure. I would suggest a freshwater dip and turning off any lights on the tank, at the least. A chemical bath in Acriflavine or Formalin would also be good, if possible.

More info, just in case you've not seen it. (There's a supplement for wrasse treatment; looking for that now...)
Edit: A bit of info on wrasse treatment specifically. The challenge will be in that ramp-up time; you have to be aggressive enough to help with the velvet, but not so fast as to risk the wrasse... If you can get ahold of some CP, that would be ideal.

 

[4FordFamily]

Velvet or flukes or both. Try a freshwater dip in a dark bucket and look for sesame seeds dropping off to confirm no flukes.

 

[Greenstreet.1]

I don’t like playing the guessing game with sick fish so I always call the fish doctors even when I think I’m right.

 

[Big G]

+1 on the velvet. You can see the dusting a bit in one of the pics.

Here's Humblefish's treatment guide. Time is not your friend. Note the use of acriflavine following a freshwater dip. Ruby Reef Rally is the easiest to obtain acriflavine product. Highly recommend this step. RRR has both antiseptic and antibiotic qualities that greatly increase survival rates.

I'd avoid using cupramine. A chelated copper product like Copper Power is much easier on the fish. Small regular doses several times per day to get to therapeutic level is much easier on fish, especially wrasses. Avoid Copper Safe. The strength varies from bottle to bottle, whereas Copper Power's dosage and strength is very reliable.

The short version:

• 5 minute freshwater dip
• Immediately afterwards, perform a chemical bath (in saltwater matching SG/temp the fish came from). You have two options:

1. Acriflavine (preferred) - Do the bath for 75-90 minutes, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain acriflavine: Acriflavine-MS and Ruby Reef Rally. DO NOT mix acriflavine with any other chemicals.
2. Formalin - Do the bath for 30-60 minutes max, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain formalin: Formalin-MS, Quick Cure, Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, Kordon Rid-Ich Plus. Use protection (rubber gloves, face mask, eye protection, etc.) whenever handling formalin as it is a known carcinogen! However, you can add Methylene Blue to the formalin bath (1 capful per 2-3 gallons of bath water.)

• After the bath, place the fish in a QT pre-dosed at 80mg/gal using Chloroquine phosphate. In theory, copper (exs. Cupramine, Coppersafe, Copper Power) should work just as well as CP. However, due to how fast velvet can reproduce you don’t have the luxury of slowly ramping up the copper level as is normally advised. Therefore, the fish needs to be placed in a QT with copper already at minimum therapeutic levels. This is the advantage CP has over copper in this particular situation.
• While in QT, use a wide spectrum antibiotic (exs. Seachem Kanaplex, Furan-2) for the first week to ward off any possible bacterial infections. Secondary bacterial infections are very common in fish with preexisting parasitic infestations such as velvet.
• Keep the fish in CP or copper (at therapeutic levels) for one month. However, you can transfer the fish into a non-medicated holding tank for observation after just two weeks (explained below). DO NOT lower the CP or copper level before transferring.

 

[HotRocks]

I agree with velvet diagnosis. Flukes highly possible as well.

A freshwater dip would help confirm if flukes are present as well as provide temporary relief as you start the treatment process.

Definitely agree with @Big G on the use of copper power. I have had alot of recent success using it with Wrasse. Now you will not have the luxury of a 7 day ramp since you are dealing with velvet.

 

[tenurepro]

Ok, given that time is not my friend, and that I only have cuperamine on hand, I’ll do a fresh water dip today and then add a quarter of the recommended dose of cuperamine tonight m, a quarter tomorrow, then half dose tomorrow night...

 

[HotRocks]

It's better than waiting if you can't easily get copper power for sure.

Make sure to read the cupramine directions carefully, you just want to figure up their total dosage recommendation (they break it into two) into as many small doses as your schedule allows to introduce the fish to the copper as evenly as possible over the next 48hrs.

 

[Big G]

Make sure to read the cupramine directions carefully, you just want to figure up their total dosage recommendation (they break it into two) into as many small doses as your schedule allows to introduce the fish to the copper as evenly as possible over the next 48hrs.

+1 on this ^^^ I'd break the dosage into every three to four hours if possible. Count up the total amount/drops to get to therapeutic and do those very small incremental doses if at all possible to get rapidly and safely to the total dose. The big doses are what the fish have problems adjusting to. Best of luck.

 

[PGT253]

You got all the good advices here. But I still want to share my QT protocol.
1. Fw dip
2. Acriflavine/Methylene blue bath
3. TTM (first 5 transfers at every 36 hours, next 3 transfer at 48 hours).

I use 3 buckets, 2 air pumps, and a couple of airstones. No heater. I use 2-2.5 gallons of SW (1.018) if I treat one fish, and 5-6 gallons of SW if I need to treat more fish.

Fish I've treated so far
1. Pink margin wrasse - already in DT for 2 weeks
2. Copperband butterfly (treating for flukes in an observation QT now)
3. Yellow tang, Royal gramma, McCosker flasher wrasse, Hooded fairy wrasse - just transferred to the DT today
4. Radiant wrasse and 2x Blue star leopard - treating for flukes in a QT tank

Anyway, best of luck, I hope your fish gets better.

 

[Humblefish]

I agree with velvet diagnosis.

This is your best strategy: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/#post-2499437

Given this is a flasher wrasse, you have no choice but to use copper. Copper Power would be better, but go with Cupramine if that's all you can get in short order.

 

[tenurepro]

Thanks All. So I decided to use cuperamine as I don’t have access to any other chemicals, and if the diagnosis is correct, then time is of the essence.

I gave the wrasse a 5 min fw dip yesterday. He managed it fine - surprisingly. I did a pretty large water change on the 10 gal QT (possibly to reduce free swimming stage, but to also help with water quality). I am supposed to treat with 40 drops of cuperamine over todays as per product instructions, but I will phase this out and do it over 3 to 4 days. Last night I added 2 drops, today I added another 2. Then 3 later on today and you get the idea

Is it really all that effective to cut the lights ? Or is an old reefkeeper tale ?

Thanks all for your help - hope the wrasse comes through!

 

[evmibo]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/theory-on-velvet.359758/

Velvet is a dinoflagellate (like zooxanthellae in corals) that can use photosynthesis if/when needed to survive. Turning the QT tank lights off (if there are any), and only having ambient room light on won’t allow them to photosynthesize much at all.

Just curious: did you do acriflavine or formalin dip?

@Humblefish mentioned to go straight to minimum therapeutic copper levels. Kind of scary to do that with a wrasse and ionic copper though I’d imagine.

I’m sure I missed this somewhere, but is it discouraged to do a copper ramp up of 5-7 days simply because velvet acts so quickly? If so FW dip + acriflavine (or formalin) doesn’t buy that time for you? I realize every case is a little different.

 

[Big G]

The lights off also help keep the fish calm. Wrasses are known jumpers and also for crashing into the glass, lid, rocks.

 

[tenurepro]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/theory-on-velvet.359758/

Velvet is a dinoflagellate (like zooxanthellae in corals) that can use photosynthesis if/when needed to survive. Turning the QT tank lights off (if there are any), and only having ambient room light on won’t allow them to photosynthesize much at all.

Just curious: did you do acriflavine or formalin dip?

@Humblefish mentioned to go straight to minimum therapeutic copper levels. Kind of scary to do that with a wrasse and ionic copper though I’d imagine.

I’m sure I missed this somewhere, but is it discouraged to do a copper ramp up of 5-7 days simply because velvet acts so quickly? If so FW dip + acriflavine (or formalin) doesn’t buy that time for you? I realize every case is a little different.

I did not do any additional dips following fw as I didn’t have the chemicals.
Yes I realize the risk of not using full strength cooper right away but Humblefish used a different cooper product and wasn’t applying it to wrasses that tend to be more sensitive. I am also weighting the possibility of a mid-diagnosis (ick vs velvet). So it’s danged if you do, danged if you don’t type of a situation.

I also have polyp lab medic on hand - hydrogen peroxide; any harm with using it with the cuperamine ?