Yellow tang with flukes?

Dash · May 14, 2022

I got great help here a few years back for my YWG & now I need help for my yellow tang Gary.
Gary’s been in my mixed reef for about 4 years & is fat and strong. Last Sunday I noticed he had one cloudy eye. My initial thought was an injury (it’s a peaceful community) and gave him Selcon-soaked nori. After a couple of days I noticed a few patches on his side & frayed pectoral fin & decided it was an indication of bacterial infection. So yesterday I started giving him Kanaplex-laced food. (He continues to eat very well. His colour/activity level seems unchanged. The only thing I noticed was this morning a few twitches) Finally today I saw there was definitely something on his eye and after doing further reading, decided on a 5-min fresh water dip. He got thru this like a champ & upon release swam like nothing had happened.
It does look like a handful of flukes (?) fell off including a sizeable one that peeled right off his cloudy eye.
Questions moving forward:
- I thought flukes were like tiny white sesame seeds? These are somewhat larger especially the one off his eye. Almost as big as his pupil.
(photo below)
- Should I dose Prazipro directly into my display tank? It’s a mixed reef with a fair number of acro
- Should I continue with Kanaplex? I was feeding this to him as I was reluctant to stress him out in a quarantine tank

Thanks very much for any input, suggestions etc.

vetteguy53081 · May 14, 2022

Top pic are not flukes but may be Stomatella snails (pic fuzzy to confirm)
Based on the pic of the tang, Cant/dont really see anything on its body. Eyes, I do see. Before resorting to Prazi Treatment, try a 5 minute freshwater dip in a Clean container the same temperature as display tank and return fish to display or preferably quarantine tank. Look on bottom of container for what looks like fish scales. If you can see that - Flukes
In QT, treat tang fr eyes with ethromyacin which is Maracyn/maracyn 1

Dash · May 15, 2022

vetteguy53081 said:
Top pic are not flukes but may be Stomatella snails (pic fuzzy to confirm)
Based on the pic of the tang, Cant/dont really see anything on its body. Eyes, I do see. Before resorting to Prazi Treatment, try a 5 minute freshwater dip in a Clean container the same temperature as display tank and return fish to display or preferably quarantine tank. Look on bottom of container for what looks like fish scales. If you can see that - Flukes
In QT, treat tang fr eyes with ethromyacin which is Maracyn/maracyn 1

I already did the 5-min FW dip and those are what fell off his body, including one that I watched peel right off his eye. They do look like scales. Obviously the same kind of critters whatever they are. I transferred to a shallow dish for a closer look. These are the best photos I can get, sorry. The biggest one is the one that was on his eye.

ps. I don’t have Maracyn. Fish meds are unavailable in Canada - I drove across the border yesterday to pick up Kanaplex, Metroplex, Focus, Prazipro.

Dash · May 15, 2022

From reading info by Humblefish, I’m pretty sure these are skin flukes (his photo for comparison)

I think I’ll complete his Kanaplex treatment to ward off any infection. But I’m very undecided about dosing Prazipro. Never done anything like this before.

Jay Hemdal · May 15, 2022

Dash said:
I already did the 5-min FW dip and those are what fell off his body, including one that I watched peel right off his eye. They do look like scales. Obviously the same kind of critters whatever they are. I transferred to a shallow dish for a closer look. These are the best photos I can get, sorry. The biggest one is the one that was on his eye.

ps. I don’t have Maracyn. Fish meds are unavailable in Canada - I drove across the border yesterday to pick up Kanaplex, Metroplex, Focus, Prazipro.

Those are Neobenedenia flukes. They are egg layers, and the treatments do not control the eggs. so you kill the adults, but then new eggs hatch out to infect the fish again.

What other fish are in the tank?

Prazipro is mostly reef safe, but it does add nutrients to the water that may put things out of whack.
To break the Neobenedenia life cycle with prazipro is going to take a number of treatments.
Three doses, nine days apart is the standard, but it doesn't always work. Hyposalinity to 1.012 for 35 days works, but you need to treat all of the fish and then let your reef remain fishless for that time....and that is tough to do.

Kanaplex won't help with this, except in the rare case of secondary bacterial infection after you knock the flukes off.

Jay

Dash · May 15, 2022

Thanks for the info Jay.
I have a pretty hardy group of fish - puffers, hawkfish, clowns, etc - no wrasses. Removing them from the DT for an extended period is a no go, especially for the mandarins. My tank is at a pretty good place right now (aside from these dang flukes) so I would hate to possibly negatively impact it. I would say 3-4 flukes fell off Gary, but the other fish seem unaffected - hard to say I know. So it looks like dosing Prazipro may be the only option. Ugh
Gary looks much better today. His eye is still a bit opaque but definitely much improved. No longer blotchy

Gedxin · May 15, 2022

Don't have much to add, sorry for the fluke on Gary

One question though, were you running UV? No ideal if it would have helped, just curious.

Dash · May 15, 2022

No UV. I run a pretty simple system. I haven’t even set up my ATO & I dose additives manually. But it’s been pretty smooth these 6 years<knock on wood> haha