Flukes? I randomly lost my 1.5 year old mandarin dragonet

[SaltwaterScoop]

I did some tank maintenance today which included moving 1 of my MP40s. I noticed my mandarin goby sitting in the corner of the tank in the new flow just chilling (kinda weird behavior). Fast forward a few hours, I see him start darting around the tank randomly. Then darting towards the water surface. I caught him and put him in an acclimation box. This was super out of character because he is always super chill gliding around and chowing down on pods. His color was extremely vibrant and he did not look skinny. He ended up passing about an hour after doing the darting incident. It seemed like half is body was not working during/after the darting incident.

I did notice some tears on fins and some white spots that might be flukes? See below:

I placed him in freshwater afterwards to look for flukes but I didn't see any. You can see the bottom fin tears/holes in this photo though.

He was one of our favorite fish so this one was devastating.

Maybe related? We purchased a lemonpeel anglefish back in March that did really well for a month then lost color and randomly died one day. He did constantly seek out cleaning from the cleaner shrimp the entire time and scraped on the sand towards the end but had no visible illness on him other than the color loss.

I ordered some PraziPro but I'm terrified to use it on my multi-tank display. Calculating my tank volume seems impossible.

Does this seem like flukes?

 

[Lavey29]

Hard to say. Mine just disappeared after 2.5 years of doing fine. Not sure how old he was when I got him but fish do age out like all of us

 

[vetteguy53081]

I did some tank maintenance today which included moving 1 of my MP40s. I noticed my mandarin goby sitting in the corner of the tank in the new flow just chilling (kinda weird behavior). Fast forward a few hours, I see him start darting around the tank randomly. Then darting towards the water surface. I caught him and put him in an acclimation box. This was super out of character because he is always super chill gliding around and chowing down on pods. His color was extremely vibrant and he did not look skinny. He ended up passing about an hour after doing the darting incident. It seemed like half is body was not working during/after the darting incident.

I did notice some tears on fins and some white spots that might be flukes? See below:

I placed him in freshwater afterwards to look for flukes but I didn't see any. You can see the bottom fin tears/holes in this photo though.

He was one of our favorite fish so this one was devastating.

Maybe related? We purchased a lemonpeel anglefish back in March that did really well for a month then lost color and randomly died one day. He did constantly seek out cleaning from the cleaner shrimp the entire time and scraped on the sand towards the end but had no visible illness on him other than the color loss.

I ordered some PraziPro but I'm terrified to use it on my multi-tank display. Calculating my tank volume seems impossible.

Does this seem like flukes?

The tears while small suggest possible from aggression and likely a smaller fish based on the size of the bites as it appears. The fish does not appear thin, however i see the mouth open. Often this may be due to a loss in oxygen. Flukes cant be seen with naked eye in most cases but you will see signs such as loss of appetite, yawning effect, loss of color, scratching/itching and heavy breathing. Prazi is safe as long as its not overdosed and often I recommend 80% of recommended dosage.

 

[SaltwaterScoop]

The tears while small suggest possible from aggression and likely a smaller fish based on the size of the bites as it appears. The fish does not appear thin, however i see the mouth open. Often this may be due to a loss in oxygen. Flukes cant be seen with naked eye in most cases but you will see signs such as loss of appetite, yawning effect, loss of color, scratching/itching and heavy breathing. Prazi is safe as long as its not overdosed and often I recommend 80% of recommended dosage.

I think I noticed them before awhile ago but just assumed he tore them on the rockwork. I've never seen anyone bother him. No noticeable loss of appetite, yawns, loss of color, scratching, or heavy breathing

All of the other fish are behaving normally as well except one of my anthias is turning male and seems to be chasing around a few of the other fish but nothing serious.

Do you think Prazi is a good idea to pursue?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I did some tank maintenance today which included moving 1 of my MP40s. I noticed my mandarin goby sitting in the corner of the tank in the new flow just chilling (kinda weird behavior). Fast forward a few hours, I see him start darting around the tank randomly. Then darting towards the water surface. I caught him and put him in an acclimation box. This was super out of character because he is always super chill gliding around and chowing down on pods. His color was extremely vibrant and he did not look skinny. He ended up passing about an hour after doing the darting incident. It seemed like half is body was not working during/after the darting incident.

I did notice some tears on fins and some white spots that might be flukes? See below:

I placed him in freshwater afterwards to look for flukes but I didn't see any. You can see the bottom fin tears/holes in this photo though.

He was one of our favorite fish so this one was devastating.

Maybe related? We purchased a lemonpeel anglefish back in March that did really well for a month then lost color and randomly died one day. He did constantly seek out cleaning from the cleaner shrimp the entire time and scraped on the sand towards the end but had no visible illness on him other than the color loss.

I ordered some PraziPro but I'm terrified to use it on my multi-tank display. Calculating my tank volume seems impossible.

Does this seem like flukes?

Could it have been some trauma due to the tank cleaning?

Mandarins are fairly resistant to flukes, if the lemonpeel had brought flukes into the tank, I would expect your other fish would have show symptoms prior to the mandarin dying. However, it does sure sound like your lemonpeel may have had flukes.

I can't account for those white spots on the mandarin's pectoral fin. You normally cannot see living flukes, but dead/dying flukes will turn white like that.

 

[SaltwaterScoop]

Could it have been some trauma due to the tank cleaning?

Mandarins are fairly resistant to flukes, if the lemonpeel had brought flukes into the tank, I would expect your other fish would have show symptoms prior to the mandarin dying. However, it does sure sound like your lemonpeel may have had flukes.

I can't account for those white spots on the mandarin's pectoral fin. You normally cannot see living flukes, but dead/dying flukes will turn white like that.

He may have ran into something during cleaning but I didn't see it happen. He was chilling by the MP40 and then randomly started darting around.

I have 2 40 gallon breeders plumbed into my main tank (water box 180.5). I added some CUC items from reef cleaners like hermits, snails, porcelain crab, and feather duster on June 7. The feather duster is located in one of the 40s and the mandarin was in the waterbox.The lemonpeel I lost was also in one of the 40s. I decided to submit an edna test after losing the lemonpeel but before adding the snails. I'm hoping this might help shed some light on what happened.

 

[stewy14]

do you have a good pod podulation(u see what I did there)?

 

[SaltwaterScoop]

My wife pointed out that before we noticed the weird behavior from the mandarin I was messing with the lights. I turned the left XR15 off to move the cable to the other side of the tank and that is the side I noticed him sitting then darting from. I wonder if I spooked him and he ran into something or maybe put him into shock?

do you have a good pod podulation(u see what I did there)?

Yeah! I was fighting dinos previously so I got on a semi-schedule of dosing various types every few months to replenish. Added dinkins in feb, Tigger-Pods in april, and reef cleaners pods this month. I regularly see the tiny tiny ones on the glass if I go without cleaning my glass for too long.

 

[SaltwaterScoop]

Apparently a week or 2 ago my wife saw the mandarin "yawning" but thought nothing of it since our anthias sometimes do that when begging for food.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Apparently a week or 2 ago my wife saw the mandarin "yawning" but thought nothing of it since our anthias sometimes do that when begging for food.

That can be another sign of flukes. The mandarin wasn’t thin, so I don’t think it was a lack of food.

 

[SaltwaterScoop]

That can be another sign of flukes. The mandarin wasn’t thin, so I don’t think it was a lack of food.

I was reading her the symptoms of flukes when she mentioned it. We've been trying to look out for any other indicators. Our mimic tang scratched once yesterday but we didn't see him do it more than 1 time (probably normal for tangs?). Our leopard wrasse pair sometimes smack the sand throughout the day but it looks like they're hunting. No cloudy eyes and no loss of color from any the others and they're all eating voraciously.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I was reading her the symptoms of flukes when she mentioned it. We've been trying to look out for any other indicators. Our mimic tang scratched once yesterday but we didn't see him do it more than 1 time (probably normal for tangs?). Our leopard wrasse pair sometimes smack the sand throughout the day but it looks like they're hunting. No cloudy eyes and no loss of color from any the others and they're all eating voraciously.

Yes. some wrasse smack the bottom looking for food. A single tang scratch in a day is probably not a huge issue, but it bears watching.

 

[SaltwaterScoop]

Can mandarin's get uronema? I suspected the tank had uronema from the start because when we first added anthias we had 1 that was super sick looking.

Here's my AquaBiomics report:

1001729_tankDNA_Report

aquabiomics.com

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Can mandarin's get uronema? I suspected the tank had uronema from the start because when we first added anthias we had 1 that was super sick looking.

Here's my AquaBiomics report:

1001729_tankDNA_Report

aquabiomics.com

I’ve never seen external on internal Uronema on a mandarin, but maybe?

Uronema is rather ubiquitous, it’s found n most established tanks. Its normal habit is to feed on bacteria.

 

[SaltwaterScoop]

Is Uronema heteromarinum the type that typically parasitizes fish?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Is Uronema heteromarinum the type that typically parasitizes fish?

Sorry, I don’t know. In aquariums, there are a number of scutocociliates, and they are just calked “Uronema sp.”. These are not obligate parasites, but some invade fish tissue causing serious damage. There is an external type that causes lesions in seahorses and seadragons, then there is the intercellular type that causes disease in newly acquired fish. I’ve never seen internal Uronema in established fish.