h flame wrasse fin / gill rot?? help ID, PLEASE!!!

[salt newbie01]

So I got a pair of h. flame wrassesa month or so ago. acclimated them and all was well for several weeks. Then several of the fish in the tank got ich including the wrasses. After about 10 days I had a 38 gallon hospital tank set up, tore the tank down and removed all the fish and started hypo-salinity. Put the tank back together and started the 8 week count down. The male wrasse had a small white spot that I thought was ich on his top fin. Well the white spot went away but left a small hole. The hole got bigger and worked it's way all the way to the edge of the fin. I noticed tonight in thehospital tank that he has a hole in the edge of hid right gill!! He is swimming about with no problems and is eating healthy. He acts like nothing is wrong, but his top fin is looking worse and this problem with the gill is new. I have also noticed there is a place on the bottom of the tail fin. It is also new. I don't think any other fish is picking on him. He is by far the largest fish in the tank. Tankmates are as follows; female h. flame wrasse, filaminted wrasse, purple firefish, small royal gramma, red head goby, green banded goby, yellow neon goby and 2 wheelers watchman gobies. All signs of the ich are gone. They have been in the hospital tank for a week and the salinity has just gotten down to 1.009 temp 78 degrees f. I know there is a fin rot disease in freshwater fish - could this be a saltwater version. I hope someone can help id the problem and fast. It should be easy to treat with everyone in a hospital tank. I just need to know what it is and how to treat. These fish have a great personality and are beautiful, I REALLY don't want to loose them.

Thanks for looking...

 

[MarvinsReef]

I've never experienced this before but I wish you all the luck in saving him...

 

[bamachamp92]

Ive Also Seen Hole In Head Disease In Freshwater Fish Produce The Same Results As Your Wrasse, I Dont Know About The Saltwater Equivalent, But You May Go To A Medication Website And See If There Is A Medication For Saltwater Hole In Head Disease. Good Luck Hope You Find Something, I Will Look Also.

 

[bamachamp92]

YOU CAN ALSO SEARCH SALTWATER HOLE IN HEAD DISEASE GO TO THE FIRST SITE LISTED IT HAS A LOT OF INFO

 

[salt newbie01]

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond Tommy. Thanks you for taking the time to look that up for me 0 I am going to try and pick up antibiotics tonight and treat the fish - Hope it works!!!

 

[MarvinsReef]

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond Tommy. Thanks you for taking the time to look that up for me 0 I am going to try and pick up antibiotics tonight and treat the fish - Hope it works!!!

is he doing worse or getting better? and I hope he keeps eating for yah... good luck..

 

[revhtree]

Dang bro this stinks! Is he still eating?

 

[salt newbie01]

He is still eating and acting fine. It is really weird! I am getting some maracyn2 Tomorrow night. From all I have read that seems like the best choice for a gram-negative bacteria. The place on his gill looks like a fish took a chunk out of it. I just don't think any of those smaller fish would do that. The only way it might have happened is if the wrasse and another fish were in one of the pvc tubes I have in the hospital tank and the smaller fish took a cheap shot. But that still doesn't explain the top fin damage. I am confused to say the least. I am just thankful he is still eating and does not appear to have any labored breathing or anyother signs of stress.

On another note my filamented wrasse died last night in the hospital tank He was a cool fish. He was very stressed from the moment he went in the hospital tank. Never showed any signa of trouble other than looking stressed. he didn't have any problems with his fins, no bloating and he ate a little. I hope he will be the only loss the tank will suffer.

 

[salt newbie01]

Well I dosed the tank with maracyn 2 last night. It turned the water a nice pee yellow!! But the medicine didn't seem to bother the fish at all. I am anxious to get home and check on them. Will post if anything changes

 

[salt newbie01]

So I come home tonight and go look at the hospital tank. As I am looking at the flame wrasses I notice my big purple fire fish lying upside down on the bottom of the tank! :mad: He looked fine all this time in qt. Was swimming around color was good - and he never showed any signs of ich. I don't understand what killed him. Could the low salinity had something to do with it? What about the maracyn 2 treatment, could it have caused his demise? I don't have any experiance with low salinity treatment, just what I have read. Has anyone used this treatment before? It would be nice to talk with someone who has done it first hand. I decided to go this route because from what I have read it is the least stressfull treatment on the fish. So I thought!! At this point I am soo frustrated. I don't know whether I should stick it out longer or SLOWLY start bringing the salinity back up and then treating with coopersafe. It took a week to get the salinity down to 1.009 and now they have been at that salinity for a little less than a week. I don't think that would be long enough for all the ich to die off.

Anyone has any advice or experiance?

Thanks


On a side note all the other fish show no signs of ich - the flame wrasses are swimming around and looking good. The males finage and gill don't look any better but the important thing is that they don't look any worse. I guess maybe they are the silver linning right now.

 

[salt newbie01]

So since my last post things have not gotten any better. I started slowly bringing up the salinity - the fish have been in hypo fo 8 weeks. I would hope all the ich is dead. The male flame wrasse continued to get worse. The gill with the damage just continued to deteriorate until there was no "cover" over the gill. He then began to decline in his eating. And shortly there after he died. Well I continued to feed with vitamin enriched foods and garlic elixr. Kept the tank water clean and kept slowly raiding the salinity. The silver lining was the female wrasse who had never showed any signs of a problem. Well one day our of the blue I noticed her bottom lip looked swollen and kinda brown. Over the next week the swelling went down from the center of her bottom lip down under her gill. She kept eating and other than looking a little rough didn't seem to be in distress. Her bottom lip actually began to deteriorate and the brown swollen tissue seemed to go inside her mouth. Just like the male she swam around fine and acted fine - just looked like crap! And just like the male her flesh was "rotting" away. Atleast that is what it looked like. Well after 7-10 days she began to stop eating. and today I come home to find her belly up on the bottom of the tank. When I pulled her out of the tank I noticed her "throat" was pretty much completly closed off from the swelling and where the swelling was down under the bottom lip it had actually easten through the flesh. Also there was no gill tissue on the left side!! How wierd is that????

This has been a very discouraging journey. This is the first time I have tried to QT or set up a hospital tank for fish with ich. Also the first time trying hypo treatment. I will never try it again. I feel I lost the purple firefish, filamented wrasse and royal gramma to the hypo salinity. While it appears to have killed the ich ( only time will tell for sure) at what cost. I have searched high and low but have not found any disease or fungas that resembles what has happened to these wrasse's. I hate to loose a fish or coral and not know why. At least if you know "why" there is a chance you can prevent it from happening again. Just wanted to share the outcome with anyone who may be reading this thread. Think twice before trying hypo salinity treatment. I would recommend coppersafe for ich - or leave them in the tank feed heavy and hope for the best.

Here are a couple pics of the damage.

you can really see how much of the bottom lip is gone.

here you can see the hole through the lower throat area and the clogged throat

 

[FateX8]

really sorry for your loss

 

[revhtree]

Dang man this stinks! I have no idea what happened, but it seems like I always lost my best fish when I decided to remove them from the main and treat for ich or something else...