Help ID disease & suggest treatment for Regal/Hippo Blue Tang

[NaturalBrnHeathen]

Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster. New to the hobby, migrating from freshwater side. Stocked tangs & a pair of clowns to a fully cycled tank about 1.5 weeks ago. A couple of days in, the blue tang started flashing against the rocks while the smaller of the clowns started having labored breathing. The clown passed away overnight, velvet maybe. Strangely though, none of the other fish seem to have breathing issues, but all have flashed at one point or another. Thinking this is ich or velvet, I'm ramping up Cupramine over the past few days. I am on 0.41 ppm right now, 0.5 ppm by tomorrow.

All should be good except that the blue tang has developed quite a bruise on her head overnight. She seems active & is eating well. I need your help to identify the issue & possibly suggest a treatment regime. Thanks!

Water params -
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrites - 0 ppm
Nitrates - 5 ppm
pH - 8.2
Salinity - 1.024
Temp - 76
Cu - 0.41 ppm

Food -
PE Mysis Shrimp, 1 cube daily
2 clips of Nori always available
New Life Spectrum Thera+A

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi, welcome to Reef2Reef!

The tang looks like it has a bumped snout. It may have gotten startled and run into a rock. The flashing can be an indication of flukes, but continue with the copper because the rapid breathing/death of the clownfish sounds more protozoal than flukes. After two weeks of copper, you should consider dosing with prazipro or General Cure to deal with any flukes. The reef rock in your tank may absorb some of the copper, so take care not to use that rock in the future in a coral tank.

Jay

 

[NaturalBrnHeathen]

Jay, thx for your response & taking time to help out. I have a few more questions if you have a few minutes.

1. Is there a possibility that the bump could lead to a bacterial/fungal infection? Is so, any preemptive action I should take or signs to watch out for?
2. For prazipro, read on these forums that I can run it in parallel with cupramine. What do you think?
3. Any other meds I should administer while everything is in a QT state
4. I've read about folks running Cupramine for 30 days. Is there any benefit to it?

Btw, between your contributions, humble fish, randy holmes & brandon, I've learnt quite a bunch of things re: this hobby. Thanks for sharing your knowledge & expertise.

Edit: to add questions 4

 

[Jay Hemdal]

1) secondary bacterial infection is of course possible, but antibiotics are not risk free. If the fish is eating well and the size of the lesion isn’t increasing, I would hold off.
2) I don’t like to run prazi and copper together. Prazipro reduces oxygen and copper is a bit stressful. Flukes take longer to kill, so I always wait until copper is done. I will sometimes screen for flukes and buy some time using FW dips.
3) no, not unless specific symptoms develop.
4) I always run coppersafe for 30 days, but Cupramine seems a bit harsher, so I suggested 14 days in this case. That is 14 days at full dose and with no rapid breathing or ich spots. If you see that, go with 30d
Jay