Help my firefish!!!

[Jay Hemdal]

So firefish update, he has been hiding in his cave for about 2 solid days, and so fearing the worst today I lifted the rocks to see if he was still alive and to my surprise he is... but he's doing really bad.

He still has the small raised bumps (probably counted less than 20) I figured were ich, but now he's also got a rough looking mucus coat all over his body, it's either mucus or scratches from flashing on the rocks. He is swimming really lethargicly along the bottom on his side and won't eat. His tail fins also seem clamped or limp. When he swims his back end hangs down almost like it's paralyzed. After less than 5 minutes of slow swimming he went back to the cave and is laying on his side. The tank has been in hypo for a few days, and besides the frequent flashing he had been doing fine until now.

Does the mucus rule out ich? Or could the mucus be an immune response to the ich? It's presenting more like brook or velvet now if it is mucus, but I don't know how likely those are. But like I said it's kind of hard to identify, it could just be wounds from flashing. If this is just ich is it likely he'll pull through? I was hoping he'd make it through the first wave and the hypo would prevent reinfection, but whether it's ich or something worse it's hitting HARD now.

It could be ich, but I just can’t clear signs in the photo. It could also be flukes. However, hypo will help with both issues, what specific gravity is the tank at?
Jay

 

[taylormaximus]

It could be ich, but I just can’t clear signs in the photo. It could also be flukes. However, hypo will help with both issues, what specific gravity is the tank at?
Jay

The white bumps never became widespread, but were really hard to see unless you were at the right angle. The tank has been at 1.009 since Friday, but the firefish has been at a consistent decline since the beginning of this thread, no noticeable improvements on any of the symptoms yet :/

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The white bumps never became widespread, but were really hard to see unless you were at the right angle. The tank has been at 1.009 since Friday, but the firefish has been at a consistent decline since the beginning of this thread, no noticeable improvements on any of the symptoms yet :/

So - 1.009 for 4 days *should* have shown some improvement for ich or flukes. That tends to rule out either one as the primary issue here. Trouble is, there really isn't any treatable conditions that have these symptoms other than those two. That bump is still a wild card. If this is some sort of internal infection, hyposalinity will be of no help. Most internal diseases are not treatable, and when they are, they require carefully dosed medicated food, not something that can really be done with a firefish....sorry, I do not have a solution for you!

Jay

 

[taylormaximus]

So - 1.009 for 4 days *should* have shown some improvement for ich or flukes. That tends to rule out either one as the primary issue here. Trouble is, there really isn't any treatable conditions that have these symptoms other than those two. That bump is still a wild card. If this is some sort of internal infection, hyposalinity will be of no help. Most internal diseases are not treatable, and when they are, they require carefully dosed medicated food, not something that can really be done with a firefish....sorry, I do not have a solution for you!

Jay

Man I'm just hoping he'll pull through! Seems like he's gotten the best odds possible given the circumstances. That bump seems to come and go which is very odd, I wonder if that isn't just where the stomach is, and since he hasn't been eating much he's gotten skinny enough that when he does it cause a physical bulge. I have seen other people on the forum post similar bumps with firefish but they didn't seem to get much for answers there either.

Should hyposalinity kill the ich that's actively on the fish, or does it just prevent the future free swimmers from reattaching?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Man I'm just hoping he'll pull through! Seems like he's gotten the best odds possible given the circumstances. That bump seems to come and go which is very odd, I wonder if that isn't just where the stomach is, and since he hasn't been eating much he's gotten skinny enough that when he does it cause a physical bulge. I have seen other people on the forum post similar bumps with firefish but they didn't seem to get much for answers there either.

Should hyposalinity kill the ich that's actively on the fish, or does it just prevent the future free swimmers from reattaching?

It mainly kills the swimming theronts. The trophonts on the fish are tougher to kill.
That bump isn’t where this fish’s stomach is, more like where the intestines are.
Jay

 

[taylormaximus]

It mainly kills the swimming theronts. The trophonts on the fish are tougher to kill.
That bump isn’t where this fish’s stomach is, more like where the intestines are.
Jay

Well just to update you, he died yesterday. That's how these threads often seem to end sadly. I still have my trochus and blue legged hermit chugging along in my QT tank at least. Thanks for the help all the same

 

[MarineLunatic]

I think there is a bad batch of fish going around at the moment the amount of people that I have seen post this about wrasses in the last few weeks is unbelievable I bought fish from the lfs a few day ago and he was ok for the first half day then he started to look ill and stressed with heavy breathing and stuff the day after he had a few patches and then today one eye was cloudy and he looked really ill I managed to get him out and freshwater dip him with some medicine and when I put him back in the tank his eye had cleared and looks healthy and swimming freely until the last hour in which I has noticed some patches coming back so tomorrow I'm traveling 70 miles to a fish shop to collect prazipol to nuke the entire reef with them bare in mind in the 5 years I have been reefing I never lost a fish or had any pest other than some hair algae and aptasia which I got rid of

 

[taylormaximus]

I think there is a bad batch of fish going around at the moment the amount of people that I have seen post this about wrasses in the last few weeks is unbelievable I bought fish from the lfs a few day ago and he was ok for the first half day then he started to look ill and stressed with heavy breathing and stuff the day after he had a few patches and then today one eye was cloudy and he looked really ill I managed to get him out and freshwater dip him with some medicine and when I put him back in the tank his eye had cleared and looks healthy and swimming freely until the last hour in which I has noticed some patches coming back so tomorrow I'm traveling 70 miles to a fish shop to collect prazipol to nuke the entire reef with them bare in mind in the 5 years I have been reefing I never lost a fish or had any pest other than some hair algae and aptasia which I got rid of

Sorry to hear about your fish, I think just the shipping of fish is enough of a stressor to bring out a lot of diseases sadly. I just got a pair of clownfish from a different LFS and so far so good, but I'll be doing hybrid tank transfer proactively for all new fish now moving forward.