Help needed identifying this disease

hmfaysal · Nov 9, 2022

Dear #fishmedic and other members of this community, I need help identifying this disease. I have posted another thread last Saturday (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/what-disease-is-this.946217/#post-10743919) where I discussed the disease I was facing. Since then I have taken action based on the suggestions, although it looked like things were getting better for a couple of days, my Yellow Bellied Hippo tang is looking severely ill today. With white splotches all over its body, and breathing rapidly when it wedges between rocks. Also scratching sides on rocks. Gill beat was very high at 188 gbm. Here are some photos I managed to capture.

I will provide some key information below:

Aquarium Parameters:
Aquarium type: Fish Only now (Planned to be a reef)
Aquarium water volume: 112 gallons including Sump
Filtration type: 250 Micro roller filter, Skimmer, Refugium with Chaeto and Caulerpa
Lighting: 126 watts x2 Chinese Blackbox (Chihiros Nova 1)
How long has the aquarium been established: 5 Months
Digital image of the aquarium under white light

Water quality
Temperature: 81 F
pH: 8.2 (Hanna)
Salinity / specific gravity: 1.024 SG (Hanna)
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm (API) Need to get a better test kit
Nitrite: 0.0 (Salifert)
Nitrate: 52.5 ppm (Hanna)
Phosphate: 0.34 (Hanna)
Copper: 0.5 ppm (Hanna)
Alk: 7.7 dKh (Hanna)

In-depth information:
Have you lost any fish to this problem yet?

Lost 5 fishes so far as I can tell, Powder blue brought whatever disease going on, 1 juvenile sailfin tang (Same batch of imports), 1 established powder brown, 1 established blue throat trigger. I lost a Yellow Tail Damsel today, was a very hardy fish. Added Metronidazole to the water column today.
Are any invertebrates affected?

No.

Respiration rate of affected fish (in gill beats per minutes, count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4)

188 gbm, other fishes are also breathing at an elevated level, maybe around 100 gbm max.

Are the affected fish still feeding?

More or less yes. There is a slight less appetite. All fishes eat even if they pass away hours later.

What remedies have you tried so far?

Cupramine at therapeutic level in DT, all inverts and frags removed. Metronidazole at 25mg/gal. Added first dose today, planning to add every 2 days.

At this point, any help is highly appreciated. I have access to Rapid Stop, the first part is Formalin as I understand. I just don't want to stress out the fishes any more than I have to. Thank you in advance. Kindly help my fishes if you can.

Edit: Managed to capture a short clip of fishes hanging out near the gyre and getting picked on by the blue streak cleaner wrasse.

vetteguy53081 · Nov 9, 2022

hmfaysal said:
Dear #fishmedic and other members of this community, I need help identifying this disease. I have posted another thread last Saturday (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/what-disease-is-this.946217/#post-10743919) where I discussed the disease I was facing. Since then I have taken action based on the suggestions, although it looked like things were getting better for a couple of days, my Yellow Bellied Hippo tang is looking severely ill today. With white splotches all over its body, and breathing rapidly when it wedges between rocks. Also scratching sides on rocks. Gill beat was very high at 188 gbm. Here are some photos I managed to capture.

I will provide some key information below:

Aquarium Parameters:
Aquarium type: Fish Only now (Planned to be a reef)
Aquarium water volume: 112 gallons including Sump
Filtration type: 250 Micro roller filter, Skimmer, Refugium with Chaeto and Caulerpa
Lighting: 126 watts x2 Chinese Blackbox (Chihiros Nova 1)
How long has the aquarium been established: 5 Months
Digital image of the aquarium under white light

Water quality
Temperature: 81 F
pH: 8.2 (Hanna)
Salinity / specific gravity: 1.024 SG (Hanna)
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm (API) Need to get a better test kit
Nitrite: 0.0 (Salifert)
Nitrate: 52.5 ppm (Hanna)
Phosphate: 0.34 (Hanna)
Copper: 0.5 ppm (Hanna)
Alk: 7.7 dKh (Hanna)

In-depth information:
Have you lost any fish to this problem yet?

Lost 5 fishes so far as I can tell, Powder blue brought whatever disease going on, 1 juvenile sailfin tang (Same batch of imports), 1 established powder brown, 1 established blue throat trigger. I lost a Yellow Tail Damsel today, was a very hardy fish. Added Metronidazole to the water column today.
Are any invertebrates affected?

No.

Respiration rate of affected fish (in gill beats per minutes, count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4)

188 gbm, other fishes are also breathing at an elevated level, maybe around 100 gbm max.

Are the affected fish still feeding?

More or less yes. There is a slight less appetite. All fishes eat even if they pass away hours later.

What remedies have you tried so far?

Cupramine at therapeutic level in DT, all inverts and frags removed. Metronidazole at 25mg/gal. Added first dose today, planning to add every 2 days.

At this point, any help is highly appreciated. I have access to Rapid Stop, the first part is Formalin as I understand. I just don't want to stress out the fishes any more than I have to. Thank you in advance. Kindly help my fishes if you can.

Edit: Managed to capture a short clip of fishes hanging out near the gyre and getting picked on by the blue streak cleaner wrasse.

This appears to be velvet.
With ich, you can generally count the dots whereas with velvet, it represents the solar system as in the case of your tang. velvet spots on the fish that are much finer than the spots seen in Ich making it harder to catch until in cases too late to treat.
Some behaviors associated with a fish with velvet are :
- Scratching body against hard objects
- Fish is lethargic
- Loss of appetite and weight loss
- Rapid, labored breathing
- Fins clamped against the body
- rapid breathing and mucus around the gills

Fish with velvet will typically stay at the surface of the water, or remain in a position where a steady flow of water is present in the aquarium. As the disease progresses outwards from the gills, the cysts then become visible on the fins and body. Although these cysts may appear as tiny white dots the size of a grain of salt, like the first sign of Saltwater Ich or White Spot Disease, what sets Oodinium apart from other types of ich is that at this point the fish have the appearance of being coated with what looks like a whitish or tan to golden colored, velvet-like film, thus the name Velvet Disease.
Remove fish from main tank and give them a FW dip or bath and then place them into a QT with vigorous aeration provided. Treat the fish in the QT with a copper-based medication. Although many over-the-counter remedies contain the general name as ich or ick treatments, carefully read the box to be sure it is specifically designed to target Oodinium. My choice is coppersafe at 2.25-2.5 therapuetic level at 80 degrees monitored by a reliable test kit (no api brand either)

hmfaysal · Nov 9, 2022

vetteguy53081 said:
This appears to be velvet.
With ich, you can generally count the dots whereas with velvet, it represents the solar system as in the case of your tang. velvet spots on the fish that are much finer than the spots seen in Ich making it harder to catch until in cases too late to treat.
Some behaviors associated with a fish with velvet are :
- Scratching body against hard objects
- Fish is lethargic
- Loss of appetite and weight loss
- Rapid, labored breathing
- Fins clamped against the body
- rapid breathing and mucus around the gills

Fish with velvet will typically stay at the surface of the water, or remain in a position where a steady flow of water is present in the aquarium. As the disease progresses outwards from the gills, the cysts then become visible on the fins and body. Although these cysts may appear as tiny white dots the size of a grain of salt, like the first sign of Saltwater Ich or White Spot Disease, what sets Oodinium apart from other types of ich is that at this point the fish have the appearance of being coated with what looks like a whitish or tan to golden colored, velvet-like film, thus the name Velvet Disease.
Remove fish from main tank and give them a FW dip or bath and then place them into a QT with vigorous aeration provided. Treat the fish in the QT with a copper-based medication. Although many over-the-counter remedies contain the general name as ich or ick treatments, carefully read the box to be sure it is specifically designed to target Oodinium. My choice is coppersafe at 2.25-2.5 therapuetic level at 80 degrees monitored by a reliable test kit (no api brand either)

Thanks for the quick reply Vette Guy. I am treating with 0.5 ppm Cupramine. I did not have access to coppersafe, although my lfs had one chinese variant called OceanFree Pro Series Copper Safe. As you can understand time is of the essence here. Increased the dose of Cupramine to 0.5 ppm over the course of 3 days. Is my dosing correct? If it is, I am going to go through with it for atleast 15 more days regardless of what happens. Also I plan to add 25mg/gal of Metronidazole to the water column every 2 days for 8 more days. Is that redundant? I have added heavy aeration to the DT and sump as the skimmer is not running. Thanks again. Looking forward to hearing from you

vetteguy53081 · Nov 9, 2022

hmfaysal said:
Thanks for the quick reply Vette Guy. I am treating with 0.5 ppm Cupramine. I did not have access to coppersafe, although my lfs had one chinese variant called OceanFree Pro Series Copper Safe. As you can understand time is of the essence here. Increased the dose of Cupramine to 0.5 ppm over the course of 3 days. Is my dosing correct? If it is, I am going to go through with it for atleast 15 more days regardless of what happens. Also I plan to add 25mg/gal of Metronidazole to the water column every 2 days for 8 more days. Is that redundant? I have added heavy aeration to the DT and sump as the skimmer is not running. Thanks again. Looking forward to hearing from you

.5 IS correct dose but must be done for FULL 30 days , no less and increasing temperature to 80 will assure these flagellates are going down. Assure to keep water quality low on ammonia and increase oxygen with use of airstone

hmfaysal · Nov 16, 2022

Dear #fishmedic, need a bit of help here. I am continuing my treatment regiment as instructed. My juvenile emperor angel passed away yesterday. It had marks on its body for the last few days, colors were bit muted, but it was more or less active and eating. I started noticing significant scar marks on its body for the last couple of days. I was at work, my family members saw it swimming around at day, it passed away later in the early evening. Found it at the front of the tank on a rock. Looks like chunks of skin and flesh were missing on both sides of the body. Adding a couple of photos for reference. Any guidance, suggestions and knowledge is highly appreciated.

threebuoys · Nov 16, 2022

Were the chunks missing before the fish died?

Appears the tank mates chow-downed on the angel.

Were the scars superficial before death or were they deep from the beginning?

hmfaysal · Nov 16, 2022

threebuoys said:
Were the chunks missing before the fish died?

Appears the tank mates chow-downed on the angel.

Were the scars superficial before death or were they deep from the beginning?

The scars were superficial before death, I didn't take a picture of that, it was like a light maroon patch where the flesh is missing on the right side. The flesh went missing after it died. There is no CUC in the tank as its being treated with cupramine at the moment. I hope its not bacterial.

threebuoys · Nov 16, 2022

hmfaysal said:
The scars were superficial before death, I didn't take a picture of that, it was like a light maroon patch where the flesh is missing on the right side. The flesh went missing after it died. There is no CUC in the tank as its being treated with cupramine at the moment. I hope its not bacterial.

I'm going to guess the angel never fully recovered from the velvet you were treating and the superficial scaring occurred from attacks he suffered before his death. Afterwards, the other fish feasted on the remains.

Jay Hemdal · Nov 16, 2022

Wow! sorry to see that, very ugly lesions! In the first image, the problem could be an aggressive bacterial infection, or a fairly rare fungal infection - both could be secondary infections from a primary protozoan infection (ich or velvet). The post-mortem shots sure look like either some CUC worked on it, *or* the bacterial/fungal lesion flaked off, leaving an open, bare wound. Nothing like that would be survivable -I've never seen that severe of tissue loss in a fish!

At this point, you need to focus on damage control - what does the hepatus tang look like now? What other fish remain?

Jay

hmfaysal · Nov 17, 2022

Jay Hemdal said:
Wow! sorry to see that, very ugly lesions! In the first image, the problem could be an aggressive bacterial infection, or a fairly rare fungal infection - both could be secondary infections from a primary protozoan infection (ich or velvet). The post-mortem shots sure look like either some CUC worked on it, *or* the bacterial/fungal lesion flaked off, leaving an open, bare wound. Nothing like that would be survivable -I've never seen that severe of tissue loss in a fish!

At this point, you need to focus on damage control - what does the hepatus tang look like now? What other fish remain?

Jay

The hippo tang looks well now, eating and being territorial about its cave. I have 1 yellow and purple tang, 1 mata tang, 1 foxface, 1 six stripe wrasse, 2 clarkii clowns, 1 ocellaris clown, 2 pink damsels, 1 cleaner wrasse in the tank.

Thanks you for the information. I really appreciate it.