Help please, thought it was flukes but now not so sure...

[Andrew D]

Hi everyone. I am having problems with one of my tanks, a large fish only that I set up about a year ago. About 6 months ago I had a large die off as a result of what I thought at the time was velvet. Classic symptoms, I couldn't catch it in time to treat even though treatment would have been really challenging given the size of tank and the rockwork. Anyway, I lost all my fish but a regal tang who miraculously survived all attempts to catch or even starve it so I could run fallow.

Fast forward about 6 months, I succumbed to pressure and started to stock the tank again not ever having really diagnosed what had happened. Things were going well for a while and I thought whatever had diseased my tank before had passed with the other fish and the long period of time where the hardy regal was the only inhabitant. Not so. About 2 months ago I started seeing signs again, cloudy eyes, tattered fins, reclusive behaviour... This time I was able to catch one of the fish that had it the worst and earliest, a yellow flagfin angel. I gave him a freshwater dip and wow, did a lot of flukes come off him. I put him into a QT tank, treated him with Rally PRO Ruby Reef (which had been recommended on this forum) and he made what seemed to be a full recovery. I put him back into my display and all seemed well. Until about 2 weeks ago when he started looking kind of pasty (no other symptoms) but other fish started developing cloudy eyes. Thinking it was flukes, I dosed the display with 6 days of ruby reef (which is more than the required 3 day dose), did a large water change (not easy on a 600G system, about 25% I'd guess) and then treated with prazi pro. Almost immediately it seemed like most of my fish (except for that danged regal) took a turn for the worse, not only the anticipated appetite supression and heavy breathing associated with low oxygenation, but reclusive behaviour, cloudy eyes and a strange mottled look on my blonde naso. Over the past 2 days I lost my flagfin, my emperor and I'm expecting my flamingi and majestic to go any time. My little puffer is acting very strange but hanging on, and my blue trigger seems covered in a lot of tiny spots. The regal and the trigger are the only ones who seem to be eating.

Anyway, I can provide more info if needed to help diagnose, but I've also included some pictures to help. I'm really at wits end, frustrated with myself but also obviously very concerned about my fish.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi everyone. I am having problems with one of my tanks, a large fish only that I set up about a year ago. About 6 months ago I had a large die off as a result of what I thought at the time was velvet. Classic symptoms, I couldn't catch it in time to treat even though treatment would have been really challenging given the size of tank and the rockwork. Anyway, I lost all my fish but a regal tang who miraculously survived all attempts to catch or even starve it so I could run fallow.

Fast forward about 6 months, I succumbed to pressure and started to stock the tank again not ever having really diagnosed what had happened. Things were going well for a while and I thought whatever had diseased my tank before had passed with the other fish and the long period of time where the hardy regal was the only inhabitant. Not so. About 2 months ago I started seeing signs again, cloudy eyes, tattered fins, reclusive behaviour... This time I was able to catch one of the fish that had it the worst and earliest, a yellow flagfin angel. I gave him a freshwater dip and wow, did a lot of flukes come off him. I put him into a QT tank, treated him with Rally PRO Ruby Reef (which had been recommended on this forum) and he made what seemed to be a full recovery. I put him back into my display and all seemed well. Until about 2 weeks ago when he started looking kind of pasty (no other symptoms) but other fish started developing cloudy eyes. Thinking it was flukes, I dosed the display with 6 days of ruby reef (which is more than the required 3 day dose), did a large water change (not easy on a 600G system, about 25% I'd guess) and then treated with prazi pro. Almost immediately it seemed like most of my fish (except for that danged regal) took a turn for the worse, not only the anticipated appetite supression and heavy breathing associated with low oxygenation, but reclusive behaviour, cloudy eyes and a strange mottled look on my blonde naso. Over the past 2 days I lost my flagfin, my emperor and I'm expecting my flamingi and majestic to go any time. My little puffer is acting very strange but hanging on, and my blue trigger seems covered in a lot of tiny spots. The regal and the trigger are the only ones who seem to be eating.

Anyway, I can provide more info if needed to help diagnose, but I've also included some pictures to help. I'm really at wits end, frustrated with myself but also obviously very concerned about my fish.

Your written description sounds like Neobendenia flukes, but the photographs show advanced ich. You very easily could have both going on at the same time. There is a slight chance that there is Amyloodinium (velvet) involved, but that causes really rapid breathing and a quick death, so I'm ruling that out.

Ruby Reef will not be effective against Neobenedenia flukes. Praziquantel can be used, but it would take multiple treatments.

Your beast bet would be to remove all invertebrates (hopefully there are just few in the tank) and put the fish under full hyposalinity at a specific gravity of 1.009

Hyposalinity

Hyposalinity Jay Hemdal 2021 This term refers to a long-term bath treatment for marine fishes in which the salt content of the water is lowered and held below the point that certain parasites can survive. The salt level reached, and the time of the treatment are the two variables...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[Andrew D]

Thanks Jay for the quick and helpful advice. I too thought about ick but there are a lot of white dots which made me think velvet. The die off the first time around was very quick, this time it's more staggered.

A few questions...

- i don't have a lot of inverts in the tank but I do have a bamboo shark. From the reading I've done i think they are fine with hyposalinity but would ask you to pls confirm
- Do I discontinue the second treatment of prazi while going hypo, or will hypo also help with the flukes? I worry about the added stress on fish who have already not eaten for a few days.
- I read your linked article/post but wanted to confirm,. how careful do I need to be with the salinity level? I am asking in part because I don't have terribly precise measuring equipment (I usually approximate knowing that fish are more tolerant than corals) but also because I will be going on vacation during the recommended 30 day treatment period. Even though I will still use a top-of while away, my plan would be to lower it below 1.009 before I go so that I have a bit of a buffer.

Thanks again. Andrew

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks Jay for the quick and helpful advice. I too thought about ick but there are a lot of white dots which made me think velvet. The die off the first time around was very quick, this time it's more staggered.

A few questions...

- i don't have a lot of inverts in the tank but I do have a bamboo shark. From the reading I've done i think they are fine with hyposalinity but would ask you to pls confirm
- Do I discontinue the second treatment of prazi while going hypo, or will hypo also help with the flukes? I worry about the added stress on fish who have already not eaten for a few days.
- I read your linked article/post but wanted to confirm,. how careful do I need to be with the salinity level? I am asking in part because I don't have terribly precise measuring equipment (I usually approximate knowing that fish are more tolerant than corals) but also because I will be going on vacation during the recommended 30 day treatment period. Even though I will still use a top-of while away, my plan would be to lower it below 1.009 before I go so that I have a bit of a buffer.

Thanks again. Andrew

No - sharks do not handle hypo very well. You need to go down to 1.009, and sharks tend to fail below about 1.014.

They also dont handle ionic copper, but bamboo sharks can be dosed with Coppersafe.

You may be between a rock and a hard place here. You might need to run hypo and just take the loss if the shark reacts poorly.

Chloroquine might be an option, but it will kill all inverts and algae - the latter often causes an ammonia spike.

 

[Andrew D]

Thanks again. A few updates since yesterday. I was able to catch the shark and put him in QT but will have to find a more suitable larger container for the 30 day hypo treatment. I did lose another fish (my large majestic angel) but I was able to catch my naso. When I put him in a freshwater dip I was surprised that there were no visible flukes that came off him, not sure if that means that the flukes were not the kind that don't respond to prazi pro or flukes target fish one by one and he just hasn't gotten them yet. He wasn't as bad as the others but was still obviously distressed and I don't think it was just the prazi treatment. I also put him in a separate tank (at normal salinity) and will monitor to see if his symptoms clear. This makes me think that what's happening is just ich, given as you said before velvet typically kills more quickly and indiscriminately.

I am really struggling with what to do here, although I want to of course save as many fish as possible I also want to make sure that if/when they recover I've eliminated whatever pest is in the system before I add other fish, I can't handle (emotionally and financially) another large fish loss. If I went hypo for 30 days, will that cure the fish and also eliminate ich? Should I add another dose of prazi pro just in case, either at the same time as I go hypo or after I bring the salinity back up to normal? In Canada we don't have access to other medication and I am reluctant to dose my display with copper. Do I have any other effective options? If I had to choose between the two, I'd probably sacrifice my current fish (after trying to catch and treat of course) rather than risk harm to more fish.

Thanks again. Andrew

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks again. A few updates since yesterday. I was able to catch the shark and put him in QT but will have to find a more suitable larger container for the 30 day hypo treatment. I did lose another fish (my large majestic angel) but I was able to catch my naso. When I put him in a freshwater dip I was surprised that there were no visible flukes that came off him, not sure if that means that the flukes were not the kind that don't respond to prazi pro or flukes target fish one by one and he just hasn't gotten them yet. He wasn't as bad as the others but was still obviously distressed and I don't think it was just the prazi treatment. I also put him in a separate tank (at normal salinity) and will monitor to see if his symptoms clear. This makes me think that what's happening is just ich, given as you said before velvet typically kills more quickly and indiscriminately.

I am really struggling with what to do here, although I want to of course save as many fish as possible I also want to make sure that if/when they recover I've eliminated whatever pest is in the system before I add other fish, I can't handle (emotionally and financially) another large fish loss. If I went hypo for 30 days, will that cure the fish and also eliminate ich? Should I add another dose of prazi pro just in case, either at the same time as I go hypo or after I bring the salinity back up to normal? In Canada we don't have access to other medication and I am reluctant to dose my display with copper. Do I have any other effective options? If I had to choose between the two, I'd probably sacrifice my current fish (after trying to catch and treat of course) rather than risk harm to more fish.

Thanks again. Andrew

Yes, hypo at 1.009 works against ich and flukes. However, once fish loss from the disease has begun, time has run out, and you will likely lose more even if you get hypo started right away. Hypo actually works faster than copper or prazi in these cases.

Re: not seeing flukes in a FW dip, only one species of fluke is large enough to be seen without a microscope.

 

[Andrew D]

Well, I lost another few fish - a large maroon, my vlamingi and my blue trigger - so the only fish left in the display are my bulletproof regal, a small sailfin, a valentini puffer and a juvenile bi-colour parrotfish. I put the baso in hypo quarantine and he is still alive, but not yet eating and still mostly still so I'm not sure he's going to survive. I'm slowly dropping the salinity on the display, given it is 600G of water volume it will take some time to bring it to 1.009. My shark, also in QT, is doing well but I'm trying to find a better temporary home.

So my plan is to hypo the display for 35 days to kill both ich and fluke parasites. Once the salinity is down to 1.009 I will put the naso back in along with a koran angel that I pulled from the tank a few weeks ago, dipped him (with lots of visible flukes falling off) and have nursed him back to health in QT. I don't want to put a healthy fish back in an infected tank but there's no way I'm putting him in my reef and I figure he had whatever is in there already so won't be harmed by the treatment. I figure if enough of these fish survive with only hypo as the treatment then it will have ich and/or flukes and not velvet as I once feared, and the 35 days of hypo will have killed both parasites. At that point I will slowly raise the salinity and (maybe) reintroduce the shark.

A couple more questions pls.

- I read that sharks don't get ich but can they carry flukes or something else, and is there a risk if it stays out of hypo that I will be re-introducing the parasites with him? I can't take that chance.
- I know it's important to keep salinity at under 1.009 but what happens if it dips below? I'm thinking of keeping a buffer, say at 1.008, to guard against bad readings and late freshwater top-off. Is this dangerous for the fish?

Thanks again. Andrew

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Well, I lost another few fish - a large maroon, my vlamingi and my blue trigger - so the only fish left in the display are my bulletproof regal, a small sailfin, a valentini puffer and a juvenile bi-colour parrotfish. I put the baso in hypo quarantine and he is still alive, but not yet eating and still mostly still so I'm not sure he's going to survive. I'm slowly dropping the salinity on the display, given it is 600G of water volume it will take some time to bring it to 1.009. My shark, also in QT, is doing well but I'm trying to find a better temporary home.

So my plan is to hypo the display for 35 days to kill both ich and fluke parasites. Once the salinity is down to 1.009 I will put the naso back in along with a koran angel that I pulled from the tank a few weeks ago, dipped him (with lots of visible flukes falling off) and have nursed him back to health in QT. I don't want to put a healthy fish back in an infected tank but there's no way I'm putting him in my reef and I figure he had whatever is in there already so won't be harmed by the treatment. I figure if enough of these fish survive with only hypo as the treatment then it will have ich and/or flukes and not velvet as I once feared, and the 35 days of hypo will have killed both parasites. At that point I will slowly raise the salinity and (maybe) reintroduce the shark.

A couple more questions pls.

- I read that sharks don't get ich but can they carry flukes or something else, and is there a risk if it stays out of hypo that I will be re-introducing the parasites with him? I can't take that chance.
- I know it's important to keep salinity at under 1.009 but what happens if it dips below? I'm thinking of keeping a buffer, say at 1.008, to guard against bad readings and late freshwater top-off. Is this dangerous for the fish?

Thanks again. Andrew

You need to be very careful to run hypo at exactly 1.009. Above that value and you may not see any disease control, below that value and you will begin to see damage to many fish. Using an accurate device to measure specific gravity/salinity is critical.

For the shark, keeping it isolated from the remaining fish for 45 days will help ensure it does not reintroduce any disease that might be "hitchhiking" on it.

Jay

 

[Andrew D]

ok thanks. Will let you/everyone know how it goes.