Hi Jay I have read a lot on various forums and have always seen you chime in on various disease issues in fish. I have an internal parasite issue that I need help identifying and treating what others have not been able to diagnose. This recently started when I introduced a Blonde Naso and Yellow Tang from QT into my 210 gallon display (January 13th). It actually goes far deeper and further back but I will try to keep it simple and just speak about what is currently happening and give a brief summary of what happened before.
I had a doser malfunction causing a PH and Alkalinity spike (Ph 8.73/Alkalinity 13.4). Surprisingly nothing died and the inverts/corals weren’t even bothered. This as well as an upgrade to a 210 gallon aquarium began an outbreak of something I still do not know what. I believed it to be an unusual parasitic worm in my Powder Blue and also what I believed to be Flukes on some of the other fish as well as an internal worm in the Yellow tang which spread to other fish. Long story short, after several weeks of Prazipro and no improvement in any of them, I pulled all 14 fish from the display and I decided to keep the display Fallow.
So one QT was setup to treat the fish from the display and another one was setup for a newly acquired Blonde Naso tang.
After several medications and treatments both internally and externally on the fish during QT I made a series of mistakes and an outbreak of Uronema and Brooklynella (Had no idea this was present in the aquarium) killed everyone but a Yellow tang and Maroon Clownfish. After spending weeks trying to treat my 10 year old Maroon clown (bacterial/fungal issue) and feeling it was holding up the progress of treating the Yellow Tang I gave up and gave her to a LFS. The Yellow Tang made significant improvements and looked good during a 7-10 day observation. I did not notice any issues with weight or anything in observation until the day before when I noticed it had lost more weight than normal after going a day without feeding. But because of how much this fish had been through and how much medication I put it through and not seeing any symptoms for internal or external diseases I thought he needed to be in the display with liverock and a clean reef environment to fully recover.
The Blonde Naso was newly acquired and put through QT and after seeing him maintaining his weight for 10 days in an observation tank and eating well I decided he was ready to go into the display.
Still a bit skeptical about the Yellow Tang and the Naso (who had a little twitch here and there on his dorsal and anal fin (lower fin) even after 2 separate treatments with Prazipro, I reached out on the forums in which some people said I was overthinking it and that they looked fine and probably just needed to be in a reef environment. I have been extremely paranoid ever since the massive die off so I agreed with their assessment. I introduced the both of them into the display on January 13th.
Almost immediately the Naso lost a lot of weight. The very next day on January 14th I started to see his spine. By January 15th he had lost a lot of weight almost emaciated. I began upping the feeding as I believed maybe it was from the significantly higher flow in the display tank with wavemakers causing him to burn more calories. This was also the case with the Yellow Tang but significantly more with the Naso. I also started to notice the Naso's feces looking very strange. They were big grey segmented feces that broke apart into these 1/4" Flagellate looking things that remain solid even when sucked and spit out of the Gyre pumps. It was very evident when It would go several hours without feeding (away at work) and he was grazing on just hair algae in the display (Lots of it since going Fallow). So to try to rule this out, one day I fed a crap ton of Nori to the Naso and Yellow Tangs and both of their feces were black and solid. So initially I was a bit relieved but since then I have tried feeding lots of Nori but have not seen the normal black stools especially in the Naso. His feces come out as large grey balls or long fat segmented feces and now there is significantly less hair algae in the tank than before (UV/H2O2 has helped). Since then, I have been feeding 6-8 times daily and nothing has helped bring his weight up. So far, I have only been able to maintain his weight but I can still see his spine not emaciated but he is skinny with a fat lumpy/bumpy belly and from his right side looks like what I can describe as a worm/snake coiled up in his belly. The Yellow Tang is slightly underweight and holding there no increase in weight but also a fat lumpy belly. The Naso has not touched ANYTHING but Nori since being transferred to the display. The Yellow Tang eats almost everything I throw in the tank, Mysis, Rods food, Flakes, Nori.
So I have become very impatient having already spent several months of QTing and trying to diagnose different issues since September. Recently, I have tried Metro soaked Nori/frozen food for about 5 days no change. I tried General Cure soaked food for about 5 days still saw no improvement. Debating whether to use Fenbendazole in the reef display, I decided to play it safe and just try Nori soaked in Fritz Expel P. Well to my surprise it appeared to work. That very day I saw ALOT of those flagellate looking feces. So I began catching them and discarding them. I caught Probably 40-50 of these weird looking things in 6-8 hours since I began this food soak. The next day continued and caught a lot again. I even started seeing the grey balls/segmented feces from the Yellow Tang when I never saw it come from him before. Today will mark 4 days since starting Expel P. I have been overfeeding this food. I know it is not recommended to feed more than twice daily but I have been feeding this Nori soak exclusively 6 times daily or as much as I can and then just adding clean Nori to a clip twice daily. Since yesterday I noticed a significant decrease in the amount of feces coming out of the fish and have begun to notice white worm looking things instead. But both fish still have lumpy bellies and the Naso still has this coiled up looking thing/s inside him.
Before typing this, I was considering pulling both of them out and into a Fenbendazole bath for 12 hours and then into a temporary QT bin for a day or 2 before bringing them back into the Display. But then I think well what if whatever this is, has been coming from the display the entire time? I doubt it because it went 6 weeks fallow but this is just crazy I never once saw either of these two fish show any internal issues for several weeks and both of them were in a QT for at least a couple of weeks and they both went through TTM for another 2 weeks so I would've seen what feces are floating around every couple of days. I have so many thoughts going through my head because of how frustrated and tired I am with this tank that all options are on the table. To make matters worse Ich is currently in the display which I have been managing for 2 weeks now with UV/H2O2 and planned on just managing it as going though quarantine and Fallow again is just not what I want to deal with. I literally am considering just nuking the Reef with bleach and starting over. I am even considering quitting. But I just cannot quit even after all of the crap that has happened but the thought of quitting has come up a couple of times now. I also have a baby and this tank is just taking up so much of my time. I need some serious help with this. I know I am being impatient but I also have a Moorish Idol and juvenile Purple Tang in QT and I can no longer afford the ridiculous electric bills since November because of the multiple quarantine tanks I have had running in the basement. That is why I am considering starting over or even just putting them all in together and treating them in the display with whatever is needed and removing all corals (I will decide later on what to do with the corals, the fish are the priority right now). I apologize this is a very long message but I needed to be thorough in what I have seen. Any help and guidance is greatly appreciated!
btw in the videos the fish don't appear as skinny as I mentioned but it is because they are being overfed during the day/evening when I take the videos. Whenever I am home in the morning they look a lot skinnier so basically within 10-12 hours of not eating.
Thanks,
Andres
I had a doser malfunction causing a PH and Alkalinity spike (Ph 8.73/Alkalinity 13.4). Surprisingly nothing died and the inverts/corals weren’t even bothered. This as well as an upgrade to a 210 gallon aquarium began an outbreak of something I still do not know what. I believed it to be an unusual parasitic worm in my Powder Blue and also what I believed to be Flukes on some of the other fish as well as an internal worm in the Yellow tang which spread to other fish. Long story short, after several weeks of Prazipro and no improvement in any of them, I pulled all 14 fish from the display and I decided to keep the display Fallow.
So one QT was setup to treat the fish from the display and another one was setup for a newly acquired Blonde Naso tang.
After several medications and treatments both internally and externally on the fish during QT I made a series of mistakes and an outbreak of Uronema and Brooklynella (Had no idea this was present in the aquarium) killed everyone but a Yellow tang and Maroon Clownfish. After spending weeks trying to treat my 10 year old Maroon clown (bacterial/fungal issue) and feeling it was holding up the progress of treating the Yellow Tang I gave up and gave her to a LFS. The Yellow Tang made significant improvements and looked good during a 7-10 day observation. I did not notice any issues with weight or anything in observation until the day before when I noticed it had lost more weight than normal after going a day without feeding. But because of how much this fish had been through and how much medication I put it through and not seeing any symptoms for internal or external diseases I thought he needed to be in the display with liverock and a clean reef environment to fully recover.
The Blonde Naso was newly acquired and put through QT and after seeing him maintaining his weight for 10 days in an observation tank and eating well I decided he was ready to go into the display.
Still a bit skeptical about the Yellow Tang and the Naso (who had a little twitch here and there on his dorsal and anal fin (lower fin) even after 2 separate treatments with Prazipro, I reached out on the forums in which some people said I was overthinking it and that they looked fine and probably just needed to be in a reef environment. I have been extremely paranoid ever since the massive die off so I agreed with their assessment. I introduced the both of them into the display on January 13th.
Almost immediately the Naso lost a lot of weight. The very next day on January 14th I started to see his spine. By January 15th he had lost a lot of weight almost emaciated. I began upping the feeding as I believed maybe it was from the significantly higher flow in the display tank with wavemakers causing him to burn more calories. This was also the case with the Yellow Tang but significantly more with the Naso. I also started to notice the Naso's feces looking very strange. They were big grey segmented feces that broke apart into these 1/4" Flagellate looking things that remain solid even when sucked and spit out of the Gyre pumps. It was very evident when It would go several hours without feeding (away at work) and he was grazing on just hair algae in the display (Lots of it since going Fallow). So to try to rule this out, one day I fed a crap ton of Nori to the Naso and Yellow Tangs and both of their feces were black and solid. So initially I was a bit relieved but since then I have tried feeding lots of Nori but have not seen the normal black stools especially in the Naso. His feces come out as large grey balls or long fat segmented feces and now there is significantly less hair algae in the tank than before (UV/H2O2 has helped). Since then, I have been feeding 6-8 times daily and nothing has helped bring his weight up. So far, I have only been able to maintain his weight but I can still see his spine not emaciated but he is skinny with a fat lumpy/bumpy belly and from his right side looks like what I can describe as a worm/snake coiled up in his belly. The Yellow Tang is slightly underweight and holding there no increase in weight but also a fat lumpy belly. The Naso has not touched ANYTHING but Nori since being transferred to the display. The Yellow Tang eats almost everything I throw in the tank, Mysis, Rods food, Flakes, Nori.
So I have become very impatient having already spent several months of QTing and trying to diagnose different issues since September. Recently, I have tried Metro soaked Nori/frozen food for about 5 days no change. I tried General Cure soaked food for about 5 days still saw no improvement. Debating whether to use Fenbendazole in the reef display, I decided to play it safe and just try Nori soaked in Fritz Expel P. Well to my surprise it appeared to work. That very day I saw ALOT of those flagellate looking feces. So I began catching them and discarding them. I caught Probably 40-50 of these weird looking things in 6-8 hours since I began this food soak. The next day continued and caught a lot again. I even started seeing the grey balls/segmented feces from the Yellow Tang when I never saw it come from him before. Today will mark 4 days since starting Expel P. I have been overfeeding this food. I know it is not recommended to feed more than twice daily but I have been feeding this Nori soak exclusively 6 times daily or as much as I can and then just adding clean Nori to a clip twice daily. Since yesterday I noticed a significant decrease in the amount of feces coming out of the fish and have begun to notice white worm looking things instead. But both fish still have lumpy bellies and the Naso still has this coiled up looking thing/s inside him.
Before typing this, I was considering pulling both of them out and into a Fenbendazole bath for 12 hours and then into a temporary QT bin for a day or 2 before bringing them back into the Display. But then I think well what if whatever this is, has been coming from the display the entire time? I doubt it because it went 6 weeks fallow but this is just crazy I never once saw either of these two fish show any internal issues for several weeks and both of them were in a QT for at least a couple of weeks and they both went through TTM for another 2 weeks so I would've seen what feces are floating around every couple of days. I have so many thoughts going through my head because of how frustrated and tired I am with this tank that all options are on the table. To make matters worse Ich is currently in the display which I have been managing for 2 weeks now with UV/H2O2 and planned on just managing it as going though quarantine and Fallow again is just not what I want to deal with. I literally am considering just nuking the Reef with bleach and starting over. I am even considering quitting. But I just cannot quit even after all of the crap that has happened but the thought of quitting has come up a couple of times now. I also have a baby and this tank is just taking up so much of my time. I need some serious help with this. I know I am being impatient but I also have a Moorish Idol and juvenile Purple Tang in QT and I can no longer afford the ridiculous electric bills since November because of the multiple quarantine tanks I have had running in the basement. That is why I am considering starting over or even just putting them all in together and treating them in the display with whatever is needed and removing all corals (I will decide later on what to do with the corals, the fish are the priority right now). I apologize this is a very long message but I needed to be thorough in what I have seen. Any help and guidance is greatly appreciated!
btw in the videos the fish don't appear as skinny as I mentioned but it is because they are being overfed during the day/evening when I take the videos. Whenever I am home in the morning they look a lot skinnier so basically within 10-12 hours of not eating.
Thanks,
Andres
