New burrfish with lots of spots

[Cheeriup]

Hi. I just got this burrfish in the mail, less than an hour ago. It definitely has spots on the fins, eyes, and (I think, unless it's just the fish's pattern) spots on the body.

The water it came in had very high ammonia levels (off the charts), though everything else was in normal range. It is acclimating right now, and these are the parameters in the QT tank it's acclimating to:

Salinity - 1.024
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 3.0ppm
PH - 8.0

It's a 10 gallon QT with no tank mates.

My question is, what should I do? I'm worried it's velvet and I don't want to waste any time if it is.

My thought is do a fw dip and rally bath before I put it into the QT tank, but I'm not sure if I should let it settle in for a while first.

I have a variety of meds available, including antibacterials, antifungals, antiparasitics, a couple kinds of copper (and a hanna checker), etc.

It's not showing any other signs of stress - color is light, breathing is normal, etc. although the fins seem a bit ragged.

**Edit: after looking more closely, it also seems to have some stringy mucus hanging off the top of it's spikes.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Cheeriup]

Update: we went through with the fw dip, and the fish did fine, but showed signs of serious distress with the rally bath. Maybe we'll try again later.

I also wanted to share that the spots look more like splotches than they do like the dots in the photos.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

You need to be very careful acclimating shipped in fish - as you mix the bag water, the pH rises, but not as fast as the ammonia is being diluted. At a higher pH, the ammonia becomes toxic, damaging the fish as you acclimate it. Also, do you know the salinity of the water in the shipping bag? Acclimating upwards is very stressful on fish.

Don't add to the stress by giving it a FW or rally dip now. Let it recover for 24 to 36 hours and then start a treatment with Coppersafe and Prazipro.

Those spots do look like ich to me, but post a picture after it has rested up a bit and we'll see.

Jay

 

[Cheeriup]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

You need to be very careful acclimating shipped in fish - as you mix the bag water, the pH rises, but not as fast as the ammonia is being diluted. At a higher pH, the ammonia becomes toxic, damaging the fish as you acclimate it. Also, do you know the salinity of the water in the shipping bag? Acclimating upwards is very stressful on fish.

Don't add to the stress by giving it a FW or rally dip now. Let it recover for 24 to 36 hours and then start a treatment with Coppersafe and Prazipro.

Those spots do look like ich to me, but post a picture after it has rested up a bit and we'll see.

Jay

Thanks, all of that is good to know. I will keep that in mind, and I'll give it a rest for a while. The bag salinity was about 1.021. after checking my QT again to be sure, it looks like mine is about 1.022. I'm not sure how the misread happened, but hopefully that's better.

Anyway, I have both of those medications, so I'll plan to start them after it's recovered a bit.

 

[Cheeriup]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

You need to be very careful acclimating shipped in fish - as you mix the bag water, the pH rises, but not as fast as the ammonia is being diluted. At a higher pH, the ammonia becomes toxic, damaging the fish as you acclimate it. Also, do you know the salinity of the water in the shipping bag? Acclimating upwards is very stressful on fish.

Don't add to the stress by giving it a FW or rally dip now. Let it recover for 24 to 36 hours and then start a treatment with Coppersafe and Prazipro.

Those spots do look like ich to me, but post a picture after it has rested up a bit and we'll see.

Jay

Got these photos this morning. The spots still show up to the eye more faded around the edges, like splotches, and less like the salt grains in the pictures - not sure why my camera is doing that. Otherwise the fish seems to be doing alright at the moment.

The company I got it from says that this fish been fine for the last two weeks they've had it, and it's probably just stress from shipping, but I don't feel confident about that at all.

Would you still say this is probably ich?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Got these photos this morning. The spots still show up to the eye more faded around the edges, like splotches, and less like the salt grains in the pictures - not sure why my camera is doing that. Otherwise the fish seems to be doing alright at the moment.

The company I got it from says that this fish been fine for the last two weeks they've had it, and it's probably just stress from shipping, but I don't feel confident about that at all.

Would you still say this is probably ich?

View attachment 2739633
View attachment 2739634
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View attachment 2739636

Yes, I clearly see ich on this fish. Pictures are never 100%, but this is about as classic of a case as I see.
Jay

 

[Cheeriup]

Yes, I clearly see ich on this fish. Pictures are never 100%, but this is about as classic of a case as I see.
Jay

I've been doing recommended treatment for 4.5 days now, and at 2.5ppm coppersafe for 2 days.

The first has been doing well, eating plenty, etc. As of this afternoon, it's only breathing out of one gill, and the other gill seems to be slightly labored. No other changes to demeanor right now.

I do have significant bacterial bloom from the prazipro, but my parameters are unchanged.

Should I worry, and if so, what might be the next steps?

 

[Cheeriup]

I've been doing recommended treatment for 4.5 days now, and at 2.5ppm coppersafe for 2 days.

The first has been doing well, eating plenty, etc. As of this afternoon, it's only breathing out of one gill, and the other gill seems to be slightly labored. No other changes to demeanor right now.

I do have significant bacterial bloom from the prazipro, but my parameters are unchanged.

Should I worry, and if so, what might be the next steps?

Eh... could be a false alarm. It seems completely fine now.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Eh... could be a false alarm. It seems completely fine now.

Coppersafe is gentle, but that also means it is slow to work, With active ich, it may take 3 to 5 days to slow/stop the parasite. Meanwhile the fish may get sicker before it gets better.

If the water remains cloudy, you may need to do partial water changes. Just be sure to redose the right amount of copper to treat the changed water.

Jay