Sick Lionfish

[Fishguy1079]

Hello everyone, I've got a Volitan Lionfish and up until like 4 days ago he was fine. Eating krill and mysis shrimp. And then like two days ago he started becoming lethargic and mostly hiding. And then yesterday he stopped eating. I also noticed it looks like he has maybe lost his side fins or something. The only thing wrong with the water I could find was kind of high nitrates(75-100ppm). But that was like a week ago since then I've done 2 water changes and it's under 40ppm now. Anybody got any ideas?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

More history on the tank and fish, plus a video would be needed to try and delve into this. this post explains all that:

Some Helpful Hints When Posting or Responding to Threads in the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Section

Aquarium Fish Disease Problem Solving Determining the best course of action for a problem with your aquarium can be a difficult task. Even advanced aquarists will often need to seek the help of others for complicated or unique issues. Our intent here on Reef 2 Reef is to offer expert advice...

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Important questions would be -

What other fish are in with it?
How long have you had it?
Is it breathing fast?

Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

Cloudy eyes often associated with water quality. Is fish breathing normal or labored?

 

[Fishguy1079]

Jay, a couple of wrasse clown trigger, panther grouper, starts and stripes puffer and a vilamini tang. Had the lionfish 9 months or so. Had a another one that did the same thing and died a few days ago. I also had a purple tang die about a week ago, never saw spots on him or really noticed heavy breathing, he also was washed out. But he looked washed out mostly for a while(months) I assumed it was a water quality issue or stress. Thought it was maybe high nitrates so did another water and brought that down but this second one is doing the same thing, losing fins, stop eating. Doesn't seem to be breathing fast. I had been using kanoplex mixed in food lately, but not sure he had any of that meds.

 

[Fishguy1079]

Cloudy eyes often associated with water quality. Is fish breathing normal or labored?

I'd say normal.

 

[Fishguy1079]

Took a second look and a video and I think it does look like the foxface and trigger are breathing heavy. I don't see anything on the fish so my guess is internal parasites or maybe flukes?

 

[lion king]

That is not a diet that would sustain a volitan more than several months. My protocol for a lion like this is to initially feed them some live food, then start offering them more nutritional options. Poor water quality would also have to addressed. Internal parasites for a lion after this long would have to have been introduced through live food, the others may eat poo, but not a lion. Is he swimming at the surface or into the flow of a powerhead, this can indicate flukes.

Live Food

Ghosties, guppies, and mollies, oh my. These are the best, most available, safest, and nutritional choices to feed your predator. If you have a fish you have decided the inclusion of a live in beneficial or even necessary, these are the best options to feed. I can not recommend no other species...

www.reef2reef.com

Lion King's dead food recommendations

I'm a health nut if you haven't noticed, this also translates to my pets. Today I will cover some of the dead foods I feed and why, with some nutritional info that I recall off the top of my head. This is by no means all the foods you can feed, these are just the ones I include in my feedings...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Fishguy1079]

That is not a diet that would sustain a volitan more than several months. My protocol for a lion like this is to initially feed them some live food, then start offering them more nutritional options. Poor water quality would also have to addressed. Internal parasites for a lion after this long would have to have been introduced through live food, the others may eat poo, but not a lion.

Live Food

Ghosties, guppies, and mollies, oh my. These are the best, most available, safest, and nutritional choices to feed your predator. If you have a fish you have decided the inclusion of a live in beneficial or even necessary, these are the best options to feed. I can not recommend no other species...

www.reef2reef.com

Lion King's dead food recommendations

I'm a health nut if you haven't noticed, this also translates to my pets. Today I will cover some of the dead foods I feed and why, with some nutritional info that I recall off the top of my head. This is by no means all the foods you can feed, these are just the ones I include in my feedings...

www.reef2reef.com

Thanks for the info. I also left out that I had been feeding them ghost shrimp a couple of times a week. Besides Ghost shrimp, frozen krill and jumbo mysis what do you recommend? I thought that was enough variety? Can lion's get parasites from freshwater shrimp?

 

[lion king]

Thanks for the info. I also left out that I had been feeding them ghost shrimp a couple of times a week. Besides Ghost shrimp, frozen krill and jumbo mysis what do you recommend? I thought that was enough variety? Can lion's get parasites from freshwater shrimp?

Read through the threads I posted. Where you gut loading the ghost shrimp. They can not get internal parasites from shrimp. If he was getting ghost shrimp a couple of times a week, that's a great addition, just make sure you feed them yourself first, I feed mine a quality micro pellet. Too much krill can present an issue, it has a high amount of thiaminese which causes a vit B1 deficiency, this can show up in as little as several months. If the other fish are acting strange as well, you may have something else going on. When's the last time you added something new. Faded coloring and torn fins can be due to poor water quality and poor diet. Do you target feed him or expect him to catch the food in the water column, they usually won't catch enough on their own. Are you watching him eat the ghost shrimp, you have other fish that are much faster and would be happy to eat them.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Took a second look and a video and I think it does look like the foxface and trigger are breathing heavy. I don't see anything on the fish so my guess is internal parasites or maybe flukes?

May actually be both- flukes with eyes and even velvet. While symptoms are similar, with flukes, you will see gills red or swollen with rapid breathing, fish acting lethargic or swimming near the water surface, hiding in the corner of tank or behind rocks, loss of appetite, shaking its head, flashing/darting, develop clamped fins, , or scratching against objects. They may also exhibit what looks like yawning from gill irritation develop, cloudy eyes and loss of color.
With velvet, fish will scratch body against hard objects, lethargic behavior, Loss of appetite and weight loss, Rapid, labored breathing, Fins clamped against the body, and typically stay at the surface of the water, or remain in a position where a steady flow of water is present in the aquarium.

 

[Fishguy1079]

Read through the threads I posted. Where you gut loading the ghost shrimp. They can not get internal parasites from shrimp. If he was getting ghost shrimp a couple of times a week, that's a great addition, just make sure you feed them yourself first, I feed mine a quality micro pellet. Too much krill can present an issue, it has a high amount of thiaminese which causes a vit B1 deficiency, this can show up in as little as several months. If the other fish are acting strange as well, you may have something else going on. When's the last time you added something new. Faded coloring and torn fins can be due to poor water quality and poor diet. Do you target feed him or expect him to catch the food in the water column, they usually won't catch enough on their own. Are you watching him eat the ghost shrimp, you have other fish that are much faster and would be happy to eat them.

Thanks for the tips. Yeah, I usually try to gut feed with pellets. I don't usually let it float, I hand him usually. Yeah I thought it was poor quality but having done 2 water changes water quality has improved. I'm starting to think it's a internal parasite.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks for the tips. Yeah, I usually try to gut feed with pellets. I don't usually let it float, I hand him usually. Yeah I thought it was poor quality but having done 2 water changes water quality has improved. I'm starting to think it's an internal parasite.

Pellets are not a proper diet for this fish and you will want to try mollues entice it then switch to krill, silversides, shrimp and crab meat and scallops
I don’t recommend live feeders who come with disease and shellfish that can hold parasites
Continue to monitor water which was one of my suspects and even take a water sample to an LFS that does not use API test kits to confirm your readings

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Took a second look and a video and I think it does look like the foxface and trigger are breathing heavy. I don't see anything on the fish so my guess is internal parasites or maybe flukes?

Given the previous fish losses and the triggerfish's rapid breathing, this is an external parasitic problem (possibly bacterial, but unlikely). Water quality and diet is important of course, but they have to be REALLY bad to cause fish death and broad symptoms across all fish in a system. For example, nitrate is often > 300 ppm in some large aquariums back in the day and the fish were fine. Same thing with nutrition - you have to feed fish REALLY poorly to cause a group of them to outright die.

The lionfish is in a pretty bad way, and once fish loss has begun, it is often not possible to stop the issue soon enough to prevent further losses.

I don't think the issue is a protozoan - it isn't ich and velvet/Amyloodinium kills fish so fast that you'd have no fish left by now.

Flukes cause rapid breathing, cloudy eyes and deaths spread out over weeks. Some fish may not be affected as flukes have some specificity as to their hosts.

I think you should consider treating for flukes. A freshwater dip can provide temporary relief, and with some species of fluke, you can see them in the dip afterwards, confirming the diagnosis. However, I don't think the lionfish would survive a dip.

The two treatments for flukes are hyposalinity (no invertebrates in the tank of course). I worry about that method here because your tank has a lot of organics in it, mulm on the bottom, etc. When giving a tank like that a hypo treatment, there is often a die-off of all the critters living in the tank and that fouls the water.

Praziquantel is an option, but you would need to do 3 treatments, as this fluke is no doubt one of the egg laying species and you need to break the life cycle as the prazi does not kill the flukes eggs.

If you decide to do one of these, let me know and I can walk you through it.....

Jay

 

[lion king]

Initially I thought the concern was just the lion, with the other fish being affected, I would also lean towards possible flukes.

 

[Fishguy1079]

Given the previous fish losses and the triggerfish's rapid breathing, this is an external parasitic problem (possibly bacterial, but unlikely). Water quality and diet is important of course, but they have to be REALLY bad to cause fish death and broad symptoms across all fish in a system. For example, nitrate is often > 300 ppm in some large aquariums back in the day and the fish were fine. Same thing with nutrition - you have to feed fish REALLY poorly to cause a group of them to outright die.

The lionfish is in a pretty bad way, and once fish loss has begun, it is often not possible to stop the issue soon enough to prevent further losses.

I don't think the issue is a protozoan - it isn't ich and velvet/Amyloodinium kills fish so fast that you'd have no fish left by now.

Flukes cause rapid breathing, cloudy eyes and deaths spread out over weeks. Some fish may not be affected as flukes have some specificity as to their hosts.

I think you should consider treating for flukes. A freshwater dip can provide temporary relief, and with some species of fluke, you can see them in the dip afterwards, confirming the diagnosis. However, I don't think the lionfish would survive a dip.

The two treatments for flukes are hyposalinity (no invertebrates in the tank of course). I worry about that method here because your tank has a lot of organics in it, mulm on the bottom, etc. When giving a tank like that a hypo treatment, there is often a die-off of all the critters living in the tank and that fouls the water.

Praziquantel is an option, but you would need to do 3 treatments, as this fluke is no doubt one of the egg laying species and you need to break the life cycle as the prazi does not kill the flukes eggs.

If you decide to do one of these, let me know and I can walk you through it.....

Jay

Thanks Jay, yeah I'm not sure what's going on with that tank. I mean maybe the Nitrates were around 100 at some point but never for that long and before I moved I had a 125(fish only) tank that was set up for years that the nitrates would sometimes creep up to over 200ppm before I would do a water change but those fish would be fine and I had the same fish for years. And I feed almost exclusively frozen foods( brine-soaked in Selcon, Mysis, plankton, krill) except for freeze dried seaweed which i feed daily. And of course for my lionfish I feed live ghost shrimp as well(gut loaded with SW pellets ). So I don't believe it's really the water or the food. Do you?
So as far as the Fluke thing goes I think your right, I did some reading/ research last night and that's what I came up with too. I use a lot of seachem products in general and I was reading about the different diseases and this sounded familiar. :
"Dactylogyrus trematodes (skin) / Monogenenean trematodes (gills)
Fish appear sluggish, flash against rocks, and often gasp and show other signs of stress. Flukes are difficult to diagnose because the parasite itself cannot be seen until the advanced stages of infection. Look for gasping, irritated or red gills, excessive mucus production( I think my Foxface does this), twitching and flashing(wrasses),"
Because I have noticed different fish at different times exhibiting some of these symptoms. This was under what ParaGard said it would treat. And since I actually had a bottle I added some to my tank last night. Paraguard however says it takes treating it daily for at least two weeks to work. I'm assuming because of the life cycle thing? What's are your thoughts on this course of treatment ? I'm not familiar with Praziquantel, does it work the same/ better than Prazipro?
So in the purple tang I lost I had him for like a year and he was faded and blotchy looking for a month or two at least. I thought it was stress or water quality. If a fish has flukes can those symptoms be caused by flukes ? What about in Lionfish? I swear it's like they lost some of there fins or something.

Thanks so much for your help Jay!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks Jay, yeah I'm not sure what's going on with that tank. I mean maybe the Nitrates were around 100 at some point but never for that long and before I moved I had a 125(fish only) tank that was set up for years that the nitrates would sometimes creep up to over 200ppm before I would do a water change but those fish would be fine and I had the same fish for years. And I feed almost exclusively frozen foods( brine-soaked in Selcon, Mysis, plankton, krill) except for freeze dried seaweed which i feed daily. And of course for my lionfish I feed live ghost shrimp as well(gut loaded with SW pellets ). So I don't believe it's really the water or the food. Do you?
So as far as the Fluke thing goes I think your right, I did some reading/ research last night and that's what I came up with too. I use a lot of seachem products in general and I was reading about the different diseases and this sounded familiar. :
"Dactylogyrus trematodes (skin) / Monogenenean trematodes (gills)
Fish appear sluggish, flash against rocks, and often gasp and show other signs of stress. Flukes are difficult to diagnose because the parasite itself cannot be seen until the advanced stages of infection. Look for gasping, irritated or red gills, excessive mucus production( I think my Foxface does this), twitching and flashing(wrasses),"
Because I have noticed different fish at different times exhibiting some of these symptoms. This was under what ParaGard said it would treat. And since I actually had a bottle I added some to my tank last night. Paraguard however says it takes treating it daily for at least two weeks to work. I'm assuming because of the life cycle thing? What's are your thoughts on this course of treatment ? I'm not familiar with Praziquantel, does it work the same/ better than Prazipro?
So in the purple tang I lost I had him for like a year and he was faded and blotchy looking for a month or two at least. I thought it was stress or water quality. If a fish has flukes can those symptoms be caused by flukes ? What about in Lionfish? I swear it's like they lost some of there fins or something.

Thanks so much for your help Jay!

Paraguard is not a good treatment for flukes, in fact, I would go so far as to say it won’t work at all at the dose it needs to be used at.

The lionfish probably has a secondary bacterial infection, that is pretty common in advanced fluke infections.

Can you get me a list of everything in the tank?

Jay

 

[Fishguy1079]

Paraguard is not a good treatment for flukes, in fact, I would go so far as to say it won’t work at all at the dose it needs to be used at.

The lionfish probably has a secondary bacterial infection, that is pretty common in advanced fluke infections.

Can you get me a list of everything in the tank?

Jay

Ok thanks for advice Jay? Does Prazipro work as well as what you mentioned ? I ask because I know my LFS carries that. Here's what's in the tank right now:

Stars and stripes puffer
Bi-color Foxface
Clown Trigger
Dragon wrasse
Lunar wrasses
Valimini Tang
Panther grouper
Volitan Lion

Thanks
Chad

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Ok thanks for advice Jay? Does Prazipro work as well as what you mentioned ? I ask because I know my LFS carries that. Here's what's in the tank right now:

Stars and stripes puffer
Bi-color Foxface
Clown Trigger
Dragon wrasse
Lunar wrasses
Valimini Tang
Panther grouper
Volitan Lion

Thanks
Chad

Chad,

Yes - Prazipro is a full dose of praziquantel if dosed accurately. You need to dose it for the actual volume of the tank, not its rated capacity. I usually deduct 15% of the tank's volume for rock displacement, and then add in any water volume for a sump. I also stress good aeration with prazipro.

If you do not have any invertebrates in the tank at all, you could also consider hyposalinity at a specific gravity of 1.012 for 30 days.

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...

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Jay

 

[Fishguy1079]

Chad,

Yes - Prazipro is a full dose of praziquantel if dosed accurately. You need to dose it for the actual volume of the tank, not its rated capacity. I usually deduct 15% of the tank's volume for rock displacement, and then add in any water volume for a sump. I also stress good aeration with prazipro.

If you do not have any invertebrates in the tank at all, you could also consider hyposalinity at a specific gravity of 1.012 for 30 days.

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

Thanks Jay, picked up some Prazipro. Directions say once is enough, but you recommend 3 separate doses right? How far apart? Also I've got those nitrate reducing pads in my filters. Do you think it's safe to leave them in or will they filter the medication out? My LFS says it's fine to leave in just wanted to get a second opinion.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks Jay, picked up some Prazipro. Directions say once is enough, but you recommend 3 separate doses right? How far apart? Also I've got those nitrate reducing pads in my filters. Do you think it's safe to leave them in or will they filter the medication out? My LFS says it's fine to leave in just wanted to get a second opinion.

Correct, one dose is not enough, it doesn't kill the fluke eggs. Fine to leave the nitrate pads, just remove carbon, and run your skimmer, but do not collect any skimmate. Adding extra aeration to the tank is best. Eight days after the first dose, do a 25% water change and dose it again. I find that a third dose after another eight days is often required.

Is the lionfish still alive this morning?


Jay