Suspected (visual diagnosis under microscope post mortem) Uronema in DT FOWLR tank hypo salinity

[zaidalin79]

I have been battling with deaths in my 125 FOWLR for some time now, trying different meds and continuously losing fish. I have been running hypo in the hopes of ridding me of a few critters while I was trying to stock the tank with the intention of bringing the salinity back up once I got that done, but nothing seemed to work. The fish would mostly be fine and eating, then get a bruise/sore on the side or sides of the body, then within a day, heavy breathing and death. A couple fish got smaller cottony growths, but recovered and survived. One had black growths, a couple had white ones. Basically if they get the side wounds/sores they die very quickly after.

I took a recently DOA specimen into my LFS cause the owner had just done a class on parasite ID and wanted to try and we saw what looked like tetrahymena/uronema. This fits the symptoms from what I can find. I got rid of my canister filter, cleaned detritus out of my sump and did a couple water changes, moved my power heads around and have accumulated several medication options including nitrofurizone yellow and green, chloroquine phosphate (which I need to get more of if that is the choice), metro and kanaplex, paraguard. I found in testing that my ph was low so first I got that back up.

Now I am at my wits end and I need to try one last ditch effort to make this tank liveable before I scrap the whole thing and go back to freshwater. I want to get it sorted since I have put so much effort and money into this build and I am thinking most of my setup would have to be swapped out to go to FW, (and I really don't want to) - but I cannot just keep killing fish trying to find the ones with strong enough immune systems to survive more than a week. The only thing I do not want to do is Copper. I have a large amount of rock and I don't want to nuke it - but the critters are in the DT so what can I actually do at this point? I only have a few fish left and at this point I am assuming they will not live so I am less worried about that then just getting rid of the threat. Are formalin and/or Chloroquine Phosphate the way to go? I understand the formalin wont get the ones that are already internal in the fish but at this point it seems the free swimmers are my issue since I cannot seem to add any fish to begin with.

Current survivors are two snowflake eels, a volitan lion, a powder blue tang, a green bird wrasse, a queen angel which I thought was going to make it but is now swimming in circles so perhaps not (although that is not one of the normal symptoms I see) and an emporer that healed from his side wound but appears to have growth in his mouth now and not eating well so not sure he will make it either.

 

[Troylee]

@Jay Hemdal

 

[zaidalin79]

@Jay Hemdal reading your article it seems my best option may be to increase my salinity back to normal (that paragraph made me literally scream out loud) and use the chloroquine phosphate in tank and metro in the food and then see if anyone is still standing? Should metro or Kana be used in the tank too?

I suppose there isn't really a way to know if you irradicated them or not...

What treatment regiment would you suggest 125 with sump and alot of rock. Already removed the carbon, and I can turn off the UV if necessary.

 

[vetteguy53081]

@Jay Hemdal reading your article it seems my best option may be to increase my salinity back to normal (that paragraph made me literally scream out loud) and use the chloroquine phosphate in tank and metro in the food and then see if anyone is still standing? Should metro or Kana be used in the tank too?

I suppose there isn't really a way to know if you irradicated them or not...

What treatment regiment would you suggest 125 with sump and alot of rock. Already removed the carbon, and I can turn off the UV if necessary.

Salinity normal yes as often low salinity is a contributor.
If you have microscope
Images you can post, would be great to see and confirm. With uronema, metroplex is best but can be tricky with food as it has to be measured precisely at 0.5gm weight. From description, it appears to be uronema which goes vertical on body and uronema is not an obligate parasite, and can thrive on bacteria, uneaten food, and waste so besides treatment also maintain a clean tank removing waste daily.
Chloroquine Phosphate will also work but must be used precisely. For me, best treatment choice is a 45 min formalin based or Ruby Rally pro bath finished in a quarantine tank. Once in QT tank, treat and assure that the parasites have been eliminated.

 

[zaidalin79]

Salinity normal yes as often low salinity is a contributor.
If you have microscope
Images you can post, would be great to see and confirm. With uronema, metroplex is best but can be tricky with food as it has to be measured precisely at 0.5gm weight. From description, it appears to be uronema which goes vertical on body and uronema is not an obligate parasite, and can thrive on bacteria, uneaten food, and waste so besides treatment also maintain a clean tank removing waste daily.
Chloroquine Phosphate will also work but must be used precisely. For me, best treatment choice is a 45 min formalin based or Ruby Rally pro bath finished in a quarantine tank. Once in QT tank, treat and assure that the parasites have been eliminated.

I was unable to get pictures from the microscope but they look like what I see posted as pictures or video of uronema.

Unfortunately QT isn't going to be an option this time as it is already in my DT. So I need to eradicate it in the DT.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I was unable to get pictures from the microscope but they look like what I see posted as pictures or video of uronema.

Unfortunately QT isn't going to be an option this time as it is already in my DT. So I need to eradicate it in the DT.

Thank you for clarification. QT is ideal but I see your position , and while not the ideal treatment situation, mentioned was Ruby Rally Pro which IS reef safe with coral and inverts and takes a little longer to remedy but would work as long as uronema is not progressed and overtaking the fish already.

 

[zaidalin79]

Thank you for clarification. QT is ideal but I see your position , and while not the ideal treatment situation, mentioned was Ruby Rally Pro which IS reef safe with coral and inverts and takes a little longer to remedy but would work as long as uronema is not progressed and overtaking the fish already.

Tank is in hypo, no inverts or corals present. I plan to bring it back up as I just learned that the hypo could have been a contributing factor. Uronema is killing almost any fish I add. I have like 4 fish left. So at this point I am just trying to get it out of the tank. I can only assume the remaining fish may not make it. But the ones that had the visible signs have all died, so maybe...

 

[vetteguy53081]

Tank is in hypo, no inverts or corals present. I plan to bring it back up as I just learned that the hypo could have been a contributing factor. Uronema is killing almost any fish I add. I have like 4 fish left. So at this point I am just trying to get it out of the tank. I can only assume the remaining fish may not make it. But the ones that had the visible signs have all died, so maybe...

Yes hypo can be an issue as when done in bare bottom tanks with higher temps (77 and above), without sand there is a higher bacteria load and tank becomes a perfect setting for uronema to thrive

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I have been battling with deaths in my 125 FOWLR for some time now, trying different meds and continuously losing fish. I have been running hypo in the hopes of ridding me of a few critters while I was trying to stock the tank with the intention of bringing the salinity back up once I got that done, but nothing seemed to work. The fish would mostly be fine and eating, then get a bruise/sore on the side or sides of the body, then within a day, heavy breathing and death. A couple fish got smaller cottony growths, but recovered and survived. One had black growths, a couple had white ones. Basically if they get the side wounds/sores they die very quickly after.

I took a recently DOA specimen into my LFS cause the owner had just done a class on parasite ID and wanted to try and we saw what looked like tetrahymena/uronema. This fits the symptoms from what I can find. I got rid of my canister filter, cleaned detritus out of my sump and did a couple water changes, moved my power heads around and have accumulated several medication options including nitrofurizone yellow and green, chloroquine phosphate (which I need to get more of if that is the choice), metro and kanaplex, paraguard. I found in testing that my ph was low so first I got that back up.

Now I am at my wits end and I need to try one last ditch effort to make this tank liveable before I scrap the whole thing and go back to freshwater. I want to get it sorted since I have put so much effort and money into this build and I am thinking most of my setup would have to be swapped out to go to FW, (and I really don't want to) - but I cannot just keep killing fish trying to find the ones with strong enough immune systems to survive more than a week. The only thing I do not want to do is Copper. I have a large amount of rock and I don't want to nuke it - but the critters are in the DT so what can I actually do at this point? I only have a few fish left and at this point I am assuming they will not live so I am less worried about that then just getting rid of the threat. Are formalin and/or Chloroquine Phosphate the way to go? I understand the formalin wont get the ones that are already internal in the fish but at this point it seems the free swimmers are my issue since I cannot seem to add any fish to begin with.

Current survivors are two snowflake eels, a volitan lion, a powder blue tang, a green bird wrasse, a queen angel which I thought was going to make it but is now swimming in circles so perhaps not (although that is not one of the normal symptoms I see) and an emporer that healed from his side wound but appears to have growth in his mouth now and not eating well so not sure he will make it either.

Sounds like your store is a good one! Tetrahymena is the FW counterpart of Uronema, so if they saw protozoans that looked like that, it is probably Uronema. By chance though, did they get their samples from a dead fish? If so, the Uronema they saw may have been feeding on bacteria from the decomposition of the dead fish - so their presence may or may not have been the actual cause of death.

Can you post short videos of the fish?

Uronema grows better at low salinity, but raising the salinity back to normal won't eradicate it. I experimented with "hypersalinity" with seadragons that had Uronema, but even that didn't help all that much.

Chloroquine will take care of free living Uronema, but will not affect internal Uronema. Chloroquine is a general toxin, and will kill algae and most of your microfauna. This can result in an ammonia spike (especially if there is a lot of algae present) that would then need to be controlled.

Jay