Ich, flukes, velvet, or something else?

[ECU_Pirate]

My Midas Blenny started acting strange yesterday, chasing his tail and swimming in a way that looked like he was bouncing off of rocks. This morning his blue eyes seemed paler and later turned cloudy. I wondered if he was blind because he was just shimmying vertically at the top of the tank and didn’t swim over to me when I walked up to the tank. He went downhill fast and my LFS recommended euthanasia. Attached is a pic. What do you think this is? We’ve lost 3 other fish in 9 days. My husband is out buying a 10G tank to set up for quarantine, although I don’t know that we’d be able to catch the fish that remain.

[Tripod1404]

Looks more like brooklynella to me.

Velvet will cause very fine dust-like spots. Ich cause larger more sparse spots. Flukes rarely give externaly visible sysmtoms.

Losing 3 fish in 9 days indicate the disease is in epidemic levels and will wipe the tank in few day. WHat fish you lost and what are remaining?

[ECU_Pirate]

Originally Posted by Tripod1404

Looks more like brooklynella to me.

Velvet will cause very fine dust-like spots. Ich cause larger more sparse spots. Flukes rarely give externaly visible sysmtoms.

Losing 3 fish in 9 days indicate the disease is in epidemic levels and will wipe the tank in few day. WHat fish you lost and what are remaining?

Lost:
Springer Damsel (had Popeye, then disappeared)
Bristletooth Tomini Tang (found dead on the sand with no external symptoms)
Lamarck's Angelfish (had a slightly cloudy eye, found wedged between rock & side of the tank)
Engineer Goby (possible white spots, he was very little and a hider)
Midas Blenny (covered in white)

Still Have: all are asymptomatic as of right now
Ocellaris Clowns (2)
Springer Damsels (2)
Banggai Cardinalfish (2)
Lyretail Anthias
Lawnmower Blenny
Blue Green Reef Chromis
Blue Streak Cleaner Wrasse

[ECU_Pirate]

Here are photos of my sweet angelfish.

[Tripod1404]

Rather rapid symptom-death duration indicates brooks is the most likely candidate. In either case, I would put the remaining fish in a quarantine tank and treat them with copper.

It is a rather hars medication but it is effective against all those parasites and more. Also you might have a several of them. So i would use copper just to be sure.

[Uncle99]

I assume the fish stopped eating at all right?
Clearly one of the three infection biggies, remove all fish and treat with cupramine....as directed on the package for 30 days....strip the tank down if possible and clean throughly....see sticky notes....for treatments

[Dmorty217]

Originally Posted by Tripod1404

Rather rapid symptom-death duration indicates brooks is the most likely candidate. In either case, I would put the remaining fish in a quarantine tank and treat them with copper.

It is a rather hars medication but it is effective against all those parasites and more. Also you might have a several of them. So i would use copper just to be sure.

Copper won't touch flukes

[Tripod1404]

Originally Posted by Dmorty217

Copper won't touch flukes

I dont think OPs issue is flukes. I was talking about ich, velvet and brooks.

[d-man]

U can use general cure for flukes with coppersafe.

[ECU_Pirate]

Originally Posted by Tripod1404

Rather rapid symptom-death duration indicates brooks is the most likely candidate. In either case, I would put the remaining fish in a quarantine tank and treat them with copper.

It is a rather hars medication but it is effective against all those parasites and more. Also you might have a several of them. So i would use copper just to be sure.

Thank you. I set up a 10G quarantine tank last night and will start moving the remaining fish over and medicating today.

[ECU_Pirate]

Originally Posted by Uncle99

I assume the fish stopped eating at all right?
Clearly one of the three infection biggies, remove all fish and treat with cupramine....as directed on the package for 30 days....strip the tank down if possible and clean throughly....see sticky notes....for treatments

Yes, they all stopped eating. Pretty much one missed feeding and then they were gone. One of my 2 clowns hasn't appeared this morning. It is so sad and disappointing. Thanks for the suggestions. I will check out the sticky notes.

[ECU_Pirate]

Originally Posted by Dmorty217

Copper won't touch flukes

Originally Posted by d-man

U can use general cure for flukes with coppersafe.

DMorty217 & d-man did you think it looked like flukes from the pics I posted of the blenny?

[Dmorty217]

Originally Posted by ECU_Pirate

DMorty217 & d-man did you think it looked like flukes from the pics I posted of the blenny?

No, looks like Brook

[FoxFace Fish]

Brooks +1

from what I heard as brooks progress it will cause a white mucus and a discoloration

[trembz]

Nobody thinks uronema?
Looking at the angel, that was the first thing that came to my mind

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

[Tripod1404]

Originally Posted by trembz

Nobody thinks uronema?
Looking at the angel, that was the first thing that came to my mind

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

Uronema generally cause open sores and it is not as infectious as brooks(or ich or velvet for that matter). I dont think it can kill this many fish in such a short period of time.

Uronema generally only kills fish that already have open wounds or fish that are stressed. This is why chromis and anthias are prone to uronema, they fight, cause wounds, get stressed and finally get uronema.

[Uncle99]

Whenever they stop eating this is a super sign of diease. Just which one and that can be difficult. For sure, fish with Ick will stop rating as the parasite goes after the gills firstly to get at the blood it needs to survive, then it spreads on the body.

If you can't diagnos, you can go copper as a best guess...Ick is easy to see on most darker colored fish.....like very fine salt.....and usually quite a few.....say 20-100 spots or more...

[Tripod1404]

Originally Posted by Uncle99

Whenever they stop eating this is a super sign of diease. Just which one and that can be difficult. For sure, fish with Ick will stop rating as the parasite goes after the gills firstly to get at the blood it needs to survive, then it spreads on the body.

If you can't diagnos, you can go copper as a best guess...Ick is easy to see on most darker colored fish.....like very fine salt.....and usually quite a few.....say 20-100 spots or more...

It actually does not feed on blood. Ich is a single celled organism, so feeding on blood doesn't apply to such a parasite. That would be like saying malaria feeds on blood.

Ich mainly feeds on the epithelial cells and the bodily fluids that fill the inter-cellular space. The reason why infection first starts at gills is because gills have a lot more surface area compared to the rest of the body, and they are not protected by a thick mucus coating like the rest of the body. These are properties to increase gas exchange across the gills. But they also make these tissues susceptible parasites.

When ich attach to gills or other parts of the body, it causes tissue damage and scaring. This makes gas exchange across the gills less effective (scaring on gills would actually remain on the gills and would permanently stun the fish).

Plus it damages the osmotic regulation of the fish as water starts to leak out of the damaged tissue. So, even if secondary infection caused by extensive tissue damage wont kill the fish,it will die from dehydration. All the water it drinks would simply leak out of all the "holes" ich generated and fish kidneys would simply not be able to keep up. I suspect it eventually also causes kidney failure.

[ECU_Pirate]

Just wanted to share an update. I got my anthias and wrasse into my QT successfully, and so far they are not showing any symptoms. We lost one of the clowns overnight and one of the Banggai cardinalfish this afternoon. So we still have 6 in the DT and I’m working my hardest trying to net them!

[ECU_Pirate]

Another update for anyone who's interested. We lost the lawnmower blenny overnight. I work from home, so I'm fortunate to be able to keep a close eye on the situation and do my best to try to trap the remaining guys. Unfortunately, the fish that are left in the DT are FAST! We have 2 damsels, a chromis, a clownfish, and a cardinalfish. I figured we'd be able to get the cardinal, but even he is able to dart between the rocks with speed. I've tried netting them at night, during feeding, and with a plastic wine carafe rigged up with string and food inside. As much as I want to save lives, we're running out of time. Tomorrow is my son's birthday and we're leaving for a weekend trip that he chose, and we just had more snow than we've had in 18 years, so we'll be timing our departure around when the roads are at their safest. Fish stores are closed due to the snow & ice, so I have no access to formulin if it is brooklynella, or a better fish trap. I'll do what I can before we leave and when we get back on Sunday, and my mom is coming to feed the fish in the QT on Saturday. I know I've overfed the DT trying to lure these guys, and we've had 2 bodies that I couldn't recover. Do you guys think I should dose both the DT and QT with water conditioner (I have SeaChem Prime)? I was thinking since I won't be here to clean fish droppings from the QT and there is no carbon cartridge in the filter (in order to keep the copper from being filtered out) it would protect against an ammonia spike.

[shrimpman_oz]

I would not be worrying about feeding fish in QT. The last thing you need is additional ammonia in your newly setup QT tanks.

Focus only on treating the disease and nothing else. If you have someone coming to check on them they only thing that should be done is to remove any mortalities.