Parasite on butterfly fish?

[beeps4u]

Hi,

I got a new long nose butterfly fish about a week ago. I gave him a freshwater dip and have been watching him closely for the last week. He is happy abd eating well (brine shrimp, spirulina, mysis). After two days, he had 5 or 6 faint white dots near his head. I wasn't worried, since they looked a lot like mabye he'd just scraped himself or been poked by something and it was healing. However, the spots have slowly grown, but are lifting away from the fish. : ( Now, they look like tiny white teardrops (approx. 1 millimeter long) standing on their tips. Any ideas what it is? I'm thinking of trying to manually remove them. I'm fairly certain this isn't ich, since I have dealt with that before.

Thanks,
Andrea

 

[Krish]

Moved to Lee's forum for you to get the best possible advice

 

[beeps4u]

Update:it looks like one of the biggest bumps fell off. There's a very small pinkish spot left behind on the fish. The bumps that are still left on the fish are smaller and more rounded, and it looks like the scales are lifted uparound a few of them, but it's hard to see clearly.

 

[declivis]

its always hard to pinpoint w/o a pic....could you provide one? given the description i would lean tward a parasitic nematode or another worm of some kind..........you might try a dip with praziquantel. if you do just be careful, it will suck oxygen out of the water so make sure you run an air pump with an airstone.

 

[leebca]

Most likely flukes. They behave and some look as you've described. A standard FW bath usually knocks most off, so either it didn't affect this one or the FW batch was not standard.

Get a fluke medication from your LFS and follow its directions.

 

[beeps4u]

Thanks, I'll try that. I did a fw bath for 30 min. with methylene blue.

 

[Maxx]

Update?

Nick

 

[beeps4u]

Well, I gave the fish another fresh water dip and then placed him in a bath of Prazipro (approx. 10 mg/gal), cupramine, and maracyn II for 5 days. I also manually removed any white flukes/bumps I could see each day. They've left holes all over his head where there are no scales, just pale flesh. = ( One hole was a bit bloody (hence, the antibiotics), but it's closed up and healed well.

I thought he was all better, and I could see no spots yesterday, but now there are three more sticking out right where I thought I'd cleared them all out. = ( I'm not sure, but they may be burrowing back under his skin when I try to pick at them. Any thoughts? I understand that 5 day treatment might not kill any eggs, but I had expected it to at least kill the mature forms on him externally.

On top of it, I think I now see some flukes on my damselfishes. They're in the display. Any treatments that might work in there (reef tank)? I'm considering dosing the whole thing with praziquantel, but, since that didn't work on the isolated butterfly fish, I'm not sure that's going to work. I'd rather find a treatment that works on him and then modify that for the rest of the tank (if I can). I've fed the whole tank an oral dose of PraziGel for 3 days as well, but the damselfish spots are still there. Again, I'm pretty sure this isn't ich - the spots are too big, and are mainly located around the head region of the fish, with only one or two on the body.

I can't get any good pics that really show the morphology. If I do get any decent ones, I'll post them.

Andrea

 

[leebca]

From what you've written, the FW bath has not gotten rid of them.

Another possible treatment is a Formalin bath. This bath is done every other day until 4 baths have been completed. The bath procedure is given here: Formalin Treatment of Marine Fishes.

 

[Maxx]

I have formalin baths to great success using Lee's procedures.

Nick

 

[beeps4u]

Thanks for the info on the formalin bath. I gave him his first bath. Unfortunately, it didn't result in the visible parasites falling off. They've even grown larger than they were on the first day of the bath, and he has a new spot on his tail. I've included the best pics I could get, and have labeled one of them. There are two, pimple-like spots on his forehead, two by his eyes, and one, translucent, sac-like protrusion from the edge of his tail fin.

http://s1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee471/beeps4u/

I will continue with the additional dips, but I'm worried that I'm seeing no slowing of the disease after the first treatment.

Also, the formalin bottle that I have been using states different instructions than you have suggested. The bottle suggests a concentration of 10 ml per gallon instead of 1 ml per gallon. From what I can tell, the formalin is the type you've recommended (Formalin with 3% formaldehyde). Do you think it would be safe to increase the formalin concentration for the next bath?

Thanks for the help.

Andrea

 

[leebca]

I want to be clear that the fish was treated with copper for a full two weeks? Also, the fish right now is in quarantine, right?

From the photos I'd say it isn't a fluke infection. It appears to be more like a protozoan infection. Some protozoan infections are cured by copper. So I want to be sure the fish has in fact been through a full 2-week copper treatment, done properly.

I sort different kinds of protozoans into three treatment groups. One will be cured by copper. One is cured by the use of Metronizazole/malachite green. A third is rarely cured and no known 'best' cure is given. None are treated by Formalin. So I would not proceed with this treatment, unless you see some confirmation that it is working.

You can set out on this 'chase' for the cure, or you can get a professional diagnosis. If you have a college, university, veterinarian school, etc. nearby that has a fish department, then make arrangements to have the fish taken in for a diagnosis. With a proper diagnosis the best treatment can start.

 

[beeps4u]

Thanks, I will try a treatment with malachite green/metronidazole for two weeks, or cupramine, if you think that would be better (can I do both simultaneously?). Yes, the fish is in quarantine (the pics I posted were older pics, and the spots have grown/multiplied since then), and no, he did not receive two weeks of copper. He only got 5 days of cupramine, prazipro, and maracyn II, and manually removing the spots. I thought that would be enough for flukes, but then the spots came back (or never really went away), and I got worried that I needed to try something else.

...sigh... I hope he gets better soon with something I do. At least he seems perfectly happy and is eating, otherwise. I probably won't have time to take him in to the university, but if I get a chance, I'll give them a call. U of Washington does fishery and salmon studies, but I'm not sure that they handle tropical fish, and they don't have a vet school, to my knowledge... Of course, this fish happens to be my 2-yr old son's favorite fish, so it's going to really be bad if I can't get him healthy. = ( I just don't have good luck with fish!

Andrea

 

[leebca]

It isn't totally about luck, Andrea. It's about consistency, patience, doing what is right, and being careful. Just take your time and avoid running around trying this and that. The proper copper treatment is for no less than two weeks. The optimum copper medication is Cupramine. And, to control the copper content you need to test the water for copper and maintain the proper concentration of copper. This is mostly covered in this post: Copper Medications - Good, Bad, and Ugly

Five days in copper means the fish was not treated with copper. Inventing your own cures or following bad advice isn't helpful at times like this. I know it's hard. . . Fish, like humans, don't make a miraculous recovery from pathogens in a few days, even when the correct medication is used.

I would not mix Metronizazole with the copper treatment unless the copper manufacturer says it's okay, although malachite green can be used with some copper formulas. I would e-mail the makers of Cupramine and ask them, to be sure.

The ability of this fish to hang on is very much dependant upon its resources of energy and its diet. Give it the best foods and also include immune boosters, vitamins, and fat supplements. These posts cover those topics:
Fish Health Through Proper Nutrition
and
Immune Boosters

 

[beeps4u]

Thanks for the instructions and links - I do appreciate the help. It looks like things have gone wrong, though. = ( I checked on him this morning, and he's sitting flat on the bottom of the tank, with flushing and the base of his fins and some patches of dark coloration on his body (where it's normally yellow). I'm pretty sure he's not going to make it - I've never saved a fish that has reached that point. It's really sad, because he was doing so well behaviourally up until this point. I thought he'd be able to handle two days of copper no problem. Is there anything I can do for him now that could reverse any possible copper toxicity problems? At a minimum, I've moved him to a 5 gallon bucket with fresh, clean water, bubbler, heater, and no copper.

I tested the copper concentration, and it's at 0.5 ppt. And I added it following the instructions on the bottle. All other parameters are normal, though ammonia test registered a bit high (1.0 - however, I read that my test kit reacts with the cupramine, so the reading is likely invalid).

I think today is going to be a sad day. = ( I really like that fish.

Andrea

 

[beeps4u]

Well, it looks like he died while I was posting the last post. = (

Anyone know of a way to bring a fish back to life? ..j/k

RIP "Cookie butterfly yellow-fish" - as my 2-year-old liked to call him.

 

[WABlonde]

So sorry about your fish.

Can someone post a link for instructions for a freshwater dip? Thank you.

 

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of the down turn. Few do recover from this stage, as you point out. There is nothing to reverse and no way of doing so, that I know of.

If the copper is in fact 0.5 ppt than it is indeed too high. Do you mean by any chance 0.5 ppm?

Sorry to link this post to you, but you may find it useful: Euthanasia -- Putting a Marine Fish Down.