Bicolor foxface shedding every night.

[feelingfishy]

Hi, I have combed the internet trying to find out how frequent foxface shed. From what I can find everyone Is saying every once in awhile. Well… my foxface is shedding every night. The slime coat is so thick his yellow tail color is always a muted yellow. I did treat the foxface with copper and general cure along with all the other fish in quarantine. The fish are showing no sign of ich or velvet other than the foxface slime coat is so thick that sand sticks to him. I know it’s sand cause when I look really close at him it kinda hangs off him. Plus i have little to no mechanical filtration so very small sand partials are always floating around.

Now for parameters, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 3.3 nitrate, .02 phosphate.

Thank u for viewing.

 

[threebuoys]

Do you have any pictures taken under white light?

Some additional information will be helpful.

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calling #fishmedic

 

[feelingfishy]

I’ll try to get some today but, lights do not come on for another couple hours.

Some additional information I prob should of mentioned. The Midas blenny does flash maybe 3 times a day. Plus, I did see the foxface breathing a little more on the heavy side. I just thought it was due to the severe mucus coating. Maybe foxface just look like they breath heavier than most fish. Do you think they do? Cause he is showing no signs of distress other then that. He eats everything I put in the tank like nori twice a day and a cube of mysis.

Yesterday I did treat the tank with prazipro. Maybe this will help I thought if it was flukes I could easily take care of that.

 

[threebuoys]

I’ll try to get some today but, lights do not come on for another couple hours.

Some additional information I prob should of mentioned. The Midas blenny does flash maybe 3 times a day. Plus, I did see the foxface breathing a little more on the heavy side. I just thought it was due to the severe mucus coating. Maybe foxface just look like they breath heavier than most fish. Do you think they do? Cause he is showing no signs of distress other then that. He eats everything I put in the tank like nori twice a day and a cube of mysis.

Yesterday I did treat the tank with prazipro. Maybe this will help I thought if it was flukes I could easily take care of that.

Try to get a count for the breathing. Count for 15 seconds if you can, then multiply by 4. Some diseases do cause very rapid breathing. Having that information may help in the diagnosis. His eating habit is a good thing.

Try to gather some of the other info suggested in the linked thread.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi, I have combed the internet trying to find out how frequent foxface shed. From what I can find everyone Is saying every once in awhile. Well… my foxface is shedding every night. The slime coat is so thick his yellow tail color is always a muted yellow. I did treat the foxface with copper and general cure along with all the other fish in quarantine. The fish are showing no sign of ich or velvet other than the foxface slime coat is so thick that sand sticks to him. I know it’s sand cause when I look really close at him it kinda hangs off him. Plus i have little to no mechanical filtration so very small sand partials are always floating around.

Now for parameters, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 3.3 nitrate, .02 phosphate.

Thank u for viewing.

Just a general observation - fish that shed their mucus layer (lionfish and scorpionfish, and to a lesser extend rabbitfish) often do so at an increased rate due to ectoparasites. In this case, with a lack of other symptoms, I'd wonder about it being flukes.

Waiting on additional info and a video if possible.....

Jay

 

[i cant think]

Try to get a count for the breathing. Count for 15 seconds if you can, then multiply by 4. Some diseases do cause very rapid breathing. Having that information may help in the diagnosis. His eating habit is a good thing.

Try to gather some of the other info suggested in the linked thread.

Just for some help with the OP, I did this with my magnificent foxface and got:
20 breaths in 15 seconds
X that by 4
I got an estimate of 84 breaths for every minute.
Mine almost never sheds his mucous layer (Or Atleast I never see it) and is in with a very healthy Ctenochaetus binotatus and CBB (Usually the Tang is my first sign a disease is in the tank).

 

[feelingfishy]

Thanks for the responses! I come bearing good news too. The foxface is already showing better colors with slower ( normal ) breathing. I assume this was because of the 2.3 ounces of praziquantel I dosed last night. But, just for kiks I will fill out all the parameters and such.

Aquarium: Mixed reef, main display-330 gallons, sump around 70 gallons.

Filtration: bubble magus b12 skimmer-boy does the ac pump use a lot of power 180w at apex! Also refugium and 36 watt Uv with some minor mechanical filtration.

Lighting: 3 new coralcare gen 2’s

Aquarium established since 2017 but, for 4 years I just had main return pump running to keep rock alive. It has been running with care since early 2021. I’m very glad I kept it running because biological filtration has been working so well I need To dose phos and nitrates.

Water quality:
temp-78.2
ph-8.15-8.38
salinity-35ppt
ammo-0
Nitrites-0
Nitrates-3.3
phos-0.02
copper-0

Livestock- One loss since 2021 it was a small fire shrimp no idea where it went. I started with the 2 shrimp. Then 2 months later I added biota mandarin dragonet no qt. Then added a bunch of coral around 15 pieces. After that added the rest of the fish Midas blenny-Bicolor foxface-royal gramma after a 30 day qt that consisted of 3 weeks COPPER WITH 3DAYs OF GENERAL CURE.

Thanks for all the help. I’m hoping yesterdays dose of prazi did the trick. The foxface is looking better but, only time will tell. I plan on adding one more dose in 6 days to kill eggs, something I did not do the first time. I will try the breath counting If I really need to. Here is a pic of him today. NOTE the spots are sand I’m 99.99% sure

Thanks for everything!

 

[i cant think]

Thanks for the responses! I come bearing good news too. The foxface is already showing better colors with slower ( normal ) breathing. I assume this was because of the 2.3 ounces of praziquantel I dosed last night. But, just for kiks I will fill out all the parameters and such.

Aquarium: Mixed reef, main display-330 gallons, sump around 70 gallons.

Filtration: bubble magus b12 skimmer-boy does the ac pump use a lot of power 180w at apex! Also refugium and 36 watt Uv with some minor mechanical filtration.

Lighting: 3 new coralcare gen 2’s

Aquarium established since 2017 but, for 4 years I just had main return pump running to keep rock alive. It has been running with care since early 2021. I’m very glad I kept it running because biological filtration has been working so well I need To dose phos and nitrates.

Water quality:
temp-78.2
ph-8.15-8.38
salinity-35ppt
ammo-0
Nitrites-0
Nitrates-3.3
phos-0.02
copper-0

Livestock- One loss since 2021 it was a small fire shrimp no idea where it went. I started with the 2 shrimp. Then 2 months later I added biota mandarin dragonet no qt. Then added a bunch of coral around 15 pieces. After that added the rest of the fish Midas blenny-Bicolor foxface-royal gramma after a 30 day qt that consisted of 3 weeks COPPER WITH 3DAYs OF GENERAL CURE.

Thanks for all the help. I’m hoping yesterdays dose of prazi did the trick. The foxface is looking better but, only time will tell. I plan on adding one more dose in 6 days to kill eggs, something I did not do the first time. I will try the breath counting If I really need to. Here is a pic of him today. NOTE the spots are sand I’m 99.99% sure

Thanks for everything!

That’s great news! He’s beautiful - I’d personally do the breathing calculations whilst he’s healthy then do it if you see any other differences. Then you know he’s breathing fast and not just breathing normally.

What I do is measure the breathing speed several times a week then I look for the average then if he gets a disease I’ll know because he’ll have a higher breathing pace.

 

[vetteguy53081]

My last one did that. It looked like a cocoon to cover itself. Cant say every night but many. They also do shed their mucus coats a fair amount of times. Its nothing harmful - only if you touch their spines directly and you will know you did

 

[feelingfishy]

I had to get someone to use the stopwatch for me lol. I measured 25 breaths in 15 sec. Although I haven’t measured but, my royal gramma seems to breath even slower then that.

 

[i cant think]

I had to get someone to use the stopwatch for me lol. I measured 25 breaths in 15 sec. Although I haven’t measured but, my royal gramma seems to breath even slower then that.

That’s 100 breaths per minute which seems fast IMO. Possibly velvet, since that often appears as white specks that look like salt and can make a fish breathe rapidly. If he’s shedding every night then you may never see the white specks appear. Could also be flukes if copper didn’t work yet prazi did. They also appear as white specks but will have probably fallen off due to him shedding. Anyone else seem like they’re breathing heavily?

 

[feelingfishy]

Qq… keep in touch with me as I may be posting again later. When I was counting he was munching on the nori so it could of been off a bit. I’ll try again tomorrow to see if it’s slowed at all.

Btw, the spots that were on the picture earlier have all moved around. I have a lot of microbubbles in the tank too. Sometimes they stick to him.

 

[feelingfishy]

Sorry about that. To answer your question no. None of the other fish have anything noticeable. Only other symptom of something is the Midas blenny flashing.

I’m starting to wonder if the micro bubbles have anything to do with it. They were pretty severe mixed with detritus in the water column. I fixed it by adjusting my sump bubble trap. It had a clogged sponge that was making it excessively worse. Have any of you heard of micro bubbles irritating gills?

 

[i cant think]

Sorry about that. To answer your question no. None of the other fish have anything noticeable. Only other symptom of something is the Midas blenny flashing.

I’m starting to wonder if the micro bubbles have anything to do with it. They were pretty severe mixed with detritus in the water column. I fixed it by adjusting my sump bubble trap. It had a clogged sponge that was making it excessively worse. Have any of you heard of micro bubbles irritating gills?

Usually flashing is a sign of a parasite, often put with ich, velvet or flukes.

 

[feelingfishy]

Thank u! I’ll keep a close eye on things. Fish have been in the tank for 3 months. Just hope it’s not velvet. I wouldn’t mind Qing them again. It’s just that catching and qting the mandarin is what I’m worried about.

 

[ozziede]

My tank recently had ich and my fox face had it bad introduction of uv saved it from its deathbed. But over the next 2 weeks it was shedding the mucus every day sometimes with what looked like ich trophants on it but the fish got better and started eating healthily again and back to its former self. It’s now 1 month since the outbreak and the mucus shedding is very little and that is only once in 5 days. I’m seeing that constant shedding is the fishes response to something not quite right. I’ve noticed if the fish is happy the sheds less of its mucus coat.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Hi, I have combed the internet trying to find out how frequent foxface shed. From what I can find everyone Is saying every once in awhile. Well… my foxface is shedding every night. The slime coat is so thick his yellow tail color is always a muted yellow. I did treat the foxface with copper and general cure along with all the other fish in quarantine. The fish are showing no sign of ich or velvet other than the foxface slime coat is so thick that sand sticks to him. I know it’s sand cause when I look really close at him it kinda hangs off him. Plus i have little to no mechanical filtration so very small sand partials are always floating around.

Now for parameters, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 3.3 nitrate, .02 phosphate.

Thank u for viewing.

sounds like some kind of infection maybe. No other symptoms means its unlikely to be flukes, or brook.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Thank u! I’ll keep a close eye on things. Fish have been in the tank for 3 months. Just hope it’s not velvet. I wouldn’t mind Qing them again. It’s just that catching and qting the mandarin is what I’m worried about.

no other symptoms besides thick slime means its unlikely to be velvet

 

[SlugSnorter]

Sorry about that. To answer your question no. None of the other fish have anything noticeable. Only other symptom of something is the Midas blenny flashing.

I’m starting to wonder if the micro bubbles have anything to do with it. They were pretty severe mixed with detritus in the water column. I fixed it by adjusting my sump bubble trap. It had a clogged sponge that was making it excessively worse. Have any of you heard of micro bubbles irritating gills?

flukes maybe. Eh bubbles wouldn't cause this.

 

[feelingfishy]

I’m just going to give it some time. If I notice any farther deterioration of the fish I will promptly act. Last night the foxface shedded even sooner so it is still every night. The breathing rate on the foxface is still a little high 100bpm. I forgot to mention that when the fish were shipped to me fedex ran really late. So maybe the fish had some damage from the shipping, that was 3 months ago though.

Thanks for everything. Lol I was really lucky with that photo of the foxface that I decided to post the picture to my avatar I liked it so much.