Can anyone ID this please

[MrsBugmaster]

A few of my fish have had this for a while now. Sometimes I will see what looks like scales on the bottom of the QT tank, not sure they are scales though. I can't always see it, it depends on the angle and lighting as can be seen in the last picture. Although you can see the missing of the blue color right where this is at. I have used Prazi-Pro with no effect.

 

[Humblefish]

That is weird. Have you tried a FW dip to see if that will force it to detach?

 

[MrsBugmaster]

Yes I did fresh water dip but can't see anything in bottom of bucket. I guess I didn't look to see if any fish showing this actually came off from dip. I looked in bucket not the fish.

 

[Humblefish]

How long have you been seeing these on your fish? Does there appear to be an insertion point where (whatever this is) is lodged into the fish?

I seem to remember seeing this once before, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is. A worm I believe. @melypr1985 you around?

 

[aykwm]

Ive read once someone experiencing the same but didnt find a cure. Hopefully experts can guide you, but if it was me i will do acriflavine bath and see how it goes from there. Hopefully they get cured soon.

Also check parameters, maybe something is out of the norm.

 

[ReefJake123]

It looks to as if it may be a worm but I'm not 100% sure do u have a nearby shop u can talk to about

 

[ReefJake123]

U could also try a copper bath and see how that works

 

[Humblefish]

Does it move or remain stationary on the fish?

From certain angles, it looks like it could be Lympho or something bacterial. But that doesn't seem right.

 

[ReefJake123]

True and it could possibly be a scar one of my damsels has a scar on its side but it's doin fine

 

[4FordFamily]

Wow I'm stumped -- is this fish scratching? Have these been coming and going? Getting progressively "worse" (greater numbers or worsening appearance of the affected area)

 

[GHsaltie]

Wow, fascinating! Props on getting such good pictures by the way. If this is a parasite of some type I would be curious to see it under a scope once a removal method is found.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

It seams to come and go and appear in different places. It has been going on for 6 months or so. I mostly see it on my angles. But it is hard to see unless at the right angel and light so who knows, it may be on more fish too. I made an appointment with my exotic animal vet for later today. I'll see what she says.
At first I thought it was just scales but after taking these pictures and zooming in on them I don't think it is scales but a parasite of some kind.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

Also, these fish all just came out of CP due to ich. DT has been fallow for 4 1/2months now cause I am not putting them back in DT till this is figured out. They started in cupramine for about 4 days till the angels and butterfly's started showing signs of copper stress. Then I finally got my vet to write me a script for CP

 

[Humblefish]

Would love to hear back on what the exotic animal vet has to say!

 

[Gweeds1980]

Looks a lot like Planaria... possibly a parasitic species? Although if it is, I assume copper would have killed it off?

Looks a lot like Scutariella (sp?) Which you come across a lot in FW shrimp... could be a large marine version maybe?

Praziquantel used to be the treatment of choice for that intruder...

 

[Maritimer]

Looks to me as though two scales dropped out - your photos are mighty crispy, by the way! Wish I could do half as well! - so the question would be _why_ might your angel be losing scales?

~Bruce

 

[MrsBugmaster]

So the vet did a scrap and looked under microscope, it is scales. Why are scales dropping off? She said she saw nothing moving on the slide which is not normal. There will usually be bacteria or something moving or jumping around. The meds must of killed off everything. She did see round clumps of something. Thinks it is a fungus, which makes sense to her if the meds killed off all good bacteria then it leaves an opening for fungus infection. Not positive it is fugal though. Said to treat with Malachite Green and monitor it and adding more good bacteria to the tank may help. Although the fins and tail also look a little beat up. Could of took a small fin cut to look at under the scope but this would probably not grow back so she didn't want to do that at this point. And at this point the fish was getting stressed and she did not want to stress it more. She wants me to take pictures every 3 or 4 days to look up close at the fins and tail to make sure they are not getting worse.

 

[GHsaltie]

You said they showed signs of stress from the copper right? Just speculating here but I wonder if maybe the copper damaged the scales or the epidermis underneath maybe?

 

[melypr1985]

How long have you been seeing these on your fish? Does there appear to be an insertion point where (whatever this is) is lodged into the fish?

I seem to remember seeing this once before, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is. A worm I believe. @melypr1985 you around?

I can't think of any time when I've seen this before. Especially not with this good of pictures. These are excellent!! My first thought was damaged scales. Glad to see the vet was able to verify that they were -in fact- scales. I'm not sure what could have caused it but it does seem as if the scales are "dying" - the losing color and sliding out of place like that? I say follow the vet's instructions and keep us posted with updates.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

I will keep everyone updated.
Thanks for the compliments on the pictures. I put him in a very small tank, it was actually the top off tank that came with my Red Sea Reefer series 34 gal tank, it was too small for a top off tank anyway. I took him to the vet in it too. Put the whole tank in an empty salt bucket so as not to spill in my car. Didn't have much space to swim away so it was easier to get photo. It did take me like 20 some shots to get a few good ones though. I used my Nikon D90 with Tokina macro lens. Still learning with it and sometimes I just get lucky!