Concerns about diagnosis

rob G · Apr 17, 2018

Hello, I have been having a heck of a time with wrasse that I have ordered online. I ordered 4 in this last shipment and only two made it, so far.....I did have some symptoms of internal parasites so I did two treatments of GC 5 days apart. There is no longer stringy white poo but still head twitching and scratching. I started copper, got it up to therapeutic levels over the course of several days and am not on day three of full copper levels. The problem is the twitching and scratching seem to be worse that before. They are still eating, and out swimming around the tank, not reclusive and maybe breathing just a touch heavy, but barely. I haven't seen one spec of white dot or dust but assumed it was velvet manifesting itself after low levels of copper from where I ordered it. so to be safe I started the copper. They are not reclusive, not swimming into a powerhead and still eating. My worry is I had a few pieces of live rock in QT (just extra pieces I had in my sump that I am not reusing until drying out again) and I wonder if it absorbed the GC to the point that it was less than desirable levels. Should I ditch copper and go with prazi now that the live rock is out of the tank or stay my course? If I can avoid a fresh water dip, I would like to. They are a ruby long fin wrass and a bluehead fairy wrasse. Thanks for any advice!

EmptyWallet · Apr 17, 2018

Hey, im certainly no expert but have been reading up a lot in the past few days on disease and treatment. If I were you I would keep the copper at therapetic levels (make sure you have the right test kit for the brand of copper your using - do a search on reef2reef for threads about which test kit for which copper brand) to make sure any ich or velvet will be contained. Then read the great articles here on reef2reef and disease identification and management to work out which medicine you can use for internal parasites that is safe with Copper (prazi is not from memory). I figure ich or velvet is a far greater threat than internal parasites

Big G · Apr 17, 2018

The increase in the twitching and scratching can often be attributed to the tenderness of the ich/velvet insertion points at the wounds inside the gills, where they usually attack first unseen, are healing.
Also keep in mind that wrasses are considered somewhat copper sensitive. Some visual symptoms of that would be lethargic swimming, not eating.
What brand of copper are you using? How are you measuring the copper level?

rob G · Apr 17, 2018

Big G said:
The increase in the twitching and scratching can often be attributed to the tenderness of the ich/velvet insertion points at the wounds inside the gills, where they usually attack first unseen, are healing.
Also keep in mind that wrasses are considered somewhat copper sensitive. Some visual symptoms of that would be lethargic swimming, not eating.
What brand of copper are you using? How are you measuring the copper level?

Hey Big G, thanks for the reply. I am using Coppersafe (because I had it on hand) I know of the concerns about the concentration in Coppersafe so I dosed very low and then used the low range Seachem kit to measure the low levels and know where I was at and once up to therapeutic levels am now using an API kit. instead of being at 2.2 like the bottle said the math came out to actually being around 3.0 concentration.

They are both still pretty active and take turns chasing each other and both still have a good appetite. I guess I will just monitor closely over the next few days and hope that it improves