Dead Filefish and microscope pictures

[dede]

A week ago I found my filefish not moving stuck in fan coral and breathing heavily. I moved him out and he promptly got stuck on the power head, so I moved him to a q-tank I had just put coral in.
He didn't move all night, next day I got another separate tank set up with CP(ebay) and did a fresh water dip then put him in. He died that night, never moving.

I did another fresh water dip after, never saw anything come off. Put him in the fridge and a week later I picked up a used microscope and tried to take some samples, fish was dried out at this point.

Took me a while to figure out how to even get a clear image of these all at 10 mag, 40 was just too blurry.

Here is what I have pics of:

Pectoral fin.

Skin section.

Caudal fin.

I think all the black spots are probably his skin color, but the red splotches on the pectoral fin maybe something, I zoomed in on one with my camera that looks like a critter.

Any thoughts on these pics or are they just useless.

Can anyone point to good write ups here about doing microscope samples with dead fish and scrapings from sick fish and necropsy.

Thanks, Diane.

 

[Humblefish]

The general shape (on the fin) looks like a flatworm or more likely, a capsalid monogenean (most common family of marine flukes).

Look here (Fig. 2) and see what you think: http://fishparasite.fs.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Neobenedenia-girellae/Neobenedenia-girellae-eng.html

 

[Humblefish]

What you are seeing on the skin are probably just scales.

 

[Tommy's Reef]

Cool!

 

[dede]

The general shape (on the fin) looks like a flatworm or more likely, a capsalid monogenean (most common family of marine flukes).

Look here (Fig. 2) and see what you think: http://fishparasite.fs.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Neobenedenia-girellae/Neobenedenia-girellae-eng.html

Thanks Humblefish. Another question for you, if the first picture is of a fluke, what size in relation would ich or velvet be and would you be able to see it in that photo or on the skin samples?

 

[Humblefish]

Thanks Humblefish. Another question for you, if the first picture is of a fluke, what size in relation would ich or velvet be and would you be able to see it in that photo or on the skin samples?

Flukes are considerably larger than ich or velvet trophonts; it is not uncommon for Neobenedenia genus to reach 3mm and be visible to the naked eye on a dark colored fish.

By comparison, velvet trophonts range in size from 10-80 micrometers in diameter. They are also perfectly round. Ich trophonts are more oval shaped and range in size from 48 x 27 to 452 x 360 micrometers. So, you'd need a microscope to see those. It is possible (although I am far from certain) what you are seeing on the fish's fin is perhaps worm (flukes) larvae. Those are very difficult to see during a FW dip.

Below is what an ich trophont looks like and then the various life stages of velvet.