I picked up this flame back from the LFS Friday and had it in quarantine tank since. I hadn’t started treatment as I like to give them a couple of days before doing so. This little guy was eating great yesterday and I found him dead this morning.
I noticed this lesion yesterday and was planning on starting treatment today. Is this bacterial or something else.
Disease ID - New Flame Back
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Jay Hemdal
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Darn - very likely it was Uronema. There is no effective treatment for this, it starts internally and by the time you see the lesion on the outside of the fish, it is too late. Here is an article I wrote on the topic.
www.reef2reef.com
Jay
Uronema / Red Band Disease - Hemdal
Red Band Syndrome in Marine Fishes: Caused by the Protozoan; Uronema sp. Jay Hemdal Introduction: This moderately common disease of certain species of marine fish is so often misdiagnosed that most aquarists apply incorrect treatment methods...
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Thanks Jay. It appears to be external to the fish. Only effecting it’s scales as the entire body is still intact. Not sure if this changes your diagnosis but figured it might be another piece of the puzzle I hadn’t mentioned yet. I really appreciate your expert insight.
Jay Hemdal
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Without doing a skin scrape and looking at it under a microscope you can't really tell for sure, but bacterial infections are almost never that virulent. I do see the fish seems to have a cloudy eye, so that isn't a symptom of Uronema. Many times, fish that die from Uronema do so with their mouth wide open, and this fish's mouth seems closed. Still, the rapid onset really does point to uronema....unless there was some other acute cause, like a big fish biting it, a rock falling on it, something like that.
Jay
Jay
