? Disease

[overlion]

Hi, I'm wondering what disease this might be in our display tank? For context, we had an emperor angel who died several days ago after experiencing progressive white blotchiness over several weeks (see photo). Toward its final days, it started to lie on the sand bed, exhibit rapid breathing, and eye cloudiness. Since its death, over the past several days, more fish appear to have this same blotchiness (which looks thick and mucus-like), rapid breathing, cloudiness of the eyes, and are laying lethargically on the sand. There are two maroon clownfish who don't appear to have any signs of disease at this point. There has not been any new fish/inverts introduced in the tank for at least 3-4 months and fish are fresh-water dipped prior to placing into the display tank. The tank contains fish/anemones/reef lobster only, no corals. Nitrate is 12 and phosphate is 0.03 by hanna. Any help on diagnosis and treatment recommendations would be much appreciated!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Welcomd to Reef2Reef and sorry for your trouble!

Do you have any pics or videos under white lighting? Blue light washes out a lot of detail.

Regardless, I'd suggest at a minimum posting the info suggested in the quote below, and if possible reading through the link below that (particularly the "Aquarium Parameters," "Water quality," and "In-depth Information" sections) to figure out what info you can share here with the #fishmedic crew to get the best diagnosis and treatment advice possible:

Please provide as much of the following as you are able:

• Brief description of the issue you are observing and answers to the following questions:
  • How long have you had the fish with the condition?
  • Did you quarantine with medication when you first acquired the fish? (If Yes, which medication?)
• Current water quality measurements
• Clear photos of the issue taken using WHITE light and/or a short video of any behaviors (post in your response or on YouTube).

If you can help us by providing as much of the above info as possible, it will make diagnosing and providing recommendations for treatment MUCH easier! The Fish Medic team will get back to you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, other members of our community may also share their experience with similar situations and advice that they may have regarding your situation.

You may also feel free to provide a more detailed description of the condition if you wish to share more info than the above list.

Some Helpful Hints When Posting or Responding to Threads in the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Section

Aquarium Fish Disease Problem Solving Determining the best course of action for a problem with your aquarium can be a difficult task. Even advanced aquarists will often need to seek the help of others for complicated or unique issues. Our intent here on Reef 2 Reef is to offer expert advice...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[vetteguy53081]

Looks to be flukes and possibly velvet. Need more history such as breathing rate, loss of appetite, age of tank, How long theyve looked like this and last time they ate. Videos will be more helpful. If you see white pinhead spots on any other fish? If so, that points to ich but this is mainly flukes. Other fluke symptoms are red or swollen with rapid breathing, fish acting lethargic or swimming near the water surface, hiding in the corner of tank or behind rocks, loss of appetite, shaking its head, flashing/darting, develop clamped fins, , or scratching against objects. They may also exhibit what looks like yawning from gill irritation develop, cloudy eyes and loss of color.

 

[Ross]

The skin peeling off the emperor looks like brookynella to me. It also appears you have ich or velvet.

 

[overlion]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. Much appreciated. Since my last post, I had spoken to a friend and have added Rally Pro (day 1). As an update, sometime today, several other fish have passed, including a Valentino pufferfish and flame angel. In terms of some more helpful context:

Aquarium Parameters:
Aquarium type: Display tank, fish with anemones and reef lobster, no coral
Aquarium water volume: approx 176 gal water volume (accounting for the displacement of equipment, rocks, etc.)
Filtration type: filter socks x 2, aqua UV sterilizer 57 w @ 371 gal/hr, ozonizer 28 mg/hr run for 2 hours overnight, biocubes, rowaphos, seachem denitrate/phosphguard, skimmer, turf scrubber, nitraguard by orca labs
Lighting: 4 AI primes
How long has the aquarium been established? 1 year 8 months

Water quality (be sure to indicate what measurement units you are using, as well as the test kit brand)
Temperature: 24 by Neptune apex probe
pH: 8.37 neptune apex probe
Salinity / specific gravity: 1.026/35 by refractometer
Ammonia: 0 API
Nitrate: 12 hanna
Phosphorus: 0.03 hanna

In-depth information:

Previous infections - the tank went through 2 separate periods of flukes, each treated with prazipro with 3-4 rounds. There was also 1 ich infection in 2023, treated with copper (before introducing inverts). The last treatment with prazipro for flukes was 4 rounds in March 2024 and the treatment was felt to be successful, without any loss of fish.

Since then, rockflower anemones and 1 BTA have been added. There has also been the addition of a cuban hogfish, mandarin fish, and naso tang. The most recent addition was the naso tang in approx Jul 2024. No other additions have been made since then.

Have you lost any fish to this problem yet?
- About 3-4 weeks ago, 2 cardinal fish (from 3 to 1) and 1 mandarin fish have passed away. I thought it was due to competition in the former and starvation in the latter. They displayed no symptoms or signs of infection that I could tell.
- In the past week, an emperor angel fish that has been with the tank since it was started passed away. It has always had blotchy spots as in the photo, but in the past 2-3 weeks, it was looking blotchier, eventually stopped eating, and passed.
- A lemon peel angel was also found dead in an anemone and a hawkfish wedged in between rocks. They would have died sometime in the past 3-4 days.

Today, 1 pufferfish and 1 flame angel passed away (they were alive this afternoon). The Naso Tang appears to be struggling as well. I have attached further photos and videos under white light. Respiratory rate for the tang is 120 (30 breaths in 15 sec).

Inverts do not appear affected.

I have also attached microscope pictures from the fish that died today, including gills from the hawkfish and flame angel, and skin/fin smears from the pufferfish.

I fed all the fish tonight frozen foods combined with metroplex, kanaplex, garlic guard (day 1) and all seemed to eat vigorously except the Naso Tang.

Thank you!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. Much appreciated. Since my last post, I had spoken to a friend and have added Rally Pro (day 1). As an update, sometime today, several other fish have passed, including a Valentino pufferfish and flame angel. In terms of some more helpful context:

Aquarium Parameters:
Aquarium type: Display tank, fish with anemones and reef lobster, no coral
Aquarium water volume: approx 176 gal water volume (accounting for the displacement of equipment, rocks, etc.)
Filtration type: filter socks x 2, aqua UV sterilizer 57 w @ 371 gal/hr, ozonizer 28 mg/hr run for 2 hours overnight, biocubes, rowaphos, seachem denitrate/phosphguard, skimmer, turf scrubber, nitraguard by orca labs
Lighting: 4 AI primes
How long has the aquarium been established? 1 year 8 months

Water quality (be sure to indicate what measurement units you are using, as well as the test kit brand)
Temperature: 24 by Neptune apex probe
pH: 8.37 neptune apex probe
Salinity / specific gravity: 1.026/35 by refractometer
Ammonia: 0 API
Nitrate: 12 hanna
Phosphorus: 0.03 hanna

In-depth information:

Previous infections - the tank went through 2 separate periods of flukes, each treated with prazipro with 3-4 rounds. There was also 1 ich infection in 2023, treated with copper (before introducing inverts). The last treatment with prazipro for flukes was 4 rounds in March 2024 and the treatment was felt to be successful, without any loss of fish.

Since then, rockflower anemones and 1 BTA have been added. There has also been the addition of a cuban hogfish, mandarin fish, and naso tang. The most recent addition was the naso tang in approx Jul 2024. No other additions have been made since then.

Have you lost any fish to this problem yet?
- About 3-4 weeks ago, 2 cardinal fish (from 3 to 1) and 1 mandarin fish have passed away. I thought it was due to competition in the former and starvation in the latter. They displayed no symptoms or signs of infection that I could tell.
- In the past week, an emperor angel fish that has been with the tank since it was started passed away. It has always had blotchy spots as in the photo, but in the past 2-3 weeks, it was looking blotchier, eventually stopped eating, and passed.
- A lemon peel angel was also found dead in an anemone and a hawkfish wedged in between rocks. They would have died sometime in the past 3-4 days.

Today, 1 pufferfish and 1 flame angel passed away (they were alive this afternoon). The Naso Tang appears to be struggling as well. I have attached further photos and videos under white light. Respiratory rate for the tang is 120 (30 breaths in 15 sec).

Inverts do not appear affected.

I have also attached microscope pictures from the fish that died today, including gills from the hawkfish and flame angel, and skin/fin smears from the pufferfish.

I fed all the fish tonight frozen foods combined with metroplex, kanaplex, garlic guard (day 1) and all seemed to eat vigorously except the Naso Tang.

Thank you!

Thanks for the detailed post.

IMO this is late stage marine ich, Cryptocaryon. I can still see some individual trophonts on the tang and the trigger. What happens is that after time, the look of ich infection changes to a more generalized mucus/blotchy skin. There is also a chance that you have multiple infections going on here - most likely ich and flukes (the emperor's blotchiness and cloudy eyes points to that).

One trick to ID flukes is to give a freshly dead fish a 7 minute FW dip and then look at the dip water under a microscope.

So - what to do? You are going to have a difficult time resolving this. Once fish loss begins due to a parasitic infection, it is VERY difficult to stop it in time to prevent fish loss.

I would move all fish to a suitable treatment tank and dose them with coppersafe and praziquantel.

Oral dosing with metroplex and kanaplex won't work unless you calculate the dose properly. Too little medication obviously won't help, but too much metro is bitter and the fish will stop eating it and too much kanaplex is toxic. This post explains the proper way to dose oral meds (but in the end, those don't work for external parasitic infections)

Proper Dosing of Medicated Foods

Proper Dosing of Medicated Foods Jay Hemdal c. 2020 Oral medications are an excellent way to target internal diseases of fishes. Marine fish absorb aquarium water, so in certain cases, they “drink” enough medication from the water to effect a cure. However, freshwater fish actively export...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[overlion]

Thank you for the information. The Naso died earlier this morning and I was able to look at its gills (before FWD). Per your advice, I also did a 7 min FW dip and looked at the water (3 samples) afterward. I did notice an oval/circular "thing" consistently in each sample, and interestingly, it still appeared motile (videos attached) despite a FW Dip. Does this help add any further information? Unfortunately, fish medications are difficult to obtain in Canada and so my hope is to be as narrow as possible with the treatment approach if possible.

Also, @Jay Hemdal, I read your book on Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques and just want to say it was very informative and a pleasure to read! Thank you for writing it!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thank you for the information. The Naso died earlier this morning and I was able to look at its gills (before FWD). Per your advice, I also did a 7 min FW dip and looked at the water (3 samples) afterward. I did notice an oval/circular "thing" consistently in each sample, and interestingly, it still appeared motile (videos attached) despite a FW Dip. Does this help add any further information? Unfortunately, fish medications are difficult to obtain in Canada and so my hope is to be as narrow as possible with the treatment approach if possible.

Also, @Jay Hemdal, I read your book on Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques and just want to say it was very informative and a pleasure to read! Thank you for writing it!

Those are all ich trophonts. I would say this proves your fish do have late stage ich.