Fox Face getting worse

[JTN]

Hi All,

My fox face appearance is getting worse. He seems to be acting normal and still eating well.
I have been treating the tank with PraziPro, I am on the second dose. He also underwent a FW dip.

 

[fishguy242]

#fishmedic

 

[nereefpat]

Possibly "black ich", which is a worm. Prazi doesn't always work. I have had tangs show it, but they recovered on their own.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

Hi All,

My fox face appearance is getting worse. He seems to be acting normal and still eating well.
I have been treating the tank with PraziPro, I am on the second dose. He also underwent a FW dip.

@Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi All,

My fox face appearance is getting worse. He seems to be acting normal and still eating well.
I have been treating the tank with PraziPro, I am on the second dose. He also underwent a FW dip.

Looks like the aftermath of velvet. Too large for black ich
If fish breathing heavily, stopped eating, lethargic, swimming at surface or in path of water flow- may be just that
You never isolated it I see

 

[MnFish1]

Scarring from something. I would continue the Prazipro - making sure you're dosing correctly - oxygenating, and it looks as if there is a lot of rock, etc in your tank - which can degrade prazipro. I do not see many fish with this type of picture that have scarring 'from velvet'. IMHO - it's hypermelanization from something - and I might be concerned that you're underusing prazipro. IMHO - this could be 'black ich' as well.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi All,

My fox face appearance is getting worse. He seems to be acting normal and still eating well.
I have been treating the tank with PraziPro, I am on the second dose. He also underwent a FW dip.

That does look like one of the turbellarian worms (often called "back ich"). There are at least two species. Praziquantel doesn't really work on these - prazi doesn't kill flukes, it just knocks them out for a bit, and they lose their grip on the fish, cannot reattach, and then they die. With turbellarian worms, they are in a cyst, so will not fall off when "knocked out", if prazi even does knock this species out.


The standard treatments for this are:

5 minute FW dip and move to a clean tank
1 hour formalin dip at 150 ppm with good aeration and move to a clean tank
Organophosphate treatment (will kill invertebrates, not safe to use in a home).

If you put the fish back into the same tank after the FW dip, it will just get reinfected. You can sometimes control this by dipping the fish every 2 to 3 days, killing more turbellarians before they have a chance to reproduce. However, that amount of handling is very rough on fish (and do you know that this fish has toxic spines).

Is the cleaner wrasse controlling them at all?

Jay