Green Chromis weird patch?

Jay Hemdal · Jun 19, 2023

saltwaterswiftie said:
It did not turn red before he died (this morning). The only other symptom I saw was him struggling to breathe close to when he died. I do not see anything wrong with the other 4 chromis. Should I add copper to the QT as a precaution?

Copper won’t cure Uronema. Running a copper quarantine will help with ich and velvet issues though.
Did the fish die with its mouth fixed open? That’s another trademark of Uronema.
If not Uronema, I’m still trying to see how the rapid breathing wound be associated with an injury.

Jay

saltwaterswiftie · Jun 19, 2023

Jay Hemdal said:
Copper won’t cure Uronema. Running a copper quarantine will help with ich and velvet issues though.
Did the fish die with its mouth fixed open? That’s another trademark of Uronema.
If not Uronema, I’m still trying to see how the rapid breathing wound be associated with an injury.

Jay

Yes he did die with his mouth fixed open. When I woke up at 9:30am he was intermittently breathing rapid. I had a meeting and was not able to check on him again until 11 and when I did he was dead.

Lemons · Jun 19, 2023

Weird... id keep an eye on the others... if it is uronema i dont think theres much we can do...

saltwaterswiftie · Jun 22, 2023

@Jay Hemdal Another green chromis had a white spot so I moved him into isolation yesterday. Today, his white spot does look red. The fish seems to be eating and I do not see heavy breathing of other symptoms. It has hard to get a good picture but he has one red spot on his side.

Jay Hemdal · Jun 22, 2023

saltwaterswiftie said:
@Jay Hemdal Another green chromis had a white spot so I moved him into isolation yesterday. Today, his white spot does look red. The fish seems to be eating and I do not see heavy breathing of other symptoms. It has hard to get a good picture but he has one red spot on his side.

That also looks like Uronema, sorry!

Jay

saltwaterswiftie · Jun 22, 2023

Jay Hemdal said:
That also looks like Uronema, sorry!

Jay

The fish sadly died today. I have three more green chromis from the same LFS that appear to be still healthy. Is there anything preventative I can do for them? I was planning on doing a water change and switching out the filter with a spare I have.

Jay Hemdal · Jun 23, 2023

saltwaterswiftie said:
The fish sadly died today. I have three more green chromis from the same LFS that appear to be still healthy. Is there anything preventative I can do for them? I was planning on doing a water change and switching out the filter with a spare I have.

I know internal uronema is super-frustrating. People want treatments, but the fact is, inter-cellular protozoans are always difficult to treat - think Malaria and the "brain-eating amoeba", these are difficult to treat in humans, even with much better medicine than we have for fish.

As my article said, Chloroquine kills Uronema externally in the aquarium, but not inside any fish. The external Uronema is not been proven to cause active fish disease.

To be honest, I now just try to avoid Uronema by not buying green chromis, yellow coris wrasse, or lyretail anthias.

Jay