Is this normal when treating Brook?

Cantusaurus · Aug 14, 2021

Hi, I am treating my female clownfish in my QT tank. I believe the clown had a mild case of Brook. I only saw a small amount of white spots. But I saw faint little like spots where the coloration was a bit different. (Not white spots, but it didn’t really look like flukes either). Is this what happens when treating Brook?
Because I no longer see white spots (there may be only 1 or 2, but a they’ve been going away). but I have seen more of these little marks or whatever they are on my clownfish.
Is this a separate bacterial disease? Or part of the healing process from Brook?

Jay Hemdal · Aug 14, 2021

Cantusaurus said:
Hi, I am treating my female clownfish in my QT tank. I believe the clown had a mild case of Brook. I only saw a small amount of white spots. But I saw faint little like spots where the coloration was a bit different. (Not white spots, but it didn’t really look like flukes either). Is this what happens when treating Brook?
Because I no longer see white spots (there may be only 1 or 2, but a they’ve been going away). but I have seen more of these little marks or whatever they are on my clownfish.
Is this a separate bacterial disease? Or part of the healing process from Brook?

Lesions like that are pretty common on young clownfish. I'm not exactly sure what causes it. It isn't classic head and lateral line disease, but the fact that it is more or less symmetrical indicates it is some reaction to the environment (diseases typically don't grow with such symmetry).

What have you been treating the fish with?

Jay

Cantusaurus · Aug 14, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
Lesions like that are pretty common on young clownfish. I'm not exactly sure what causes it. It isn't classic head and lateral line disease, but the fact that it is more or less symmetrical indicates it is some reaction to the environment (diseases typically don't grow with such symmetry).

What have you been treating the fish with?

Jay

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it! The clown has been in the QT tank for 3 days (this is the third day). I began treating the tank with API Ich Super Cure, and Seachem Metroplex. The white spots have gone (Ich or Brook), and I do not think I see any more. BUT. I saw these little sore looking things or like minor scale damage (which I thought was irritation or something). But they seem to be getting worse.
I treated Metroplex, Kanaplex, and Stressguard yesterday. And I did the API Ich cure today (I will stop the ich Cure medication to focus on the lesions). I am going to use Kanaplex again today. Should I continue metroplex? And should I soak pellet food with the medications and with focus?
Or is there some other medication I should use instead of Kanaplex and or Metroplex daily? I will send another picture of the clown since the lesions look slightly different today.

Cantusaurus · Aug 14, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
Lesions like that are pretty common on young clownfish. I'm not exactly sure what causes it. It isn't classic head and lateral line disease, but the fact that it is more or less symmetrical indicates it is some reaction to the environment (diseases typically don't grow with such symmetry).

What have you been treating the fish with?

J

It seems to look a bit worse today :/ is this lymph? Or bacterial lesions of some kind?
I also have API Melafix if you think that will do anything ‍

Cantusaurus · Aug 14, 2021

UPDATE: The greyish things look like they are protruding slightly from the skin (they look the same in the photos above, but protrude slightly). Is this flukes? Or a bacteria infection? I saw a diagram with diseases, and it looks like skin irritation, but why does it look like it is slightly worsening? I'm just very confused and concerned. I'm not sure what is it, and if I need to act and do something.

I've had this clown for almost a year so I am really hoping I do not lose her

Cantusaurus · Aug 14, 2021

It sort of looks very close to the "skin irritation", but it seems like it protrudes ever so slightly

Jay Hemdal · Aug 15, 2021

It still looks like some environmental skin irritation to me, like I said, I've seen this in people's clownfish here, it isn't any of the common parasitic diseases. I'm worried because you are tossing a lot of medications at this, and most of them I don't use, so it is difficult to predict all possible cross-reactions. The only medication I use for protozoan diseases is copper, formalin or hyposalinity. The API product is for freshwater ich. They may say it is for marine, but they are wrong (grin).

Jay

Cantusaurus · Aug 15, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
It still looks like some environmental skin irritation to me, like I said, I've seen this in people's clownfish here, it isn't any of the common parasitic diseases. I'm worried because you are tossing a lot of medications at this, and most of them I don't use, so it is difficult to predict all possible cross-reactions. The only medication I use for protozoan diseases is copper, formalin or hyposalinity. The API product is for freshwater ich. They may say it is for marine, but they are wrong (grin).

Jay

Thanks! Yeah you are right. I was using a lot of medications, and I really should not have. I am going to focus on keeping great water quality in my QT. I did about a 15-20 percent water change last night, and I am most likely going to only treat with API Melafix, and Seachem Kanaplex.
So the problem seems either bacterial, irritations, or possibly fungal.
I did some research on fungal diseases, and they usually take hold after treating another issue, which in this case was the white spots. It seemed to be protruding more and looking more "fungal" like. I saw that Fungal could be white or grey. So either way I will slow down medications, and hope for the best.
But surprisingly the API Ich medication got rid of all the whitespots pretty quickly on the clownfish (well I guess it could have also been the Seachem Metroplex).

Thanks for the help and input! You have no idea how much I greatly appreciate it!

Cantusaurus · Aug 15, 2021

UPDATE: It is looking worse. Is this lympho? I'm convinced this has to be fungal or lympho. I do not think a bacterial disease would cause this much protruding? It looks really weird

It looks grey though, and I know lympho is usually white. I have been cleaning the tank last night and this morning so hopefully things will turn around.
Should I do a Seachem Paraguard dip? I feel like I need to do something to really kill off a bunch of this external issue, and then just keep things simple and clean in the QT.

Jay Hemdal · Aug 15, 2021

Cantusaurus said:
UPDATE: It is looking worse. Is this lympho? I'm convinced this has to be fungal or lympho. I do not think a bacterial disease would cause this much protruding? It looks really weird It looks grey though, and I know lympho is usually white. I have been cleaning the tank last night and this morning so hopefully things will turn around.
Should I do a Seachem Paraguard dip? I feel like I need to do something to really kill off a bunch of this external issue, and then just keep things simple and clean in the QT.

It isn’t lymphocystis. External marine fungal infections are very rare, I’ve only seen a few possible cases here and only one case in my own systems in the past ten years. Bacterial can grow as a plaque that can have a more three dimensional look to it.

That said, these new photos indeed show better what you were describing, certainly looks worse.

What to do? I’ve used formalin as a dip for external fungus. Perhaps you could do that and an antibiotic to cover both bases?

Jay

Cantusaurus · Aug 15, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
It isn’t lymphocystis. External marine fungal infections are very rare, I’ve only seen a few possible cases here and only one case in my own systems in the past ten years. Bacterial can grow as a plaque that can have a more three dimensional look to it.

That said, these new photos indeed show better what you were describing, certainly looks worse.

What to do? I’ve used formalin as a dip for external fungus. Perhaps you could do that and an antibiotic to cover both bases?

Jay

Okay, thanks! I am getting paraguard in the mail tomorrow (which I heard is like a formalin alternative? And can be used to dip) I also have Safety stop. Would doing a safety stop treatment with at least the formalin be good? Or doing the whole safety stop treatment?

Jay Hemdal · Aug 15, 2021

Cantusaurus said:
Okay, thanks! I am getting paraguard in the mail tomorrow (which I heard is like a formalin alternative? And can be used to dip) I also have Safety stop. Would doing a safety stop treatment with at least the formalin be good? Or doing the whole safety stop treatment?

Sorry - I’ve never used safety stop. I’m not sure how Paraguard dosing works for a dip, does the bottle give instructions for using it like that ?
Jay

Cantusaurus · Aug 15, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
Sorry - I’ve never used safety stop. I’m not sure how Paraguard dosing works for a dip, does the bottle give instructions for using it like that ?
Jay

Yes. The Paraguard has instructions for dipping fish. And the safety stop is just two 45 minute dips. One is formalin, and the second is methylene blue

Jay Hemdal · Aug 16, 2021

Cantusaurus said:
Yes. The Paraguard has instructions for dipping fish. And the safety stop is just two 45 minute dips. One is formalin, and the second is methylene blue

Does the safety stop give any indication as to the formalin concentration? What you should be aiming for is 75 ppm for 45 minutes under good aeration.

Jay

Cantusaurus · Aug 16, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
Does the safety stop give any indication as to the formalin concentration? What you should be aiming for is 75 ppm for 45 minutes under good aeration.

Jay

It does not give a precise concentration. I believe it is more on the conservative side since it is used to dip fish newly acquired fish before putting them in a QT tank. Would you recommend doing a dip in the green formalin as opposed to the methylene blue? Or should I do both? (In your honest opinion)

Thanks for the help!

Jay Hemdal · Aug 16, 2021

Cantusaurus said:
It does not give a precise concentration. I believe it is more on the conservative side since it is used to dip fish newly acquired fish before putting them in a QT tank. Would you recommend doing a dip in the green formalin as opposed to the methylene blue? Or should I do both? (In your honest opinion)

Thanks for the help!

Sorry, I can’t offer any advice, not knowing the concentration of either the formalin or the dyes makes it purely a guess, and I try to avoid doing that. Noga gives a dose for malachite green of 1 ppm for one hour.
Overall, methylene blue is much less toxic than malachite green.

Jay

Cantusaurus · Aug 16, 2021

Jay Hemdal said:
Sorry, I can’t offer any advice, not knowing the concentration of either the formalin or the dyes makes it purely a guess, and I try to avoid doing that. Noga gives a dose for malachite green of 1 ppm for one hour.
Overall, methylene blue is much less toxic than malachite green.

Jay

I understand. That is a very valid point.
I ended up doing the Formalin Dip using the safety stop part A. I followed the directions, and was confident that it would not be too much/toxic since it is designed to be used as a preventative. I have heard good things about Safety stop, and how fish did not become overly stressed and or suffer issues.
The clownfish looked fine throughout the 45 minute process.
I added some carbon to the QT tank while that was happening, and before adding the clownfish back to the QT I added some of the Methelyne blue (Part B) to the QT. I only added a very small portion (I measured the correct dosage for the tank to be at a recommended 3 PPM). I hope to treat the tank with only the methelyne blue daily.
Hopefully that made sense with my explanation.

Thanks

Cantusaurus · Aug 31, 2021

UPDATE: The clown has been free of the Bacterial/possibly fungal issue for about 1.5 weeks. The Seachem Paraguard and Methylene Blue really seemed to do the job, and the build up lessened, and went away completely. It was awful to see the clown have so many spots where its scales were messed up or gone though

The exterior of the clown looked rough despite the clown overall improving, and luckily no infections or red appeared with the missing skin/scales

The clown then began healing.
I notice now the gashes are much smaller, and look like old battle scars now.

So my main question is how much longer should I leave her in my QT? It is only 5.5 gallons, and she does have a large PVC elbow for protection, but I definitely do not want her experiencing negative affects from being in a small tank for too long. Also I don't want my small male clown thinking he can start growing and turning into a female.