Lymphocystis? or something else

citymouse · Nov 7, 2018

I've had both of these fish for 12 days now, they've had these spots since the day they arrived, no new ones have appeared so I assumed it was normal discoloration until someone on another post said it's not normal.

2 days ago - Sunday (11/4) I did start treatment for flukes, after my yellow tang started flashing the night before and I did a FW dip on Sunday to id the problem. So far so good, he's swimming around, no more flashing. Still seems a little stressed from time to time, it took a good 5 days for him to calm down and get used to the tank, may be too small for him at 20g, but it's only quarantine. The spot is on his tail fin, it almost looks like you could scrape it off with your fingernail...not that I would!

The much smaller Kole tang never showed signs of flukes and was so scared from the net chase of the big one, that he never got a FW dip, but he's still getting the meds anyway, so I didn't bother him after he hid behind the HOB filter for 5 or 6 hours... He's had these 2 spots on his back fins since day 1 too, but they don't look white, they almost look the same color as he is, which made me think it was discoloration.

I feed them NLS marine and sometimes frozen, and I toss in a piece of algae wafer once in a while, they seem to like that. Tank is crystal clear, last I checked everything was fine, no ammonia, normal everything. Temp is 79 to 80, good filtration, filter is for around 50g and the tank is only 20g.

Any thoughts?

SashimiTurtle · Nov 7, 2018

Those appear to be flukes to me. They are oval shaped with smooth edges. Lympho has an irregular shape. It looks more like cauliflower, which it is sometimes called and in my experience shows up on the edges of the fins.

I would continue treatment for flukes. Maybe FW dip the kole to see if they dislodge.

citymouse · Nov 7, 2018

I've been thinking about FW did for the Kole, I figured I'd give it a few days, maybe dip when I do the 2nd dose? I've never done this before, the bottle says to do a water change and treat the water and leave it for 5 to 7 days. I assume I do a water change after the 5ish days and retreat with prazipro? Thinking that might be a good time to give the little guy a dip, but he also hasn't been acting like anything is bother him at all, no shaking, no flashing, nothing. I have this tank in the room where I sit most of the day and night, so I can watch them constantly.
The yellow, that spot is at the edge, looks whitish but didn't change during the dip, even though a lot of stuff came off him that I couldn't see until then! But the Kole, those spots don't look white, they're more the yellow color that he has on him right now.

GoldeneyeRet · Nov 7, 2018

Hard for me to tell from photos, I have an old phone older eyes.

That said, they dont look like flukes. Lympho maybe, but not really. Are the spots raised and rough? As previously mentioned lympho looks like cauliflower growing out of the fish.

I would be concerned that you are seeing bacterial infection. Not uncommon to get a secondary infection after flukes.

citymouse · Nov 7, 2018

GoldeneyeRet said:
Hard for me to tell from photos, I have an old phone older eyes.

That said, they dont look like flukes. Lympho maybe, but not really. Are the spots raised and rough? As previously mentioned lympho looks like cauliflower growing out of the fish.

I would be concerned that you are seeing bacterial infection. Not uncommon to get a secondary infection after flukes.

On the yellow it looks like a whitish dot and looks raised, like you could scrape it off, looks smooth.
On the Kole, to me they just look like discoloration, not really raised, maybe slightly? or the picture makes them appear that way, not white. Fins are fine, they're eating etc. I don't see how it could be bacterial, I read a bunch of article about fish diseases, one on this site that included pictures, nothing matched up to these dots. Well, besides things like Ich and Flukes, but I know it's not ich and they're being treated for Flukes for the last 3 to 4 days. Whatever is on the yellow, I would think would have come off in FW dip if it were flukes? Also thought those were mostly invisible until FW dips, I never saw anything else on him, it took the dip the reveal the flukes.