Mystery spots...

[Fish_BowLisha]

noticed these today...overdue for water change did that today as planned...could this need more severe treatment?

 

[143MPCo]

Looks like fluke parasite but, lets see if @Humblefish can confirm this.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

I recently transferred rocks from DT to this tank... No skunk cleaner in there:-( should I go get one? I don't like using chemicals...

 

[Humblefish]

Looks too large and irregular shaped to be Neobenedenia (a genus of flukes sometimes visible on the skin), even for a firefish. One way to tell for sure... is it slowing moving on the fish's skin or is the white spot stationary? I'm guessing the latter, and leaning more towards this being being Uronema or a bacterial infection. How long have you had this fish? Any new additions? Especially any chromis damsels added recently?

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

I purchased two of them on 7/23/15... seemed to be a pair. I have added rock from my DT recently. No ammonia spike or anything. Nitrates were 15ppm yesterday though. (Due to training mandarin to eat frozen brine no doubt).

I did notice a larger bristle worm has taken residence in there sleeping rock. Could the pistol shrimp have done this?

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Spots are stationary.

 

[Cleo642]

You have damsels?

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Not now. But I did have green chromis months ago. The place I bought them from was kind of sketchy so when they died I thought it was because of that. This used to be a QT tank.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

There are no red areas around the spots like the description in the uronemia thread describes.

 

[Humblefish]

I did notice a larger bristle worm has taken residence in there sleeping rock. Could the pistol shrimp have done this?

Either could have damaged the fish and then an infection set in.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

True...The thing is the fish and the star and the pistol were sharing the home rock peacefully. I think the bristle worm moved in when I added the new rock from the DT. However, I have had firefish over the past ten years and fate was: parasitic copepod that came with the fish, and not surviving QT. This is a new phenomenon. Hopefully better water and healthy food will bring it around...dipping and fire fish don't mix IME. They get too stressed out being caught:-(
Unless you have any other ideas??

 

[Humblefish]

Unless you have any other ideas??

Start soaking the food in "fish vitamins" exs. Selcon, Zoecon, Vita-chem. This will help bolster his natural immune system to fight off whatever this is.

A more aggressive approach would be to start soaking the fish food with antibiotics. A good combo for doing this is Seachem Kanaplex, using Seachem Focus as the binder to prevent the meds from leaching out into the water column.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Will do thanks for your help.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

So this morning the "bumps" appeared to be smaller. So I fed the vitamin soaked spiralina and brine. The poor guy did not eat and retired to his rock home. I changed out another ten gallons in hopes to dilute whatever pathogen may be in the tank...His mate appears to have the same growth on her head today. The Mandarin is fine of course and the inverts are too.

I've had little experience with store bought bacteria and fungicides but I may have to try for the sake of the widow!

Luckily they were in QT and this all happened outside of my DT.

 

[EDO]

My foxface had about half a dozen spots that looked just like that and I could not find anything on multiple forums that matched what it looked like. I feed Reef Frenzy and our local club food and he seems to have kicked whatever it was over the course of about a week. None of the other fish in the tank have seemed to have any issues (keeping fingers crossed). In the attached picture you can see some of the spots as they started to shrink.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Strangest thing...third week in QT and then BAM!?! Sucks! Hopefully the mate will fair better and kick whatever this is.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Hopefully someone else will be able to find info in the future regarding these spots. Here are some more pics:

 

[Humblefish]

If it's spread to another fish, then at least you know you are dealing with a waterborne disease. Visible symptoms do not line up with ich or velvet. Brook & uronema are possibilities... the latter being more possible because you mentioned you lost some chromis awhile back. Did those show any symptoms before they died?

Could also be a bacterial infection spreading through the water. You say these fish are in QT, correct? If so, I would hit them with this combo of medications: Furan-2, Kanaplex & Metroplex (or Metro-MS). The first two are for bacterial infections - metro is an alternative treatment for both Brook & Uronema. You'd be covering all the bases.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

No symptoms on chromis except one bully in the bunch was nipping the others at night I suspect because he was the only one left. Unfortunately karma took its toll on him when he went to the main display:-/

Correct to QT. I found a treatment by API today called Fungus Cure. Between the bacterial and fungal I opted for fungal since the growth seemed to be in line with those symptoms. But really it was a toss up between the two. Is it safe to use more than one treatment at a time? Should I also do a anti bacterial course?

So far so good. The fish is still alive. More than I can say for its poor mate:-/

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Technically he was in a converted QT/now peaceful fish tank... Now he is in makeshift QT. Five gallon bucket with HOB filter and no heater since its hot here in Cali! I have a digital thermometer reading temp and will add heater if necessary. For now the temp is 80.4...has stayed steady for six hours now. I fed spiralina with brine he ate about three shrimp not a good sign but after all the chasing he may just be stewing...