Need help with Disease ID and treatment!

[jessezm]

Hi all! I could really use your help figuring out what might be going on with my fish and the best approach to treatment...

The tank is a 150g (300g total water volume) SPS-dominant tank. Fish include:
3 clownfish
2 Sunburst Anthias
1 White Tail Bristletooth Tang
1 Lineatus Wrasse
3 Blue eyed Cardinals
1 Blotched Anthias
1 Pyramid Butterfly
1 Six line wrasse

What happened: A couple weeks ago I added the lineatus and a Scott's Fairy Wrasse to a newly set up QT in my basement. It is super cold down there but my tank has proper heating. While at work, I got a call from my contractor that the power was out in the neighborhood. After calling a few neighbors, I discovered a car had run into a power pole and it would be hours before it was repaired. I was stuck at work and could not get home, so the wrasses were certainly going to die in a couple hours, as the ambient temperature was probably 55 down there and the QT was just 45 gallons.

Long story short, in a fit of panic, I had my girlfriend move the wrasses to the main tank where they would more likely stay warmer for longer and have a better chance of surviving. They did just fine, and for a week, everything was perfect. Then one day the Scotts didn't come out to eat in the morning and by the evening he was having a really hard time swimming upright, was bumping into stuff, and breathing hard.

I caught him to isolate him because he was easy to catch, but when I did he flailed about erratically and I think exhausted his last bit of resources. he didn't last another two hours in isolation. I do still have his body frozen in the freezer.

Anyways, fast forward to now (about a week later). The Lineatus seems to be doing fine, but I did see him flash his gill plate one time a few days ago against a rock, and saw him swimming into the powerhead one time as well, though I have not seen this behavior in a few days.

However, my tang and my large sunburst anthias have some visible white spots now. It does not look like Ich to me - for instance, if you look at their fins at an angle, it looks like small, irregular patches of whitish, or more like light translucent spots. They don't have that hard-white nodule looking appearance of Ich. I don't see anything on the body of the Anthias, but in the mornings and evenings it seems to be worse, and I can see whitish spots/patches on the body of the tang (his body is dark in color so it may just be more obvious)

So far those are the only two fish with visible signs of infection. Everybody is eating well and no hard breathing. the tang is very active, as is the anthias.

So first of all, I'm not sure exactly what i'm seeing, but I suspect it is possibly some kind of flukes, and possibly internal parasites as well??

I am considering a course of Prazipro treatment IN TANK, as catching all my fish will be impossible as my tank is heavily populated with acros and live rock.

I would treat the whole tank, take off the carbon and UV and the skimmer collection cup, and let it run for 72 hrs like that, then do a large water change and one more treatment after 5 or 7 days. After this, my plan was to alternate Metroplex and Kanaplex soaked food (using Focus), with double the carbon filtration (two BRS canisters) for 10 days not as many days for Kanaplex i think).

Does this sound like a reasonable approach, or do you all think I'm nuts?

Any way you think I could get a diagnosis from the frozen scott's fairy wrasse?

You all's help would be so much appreciated!!!

@Humblefish

 

[jessezm]

Very difficult to get a picture of what I'm seeing. Here are the fish:

 

[ScooterV]

Anyways, fast forward to now (about a week later). The Lineatus seems to be doing fine, but I did see him flash his gill plate one time a few days ago against a rock, and saw him swimming into the powerhead one time as well, though I have not seen this behavior in a few days.

However, my tang and my large sunburst anthias have some visible white spots now. It does not look like Ich to me - for instance, if you look at their fins at an angle, it looks like small, irregular patches of whitish, or more like light translucent spots. They don't have that hard-white nodule looking appearance of Ich. I don't see anything on the body of the Anthias, but in the mornings and evenings it seems to be worse, and I can see whitish spots/patches on the body of the tang (his body is dark in color so it may just be more obvious)
@Humblefish

Sorry to hear about the issues Reacting, and trying to do the best for the little guys often turns out the other way Unfortunately, sounds like velvet to me Even the "translucent" look on the fins matches with what I saw early on when hit with velvet. It did eventually present picture perfect symptoms on some fish like my flame. I think I'd plan to deal with velvet out of caution, if nothing else. But, if flukes could you catch even a few fish and FW dip them and maybe confirm that before messing with the entire DT?

Edit: I think we both meant "opaque" and not "translucent".

 

[jessezm]

Ugh... if velvet is in the system, does this mean removing all fish and letting the tank lie fallow for a period of time? I have dealt with velvet once before and it was a much faster killer, although it did not seem to affect all fish in the system.

One other observation I made in the last few weeks is that I did lose a blue eyed cardinal, who presented with white stringy poop and frayed fins. I also noticed white stringy poop from one of the clownfish last week. But have only observed it once. Obviously, could be multiple issues happening at once...

 

[Gareth elliott]

I would follow the qt protocol for velvet and ich. A freshwater dip will also eliminate the possibility its flukes.

Keep an eye on the droppings if it is an intestinal parasite. Easy enough to treat at the same time your treating the exoparasites with metro medicated food. Even the treatment times are the same 14 days minimum.

 

[jessezm]

Part of the issue is that I am pretty certain it will be nearly impossible to catch all of my fish. I could certainly catch the tang and probably the anthias, but I highly doubt i'd ever come close to capturing the six line wrasse, as he is very shy and would probably never enter my fish trap. I imagine it would take days to catch the rest...

So if we are talking ich or velvet, wouldn't catching and QT'ing even most of the fish be pointless if even one small fish was left in the tank untreated to eventually re-infect the re-introduced fish?

 

[ScooterV]

Yep, just one fish remaining will keep the parasites alive

I feel your pain too. I'm in the process of trying to catch fish for my second fallow period. 270 DT with the majority of rock mortared in place

If I were you, I'd start getting any QT ready but not jump until Humblefish, Hotrock, 4FordFamily, etc wander by though before getting too bummed or panicked

 

[jessezm]

OH, THE HUMANITY!!!