new inverts brought something in

[deedubz]

I've had my 55g running for ~20 months. I added to my CuC in my 55g maybe 1-1.5 months ago. A handful of snails, crabs, and a ball of chaeto since my HOB refugium took a dump on me. Prior to that I hadn't added anything to the tank since December of 2017(a lunate fairy wrasse that went through qt). I didn't quarantine the inverts because I never had before and honestly didn't know that was even a thing. I don't have a lot of coral and haven't added any in 7 months? My nems have also been in there for 10-12 months.

Last October I had a run in with prazi resistant flukes and lost one of the two fish in qt. @Humblefish helped me diagnose and treat the surviving lunate fairy wrasse via hypo. Fast forward to a few weeks ago (after adding CuC) and I started noticing eerily familiar symptoms; scratching, twitching, and a lot of "yawning". I opted to treat the dt with prazi as every fish in my tank had gone through it before with zero issues. I also couldn't fathom having to try to catch the diamond goby or, even worse, my wheeler's goby who's shrimp decided to burrow under the same rock my LTA is anchored. I did 3 treatments 7 days apart ending the other day. Symptoms DEFINITELY subsided. I noticed yesterday that the lunate wrasse spent some of the day in stress coloration and not eating as much as usual. This morning I observed both wrasses, one of my chromis, and my sailfin blenny scratching. The two wrasses were also twitched some. I did notice a couple larger white spots on the tail of my exquisite fairy wrasse. They don't look embedded and it doesn't look like sloughing. I'm going to try a fw dip this evening. If it turns out to be flukes again I'll do hypo in my qt. If not, I'll have to use coppersafe.

Here's the thing.. I decided to use a bag of live sand and a decent sized piece of mined reef rock. I used a bag of media from my little fluval evo. About a week ago I dumped in a bottle of bio spira just for the heck of it. I have another bottle that I bought a couple weeks ago just to have on hand. My plan was to have more of an observation tank for new additions to my upcoming 180g upgrade. I was going to purchase pre quarantined fish from humblefish once he and my new tank are up and running and do a few weeks in observation. I do have coppersafe though. I read that of the two types of copper that it was the better choice for my situation. Any thoughts on these spots and/or using the copper in this qt? Thank you


Here's a couple pics of qt and the spots on Francois. Best I could do with my old iPhone. I will try again

 

[HotRocks]

My Guess is ich, from what I can tell in pics. Hard to see. Regardless, I would get the fish moved to QT and start copper, unless these guys say otherwise!
@4FordFamily @Humblefish

 

[deedubz]

My concern is the sand/rock in the qt tank with copper.

FWIW both spots have fallen off already. As stated, neither looked embedded to begin with and appeared between lights out last night and when I saw them ~9 am this morning. I'm still leaning towards prazi resistant flukes again..lucky me. I'll do a fw dip this evening

 

[4FordFamily]

Beautiful fish, by the way. Ich can fall off after a few days, but if it was less than that it could have been sand or debris sticking to the fish’s mucous cocoon when it awoke from its slumber. If it lingered more than a few hours or maybe a day, it is probably not that.

Those would be very large flukes...

 

[Deinonych]

I would lean toward capsalid monogeneans (aka skin flukes). They can be tough to kill with prazi. You will likely need to do hypo in a QT to get rid of them (<1.011 SG for 5 days).

 

[deedubz]

Beautiful fish, by the way. Ich can fall off after a few days, but if it was less than that it could have been sand or debris sticking to the fish’s mucous cocoon when it awoke from its slumber. If it lingered more than a few hours or maybe a day, it is probably not that.

Those would be very large flukes...

Thank you! He's a stud for sure.

That's what I suspected. He must have slept in a little because they were on him no more than a couple hours. I did battle prazi resistant flukes once and to me these symptoms are identical. That fact that prazi did have an affect on whatever is going on points me in that direction. ALL the symptoms vanished for the 3 week treatment but are back again. I had success with hypo to knock em off the lunate fairy last summer

 

[JoshKReef]

You could TTM instead of treating with copper for ich. I do it in 5 gallon buckets or small tanks since they only stay in the tank for 72 hours.

 

[Deinonych]

Those would be very large flukes...

It's about the right size for Neobenedenia, if that's in fact what it is. Coincidentally, I'm treating for Neobenedenia (confirmed with microscopy) on a C. exquisitus right now and the size looks about right.

 

[deedubz]

I would lean toward capsalid monogeneans (aka skin flukes). They can be tough to kill with prazi. You will likely need to do hypo in a QT to get rid of them (<1.011 SG for 5 days).

Correct. This is the lunate

 

[Deinonych]

Also, you may be able to see the spots move if they are indeed capsalids. They typically show a pulsing caterpillar-like movement once they've been hit with prazi.

 

[deedubz]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I'm going to do a fw dip this evening. I believe those two white spots were debris. It just freaked me out when I noticed them after my fish were flashing and twitching again.

To clarify my posts.. I had prazi resistant gill flukes back in October when my lunate fairy was in qt. They were confirmed via dip and humblefish guided me through hypo. She remained in qt another month and was good to go. After adding the new inverts(months later) to my dt my fish started exhibiting the same symptoms..flashing, twitching, excessive "yawning" etc. I decided to dose prazi once every 7 days for 3 weeks. Symptoms went away. Prazi has been out of the tank maybe a week and symptoms reappeared.

I think what I'm going to do, which should address either, is do a dip to confirm flukes. I'll then do ttm with buckets and then put them in qt. I'll then lower salinity to 1.008-9 for 5 days

 

[Deinonych]

Be careful not to go below SG 1.009 when doing hypo. Marine fish have an internal osmotic pressure equivalent to 1.008, so you want to keep it above that. For capsalids, I like to target SG 1.010 (14 ppt).

Keep us posted.

 

[Humblefish]

^^ Great advice by @Deinonych

 

[deedubz]

I didn't have any luck catching fish last night. I'm disabled so I'm having someone come over tonight so we can drain some water and move a few pieces of rock into tubs. I've also decided trying to ttm 9 fish with 5g buckets would be too much work. Nevermind the buckets everywhere, I feel it would greatly increase my chances of cross contamination. I do have 2 20-30g brute tubs to work with. Is one tub enough for 9 small fish? I do not have anywhere else I could put two additional tubs to break them up.

In addition to having someone help me with catching the swimmers, I'm going to have to setup a bottle trap to catch my diamond goby and watchman goby. My other concern is my dragonet...who does eat pellets and frozen. Can he go two weeks without pods before going into a permanent qt? It dawned on me that I used a couple pieces of rubble rock from dt. If I am dealing with anything other than, or addition to, flukes, it's going to be pointless to use it...other than a temporary holding tank until I can catch everyone to begin ttm.

I know I'm moving slow, unfortunately I fell through an attic at work last March . I've already had hip surgery and am fighting worker's comp for further treatment of my neck, back, and knees. I'm moving as quickly as humanly possible.

I have one last question for now. Since my end goal is 5 days of hypo, how much lower in salinity can each move be? Would it be ok to go from 1.025 holding to .023 tub and go down .002 per move? I could then finish lowering to 1.009 once they've gone to permanent qt. Thank you!

 

[Deinonych]

You can lower salinity pretty quickly with no ill effect. It's raising salinity that requires more care. You can lower salinity from 1.026 down to 1.009 over 48 hours, although I personally like to stretch it out a bit more: 3-4 days, lowering by 0.004 SG each day. When raising, you should not exceed 0.002 SG per day to give the fish adequate time to acclimate (they have to work harder to maintain osmotic balance as salinity increases).

 

[deedubz]

You can lower salinity pretty quickly with no ill effect. It's raising salinity that requires more care. You can lower salinity from 1.026 down to 1.009 over 48 hours, although I personally like to stretch it out a bit more: 3-4 days, lowering by 0.004 SG each day. When raising, you should not exceed 0.002 SG per day to give the fish adequate time to acclimate (they have to work harder to maintain osmotic balance as salinity increases).

Thank you man. I knew I had to be careful increasing but I wasn't sure about how much I could go down instantly. So you don't see an issue transferring the fish to a tub already .002 lower?

Also, any tips on keeping the diamond goby, watchman goby, and the dragonet happy for ttm then qt for 76 days? I'm just going to treat my dt as if it has ich. I still believe my current problem is flukes, which I'll finally be able to verify tonight, but I'm just going to assume they have ich too. Prior to late last summer when I found this forum I didn't qt anything. I lost fish along the way to mystery deaths. I'm going to fallow the 55 so when my 180 gets here I'll have a clean slate. I feel it'd be pointless not to. I'm even thinking about ordering a CuC for the new tank now, putting them in the 55, and using my fallow time as qt for the inverts.

 

[Deinonych]

Thank you man. I knew I had to be careful increasing but I wasn't sure about how much I could go down instantly. So you don't see an issue transferring the fish to a tub already .002 lower?

None whatsoever.

Also, any tips on keeping the diamond goby, watchman goby, and the dragonet happy for ttm then qt for 76 days? I'm just going to treat my dt as if it has ich. I still believe my current problem is flukes, which I'll finally be able to verify tonight, but I'm just going to assume they have ich too. Prior to late last summer when I found this forum I didn't qt anything. I lost fish along the way to mystery deaths. I'm going to fallow the 55 so when my 180 gets here I'll have a clean slate. I feel it'd be pointless not to. I'm even thinking about ordering a CuC for the new tank now, putting them in the 55, and using my fallow time as qt for the inverts.

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with gobies or dragonets, unfortunately. I do keep blennies, and they handle TTM + extended QT just fine. Hopefully another member will chime in regarding gobies and dragonets.

 

[deedubz]

Ok, so I'm still waiting for the first ttm tub to heat up and for the power heads I ordered to show up tomorrow. Again, I know this is a race against time but because of my disabilities there's only so much I can physically do in a day.

I know prazipro isn't going to kill these flukes as they were treated for 3 weeks already. My question is do you think I should dose tonight to buy me a little bit of time? While it didn't kill all the flukes before, there was ABSOLUTELY an improvement in symptoms during treatment. I can get help tomorrow evening with catching fish and finishing touches on the tubs. Thank you!

 

[deedubz]

Fw dip on my clownfish and one of my chromis confirmed TINY gill flukes(identical in size to the ones i had last summer). I was able to ambush them while they slept lol.
Those two are now in qt. I have help coming tomorrow to catch, dip, and qt the rest. I'll also have to setup a trap for the gobies. Once all fish have been caught I'll start ttm. I bought an additional 10g and equipment that I'll setup in conjunction with the 20 to split the bio load. I do also have acriflavine ms coming Monday that I'll use as a bath between transfers to help out with potential infections

 

[deedubz]

What a day... My buddy flaked out on me again yesterday so I had to wait until today.

As of now, everyone but my Wheeler's goby is in the qt tank. All were given a freshwater dip prior to going into qt. I have the first tote ready for them but given how stressed they are, I'm going to start ttm tomorrow. I'm not having much luck with the bottle trap with the last goby but I'll keep trying.

I had to rip apart my entire tank to get the lunate wrasse and diamond goby out. While I'd obviously prefer not to have any losses whatsoever, I'm more concerned with saving the fish than the nems. I sent most my coral with my buddy because we ended up disturbing a lot of the sand bed. My nems aren't too impressed..