New Naso

[Lynn52]

I was at my local Petco on Friday. They had an unhappy small Naso tang in one of their small tanks. They are going to re do their aquatic dept and all fish were half off so I bought him even though he didn't look great.
I brought him home, drip acclimated him over the course of 12 hours to the hypo salinity in my QT tank (the water he was in was already low salinity at 1.018) and put him in QT with my Powder brown. I had to restart the hypo countdown on the Powder Brown last week because the ich re appeared so what is one more week. Turns out you don't get an accurate reading on the refractometer if you tip it up to look at a ceiling light so specific gravity was a bit too high.
The Naso seems to be doing ok. He is out swimming around (at Petco he was hiding in a corner). He seems to be eating well. He grazes off the clip with no problem and there has been no agression with the powder brown. I divided the tank with a piece of egg crate for the first day so they can see each other but not hurt each other. Removed it yesterday and no problems between the two fish.
He has a lot of white stress spots on his body which are not concerning to me and are disappearing as he adjusts to the bigger tank. On the dorsal and anal fins he has a white growth attached to the edge. They were there when I got him. They are visible in these pics. My thought is lymphocytosis, it doesn't look like ich at all. What do you think?
Is there any thing I should be doing? I feed a variety of frozen food soaked in Selcon and provide dried algae to graze on. He is currently in hypo salinity just in case he has been exposed to ich (from Petco I always assume they have been) and I have another in that tank being treated for ich prior to going into the DT.

 

[Humblefish]

I think it's probably just Lymphocystis. In addition to maintaining pristine water conditions, trying soaking his fish food in vitamin supplements (ex. Selcon, Zoecon, Vita-chem). Doing both seems to expedite the “going away” process.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I give you credit taking a chance on an obviously stressed fish. It's really hard to tell from pictures, but that looks like velvet to me. If so, hypo won't do the trick.

Fish sicknesses aren't my thing and hopefully someone will respond with helpful answers. Best of luck....and keep us informed how he's doing.

 

[Lynn52]

Definitely not velvet, he'd be dead by now. The white blotches on his body are just stress spots which are common in Nasos. They don't concern me at all and are fading as he settles into my QT where he has hiding places and more room to swim around. I wouldn't have paid full price for the fish but at 50% off it was worth the risk.

 

[Humblefish]

Definitely not velvet, he'd be dead by now. The white blotches on his body are just stress spots which are common in Nasos. They don't concern me at all and are fading as he settles into my QT where he has hiding places and more room to swim around.

Exactly right.

I wouldn't have paid full price for the fish but at 50% off it was worth the risk.

I would have done the same. I get all of my experimental fish from Petco and we have the same arrangement; so long as the fish is showing obvious signs of disease.

 

[4FordFamily]

I have to disagree - I had a hippo tang live with velvet for 2 months (was killing Angels and other fish but I could not identify it as velvet because no identifiable symptoms were occurring until a chevron tang showed symptoms afterward.

But yes most fish do not live long with velvet

 

[Humblefish]

I have to disagree - I had a hippo tang live with velvet for 2 months (was killing Angels and other fish but I could not identify it as velvet because no identifiable symptoms were occurring until a chevron tang showed symptoms afterward.

But yes most fish do not live long with velvet

There is a certain percentage of fish (I forget the exact number, somewhere between 1-5%) capable of building up temporary immunity to velvet. However, this usually only lasts 6 months max and even though they are immune, they can still be passive carriers and infect other fish.

There is also disease masking to consider. Any fish exposed to a non-therapeutic level of copper can "mask" symptoms of velvet for up to 4 weeks. It is a delayed reaction sorta thing.

All of the above has been proven with velvet; it is still only theoretical with ich but I believe it to be true.

 

[Lynn52]

Just an update. My tang spent 5 weeks in QT, the first 4 in hyposalinity one at normal salinity. The lympho was completely gone by the end of the 2nd week. I moved him into the DT a week ago and he is looking great, enjoying the hugely increased swimming space.