Pearly Jawfish breathing heavy with white stringy things

[Saltwater_Dreams]

Hello, Pearly Jawfish not looking so good today, I am a little worried he may have a parasite but I am unsure how to catch without causing him too much stress. My other fish also seem to be dealing with parasite issue, possibly ich and/or flukes I will try to post pictures of them soon. We did dip most fish with hydroplex aside from our wrasse >.<

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

 

[Tired]

Sounds like you need to separate all your fish out into a quarantine tank so you can diagnose and treat them. It's going to be stressful, but less stressful than dying of disease.

The stringy stuff on top of the head? Looks like maybe sloughing slime coat.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello, Pearly Jawfish not looking so good today, I am a little worried he may have a parasite but I am unsure how to catch without causing him too much stress. My other fish also seem to be dealing with parasite issue, possibly ich and/or flukes I will try to post pictures of them soon. We did dip most fish with hydroplex aside from our wrasse >.<

More history about the fish would be helpful, here is a link to information we need:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...sease-treatment-and-diagnosis-section.775547/

How long have you had the fish?
Tankmates?
Water quality information?

As mentioned, the mucus on the head is an issue. It could be Brooklynella, which is really difficult to treat.

Thanks,

Jay

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

We've had them all for about 3-6 weeks. Several came from break down of another tank, others from petco a few weeks ago

Many of them seem itchy, rubbing themselves on rock/sand/eachother.

Will post parameters soon

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

We've had them all for about 3-6 weeks. Several came from break down of another tank, others from petco a few weeks ago

Many of them seem itchy, rubbing themselves on rock/sand/eachother.

Will post parameters soon

Was this second video take earlier than the first one you posted? In this case, the jawfish is behaving essentially normally, but in the first one, it is lethargic and breathing heavily.

That pipefish is going to be difficult to feed long term unless it has been trained over to prepared foods.

What is the full list of fish in the tank?
Do you have a treatment tank available?

Jay

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

Was this second video take earlier than the first one you posted? In this case, the jawfish is behaving essentially normally, but in the first one, it is lethargic and breathing heavily.

That pipefish is going to be difficult to feed long term unless it has been trained over to prepared foods.

What is the full list of fish in the tank?
Do you have a treatment tank available?

Jay

2 month old restarted 29 Gallon Biocube with LED lighting, back area includes filter floss, purigen, chemipure elite, rock filtration, and chaeto. Cycled 1 month with some rinsed sand, water and live rock from an established tank, Aragalive sand, and live dry rock, dosed prime & stability during cycle.

Stock List:

6 line wrasse (white/clear patches on body and white spots on fins, very itchy, breathing heavy)

Valentini Puffer (doing fine but I've noticed a few white dots, has puffed 2 times for no apparent reason)

Midas Blenny (very itchy but looking ok)

Large pair of clowns (looking good)

Pearly Jawfish (looking shabby and breathing heavy today)

Blue line pipefish (eating live copepods and frozen foods, acting pretty normal but showing white spots on dorsal fin)

Also snails and blue hermits, a large RBTA, frogspawn, hammers, GSP, gonipora, montiporas, ricordeas, a couple zoas, chaeto in the fuge in the back



Salinity - 1.024
PH - 7.5
KH/Alk - 5.7 dKH
Nitrate - 5 - 10
Nitrite - 0
Total Hardness - 425
Carbonate Hardness - 20
Phosphates - .5-1ppm
Magnesium - 1260ppm
Ammonia - 0

We didn't have a fish hospital tank set up before, but are setting up a 20 Gallon right now and have a temp adjusting heater. (Hopefully it will be big enough cause my partner didn't think we had room to set up the 40 gallon)

I also got a submerssible UV light but waiting for some black plexi sheets to come in the mail so I can make it a protective box for the biocube.

Feeding frozen rods eggs, marine buffet, and brine twice a day with garlic guard

Fuel for the corals twice a week

Thank you for your advice, it is greatly appreciated. We definely got too excited and filled out our tank too quickly :/

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

All photos and videos of the fish were taken today.

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

Almost looks like the wrasse has something in his mouth? Same for the jawfish?

Everyone is still eating okay but the wrasse and the jawfish are certainly looking worse than yesterday.

What should I treat with? FW dip before QT or is that too much stress?

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

Puffer with white dots, cloudy eyes?
Itchy Blenny

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Visual clues are not always enough for us to give a 100% diagnosis. In this case I’m leaning towards flukes. If that is the issue, you can use Prazipro and just treat your main tank, 9 days apart. If it isn’t flukes, but is a protozoan disease, that won’t work and you would need to move the fish to a treatment tank and dose with copper (the pipefish isn’t going to like that move though).
Jay

 

[Tired]

At least you've got the easiest species of pipefish to get onto prepared foods. Most other species never take prepared foods, but bluestripes will start eating 'em on their own sometimes.

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

Visual clues are not always enough for us to give a 100% diagnosis. In this case I’m leaning towards flukes. If that is the issue, you can use Prazipro and just treat your main tank, 9 days apart. If it isn’t flukes, but is a protozoan disease, that won’t work and you would need to move the fish to a treatment tank and dose with copper (the pipefish isn’t going to like that move though).
Jay

Thanks Jay! I appreciate the treatment reccomdations. I treated with prazipro 4 hours ago, corals and rbta look a little closed up so hopefully they're okay..

Pearly Jawfish and 6 line wrasse didn't come out to eat today.. but I can see them hidden inside/under live rock, alive but breathing heavily and not moving much at all anymore like yesterday.. I really hope they'll make it through this

I picked up some malachite green (nox-ich) and have the hospital tank up and and the right temp just incase. I meant to to pick up copper instead.

How long should I give this treatment before trying something else?

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

At least you've got the easiest species of pipefish to get onto prepared foods. Most other species never take prepared foods, but bluestripes will start eating 'em on their own sometimes.

I'm so thankful the pipefish is doing alright for now. He's such a beautiful fish and seems to be enjoying gliding through the rockwork. I think the guy who gave him to me had him in his tank for a few years cause he's pretty beefy. Very cool to see him eating copepods, we seeded our tank with 32 oz of local copepods when we got him. He came with the clowns and midas blenny from a tank breakdown.

 

[Tired]

I'm not sure malachite green is very effective on marine ich.

Make sure the pipefish gets plenty of food, preferably more than once a day. They're meant to graze constantly, so they don't have a stomach to keep food in and digest it long-term like most creatures do. They're amazing fish, but do require a little extra care. As opposed to other pipefish, which require a lot of extra care.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thanks Jay! I appreciate the treatment reccomdations. I treated with prazipro 4 hours ago, corals and rbta look a little closed up so hopefully they're okay..

Pearly Jawfish and 6 line wrasse didn't come out to eat today.. but I can see them hidden inside/under live rock, alive but breathing heavily and not moving much at all anymore like yesterday.. I really hope they'll make it through this

I picked up some malachite green (nox-ich) and have the hospital tank up and and the right temp just incase. I meant to to pick up copper instead.

How long should I give this treatment before trying something else?

It does sound like the jawfish and wrasse are doing worse, sorry.

I've never had any real success using nox ich in marine systems, so I stopped using it many years ago. In fact, the other ingredient it has is sodium chloride. That tells us that it is just a freshwater ich treatment.

Jay

 

[Saltwater_Dreams]

Found him on his side panting hard this morning, was able to scoop him into a cup.. should I try a 5 min fw dip or is it too late..

Also, should I put him in the qt and try to treat with prazi or copper or both?

 

[Cell]

Need to increase aeration when using prazipro.

 

[Cell]

Do it asap!