problems with a pipefish

[mfinn]

I picked up a pair of yellow multi-banded pipefish a couple weeks ago.
Things were looking ok until the day before yesterday, when I noticed one of the pipefish looked as if it has mucus on it's body. not spots like ick, but a coating of sorts, over the back half. Also on it's dorsal fin.
And it looked pretty lethargic and didn't want to fed, even though it was the more aggressive one at dinner time previously.
They were put in a tank with mostly zoanthids, but with a couple octospawns and a couple branching hammers.

As soon as I saw the pipe in that condition I pulled it out and moved it to a setup qt tank. It netted very easy. Wasn't swimming very fast.

The only meds I have at this time is chloroquine phosphate, so I dosed just under 3/4 teaspoon in a 29 gallon tank.

The tank had some pods in it from some live rock, but I also grabbed a big wad of chaeto from a sump and shook out as many pods and amphipods.

Yesterday it hung out mostly in the fake plants and couldn't get a feeding response from mysis or cyclop-eze.
But today it is going after Mysis and is swimming out in the open and acting almost normal.
But the back 1/4 of the fish has a very red appearance that I didn't see yesterday.
As the pipefish swims around the fake plants, every once in a while it's tail will brush the fake plant and it visibly jerks it away like it is sore.

Any clue?

What other med should I get?


All of the mucus is gone and the color looks normal except for the back part of the fish.

And looking at the pictures, the camera really picked up the red and it is a little excessive.
It is red, but not quite that much.

 

[Humblefish]

The symptoms you describe line up with Brooklynella and then a secondary bacterial infection after the fact. However, I am confused as to whether or not you currently have live rock in your QT. The problem with rock is it absorbs CP, often dropping it below therapeutic levels.

 

[mfinn]

There is not live rock in the QT tank.
However there is a old dead piece of a monti cap, about 5" in dia.
Should I re-dose?
The qt tank uses a sponge filter

 

[mfinn]

Chloroquine phosphate should be effective for Brooklynella. What would you suggest for something secondary?

 

[Humblefish]

Another thing I just noticed... Whenever I use CP, I generally dose at 40mg/gal using a digital scale. However, I will usually double that dosage when I know I'm dealing with a serious active infection such as velvet or brook. So, for a 29 gal QT that would mean (roughly) a therapeutic range of 1.2-2.4 grams of CP. I know that four grams of sugar roughly equates to one teaspoon. So, assuming CP weighs about the same as sugar you should be fine on your dosage. Perhaps a little overdosed, if anything.

However, CP has only been proven to kill the free swimming stage of external parasites. It offers no immediate relief to the fish or eradicates the parasites on the fish. For ich this generally isn't a problem, as it is a relatively mild parasite and trophonts will fall off after 3-7 days anyway. A fish can survive the initial wave of ich and will be protected from reinfection by the chemical in the water. But velvet, brook, uronema do a lot more damage to the fish's skin & gills; so in addition to treating with CP IMHO for those it is also important to perform a FW dip and/or chemical bath in an attempt to dislodge as many parasites from the fish as possible. For Brook, a formalin or acriflavine bath has worked well for me in the past. Or if you don't have access to those chemicals, I suggest at least doing a 5 min FW dip.

 

[mfinn]

I do have Formalin MS

 

[mfinn]

But for what might appear to be the secondary bacterial infection, I was thinking along the lines of Metronidazole.
I don't have any right now so I can only hope petco or petsmart has some.
They are the only local places.

 

[Humblefish]

I do have Formalin MS

Using formalin in a bath solution is an effective treatment for Brook, but I need to warn you that there is growing anecdotal evidence that fish exposed to formalin don't live past 18-24 months. Possibly because the formaldehyde it contains is a known carcinogen. For this reason, I've been experimenting with acriflavine (ex. FishVet makes a product called Acriflavine-MS) as a substitute for formalin in a bath solution. So far, I've been successful at treating fish with both velvet & brook using acriflavine - so it looks very promising.

But for what might appear to be the secondary bacterial infection, I was thinking along the lines of Metronidazole.
I don't have any right now so I can only hope petco or petsmart has some.
They are the only local places.

Metro only targets anaerobic bacteria, so IMO it's not very useful for treating bacterial infections. Furan-2 & Kanaplex are much better choices, and I've successfully used both in conjunction with CP. Or you can use Furan-2 + Kanaplex + Metro for max effectiveness, and all those drugs can safely be mixed with one another and CP.