QT anthia fill irritation treatment

[laughing tang]

We got 3 anthias shipped last Wednesday, put in QT, slowly raised copper power. One of them died the next day with obvious bruising, uronema suspected after which we started the trifecta soaked food. After that the remaining two looked better. Both had some bumps.

We are day 5, generally the fish eat well and the bumps have disappeared. One of them however is stretching his fills on a regular basis. Given that I observe it every time I see him (and I look only a few times a day), I do not believe it's yawning since it's happening so frequently. It does a very large stretch. I caught a smaller stretch on video (scroll toward the end in the last minute), even just videotaping for a few minutes.

Question is, does it require intervention such as a FW dip until we get to the 30 day mark to end copper and start prazipro? I suspect flukes. Thanks. Video

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

laughing tang Welcome to the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Forum!

The #fishmedic team and other knowledgeable members of our community will do our best to help you resolve your questions. Please provide as much of the following as you are able:

• Brief description of the issue you are observing and answers to the following questions:
  • How long have you had the fish with the condition?
  • Did you quarantine with medication when you first acquired the fish? (If Yes, which medication?)
• Current water quality measurements
• Clear photos of the issue taken using WHITE light and/or a short video of any behaviors (post in your response or on YouTube).

If you can help us by providing as much of the above info as possible, it will make diagnosing and providing recommendations for treatment MUCH easier! The Fish Medic team will get back to you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, other members of our community may also share their experience with similar situations and advice that they may have regarding your situation.

You may also feel free to provide a more detailed description of the condition if you wish to share more info than the above list.

Additionally, these links may be useful while you await a response:

• CURRENT QT PROTOCOL LINK
• HOW TO ASK FOR DISEASE DIAGNOSIS HELP LINK

 

[vetteguy53081]

We got 3 anthias shipped last Wednesday, put in QT, slowly raised copper power. One of them died the next day with obvious bruising, uronema suspected after which we started the trifecta soaked food. After that the remaining two looked better. Both had some bumps.

We are day 5, generally the fish eat well and the bumps have disappeared. One of them however is stretching his fills on a regular basis. Given that I observe it every time I see him (and I look only a few times a day), I do not believe it's yawning since it's happening so frequently. It does a very large stretch. I caught a smaller stretch on video (scroll toward the end in the last minute), even just videotaping for a few minutes.

Question is, does it require intervention such as a FW dip until we get to the 30 day mark to end copper and start prazipro? I suspect flukes. Thanks. Video

These fish are not very tolerant of copper and over ich get uronema or bacterial infections
I have a few and 3 more arriving tomorrow and will do a 60 minute ruby rally pro bath which is effective with uronema.
Copper begins to work at 2.0 and is the highest level I trust with them and must be measured precisely to avoid overdose and also with added aeration using air stone

 

[laughing tang]

Following the quarantine copper sheet (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-and-treatment-guidelines-with-chart.283450/) the dispar anthias we have appear fairly tolerant of chelated copper. We've treated these anthias before with copper in the QT successfully. We have both rally pro and hydroplex, but when I look at QT procedures, you never see it mentioned. It was my understanding Rally Pro is not a dip but a water treatment; the hydroplex is the dip. Both contain formalin. I'm curious if there is more research about rally pro in QTs instead of the usual copper or CP treatments.

Question remains whether to do a FW dip for this anthia at this point...

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Following the quarantine copper sheet (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-and-treatment-guidelines-with-chart.283450/) the dispar anthias we have appear fairly tolerant of chelated copper. We've treated these anthias before with copper in the QT successfully. We have both rally pro and hydroplex, but when I look at QT procedures, you never see it mentioned. It was my understanding Rally Pro is not a dip but a water treatment; the hydroplex is the dip. Both contain formalin. I'm curious if there is more research about rally pro in QTs instead of the usual copper or CP treatments.

Question remains whether to do a FW dip for this anthia at this point...

While the dispars are fine in copper power, they can be a challenge to get through quarantine for a variety of reasons.

How is the water quality in the tank? I see it has good circulation, but does it have good aeration? You need to have bubbles breaking the water's surface.

We run into this issue from time to time; the fish may have flukes, but you're in the middle of a copper treatment. I'd skip the FW dip, stressful, and unless you use a microscope, it won't confirm flukes except for the larger Neobenedenia.

Another option would be to run copper power and praziquantel at the same time. There is some risk to that, but it is done.

 

[laughing tang]

@Jay Hemdal Thank you for that advice. We did some massive water changes due to using a Hanna checker for ammonia and being unaware the copper and trifecta causes it to produce wildly inaccurate readings. So all in all we should be good on the water quality. There is a skimmer running to provide additional surface agitation but I added a second bubbler just in case as seen in this video. I'm not sure if it helps, maybe you can see more from the video that I can.

I'm inclined to just wait as long as the fish keeps eating well, and see if we can get through copper without stressing it needlessly until we can start prazipro if you think that's a reasonable course of action.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

@Jay Hemdal Thank you for that advice. We did some massive water changes due to using a Hanna checker for ammonia and being unaware the copper and trifecta causes it to produce wildly inaccurate readings. So all in all we should be good on the water quality. There is a skimmer running to provide additional surface agitation but I added a second bubbler just in case as seen in this video. I'm not sure if it helps, maybe you can see more from the video that I can.

I'm inclined to just wait as long as the fish keeps eating well, and see if we can get through copper without stressing it needlessly until we can start prazipro if you think that's a reasonable course of action.

Copper power and coppersafe add about 0.50 ppm to most copper tests, but it is non-toxic because it is bound up. The antibiotics pose the budgets risk as they can kill off your beneficial bacteria. Just monitor the ammonia using the 0.50 ppm as the starting point. If you read 0.75, then you know that 0.25 is non-bound ammonia. Depending on the pH, it can become toxic to the fish above that level.

 

[laughing tang]

Copper power and coppersafe add about 0.50 ppm to most copper tests, but it is non-toxic because it is bound up. The antibiotics pose the budgets risk as they can kill off your beneficial bacteria. Just monitor the ammonia using the 0.50 ppm as the starting point. If you read 0.75, then you know that 0.25 is non-bound ammonia. Depending on the pH, it can become toxic to the fish above that level.

Very interesting. My understanding was the Hanna ammonia checker only tests unbound ammonia since it's salicylate. The QT water tested 0.30 ammonia last night with Hanna right after a 50% water change. We do also have the seachem badges and those are yellow. Interestingly we have another QT with just copper, no antibiotics, and the Salifert ammonia test seemed accurate on that. However the furazone in the anthia tank really throws off the Salifert test we noticed last night, so maybe that's also messing with the Hanna.

I've not seen the small one do the mouth stretching today. He eats well. By contrast though the big one keeps spitting out the food (brine shrimp frozen with antibiotics). I've noticed this now several times and am not sure at this point if he is actually eating. Any suggestion there? Try a different food? Mysis? Rods? I did notice some feces which at least looks normal brown in color, so that is good news (not sure which fish it came from).

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Very interesting. My understanding was the Hanna ammonia checker only tests unbound ammonia since it's salicylate. The QT water tested 0.30 ammonia last night with Hanna right after a 50% water change. We do also have the seachem badges and those are yellow. Interestingly we have another QT with just copper, no antibiotics, and the Salifert ammonia test seemed accurate on that. However the furazone in the anthia tank really throws off the Salifert test we noticed last night, so maybe that's also messing with the Hanna.

I've not seen the small one do the mouth stretching today. He eats well. By contrast though the big one keeps spitting out the food (brine shrimp frozen with antibiotics). I've noticed this now several times and am not sure at this point if he is actually eating. Any suggestion there? Try a different food? Mysis? Rods? I did notice some feces which at least looks normal brown in color, so that is good news (not sure which fish it came from).

I've not used the Hanna ammonia test, but the Hach test is the salicylate method, and it shows ammonia of around 0.50 ppm after dosing the tank with coppersafe.

Fish that take in food, but spit it out is problematic. In some cases, it is due to a blockage in the fish's mouth, but I doubt that is the case here. You can try chopped up mysids to see if a smaller, softer food item, without any meds in it might help.

 

[laughing tang]

I should close the loop in this thread; you always find these posts and when they fizzle out it I always think the fish passed. In our case, both anthias did very well. At the last dose of metroplex the big anthia started eating. Both of them are now in the display tank and we enjoy them greatly.