What is on this orange shoulder tang?

DerekC · Feb 13, 2021

What is on this orange shoulder tang?
Bought her from LFS last week. Day one she is already scratching. She is eating fine but now some white patches / wounds have developed on the forehead / face but not the body. I have her in full dosage of Copper Power since day 2. It does not seems to help. It is getting worse. What is it? How to treat?

DerekC · Feb 13, 2021

Flukes, it is. I did a 3-min freshwater dip and a lot of sesame like pieces came off. Hope she is getting better. I might do another dip if she is not recovering well.

Qasimja · Feb 13, 2021

is there anyway you can upload pictures under white lighting its hard to see with just blues thanks

Jay Hemdal · Feb 13, 2021

DerekC said:
Flukes, it is. I did a 3-min freshwater dip and a lot of sesame like pieces came off. Hope she is getting better. I might do another dip if she is not recovering well.

You should re-dip the fish in a day or so, for five minutes, in order to buy some time and reduce the fluke load. With serious infections, these dips cause the flukes to drop off, but then, that leaves holes in the fish's skin, and they can actually bleed out and die. There is no way around that though - if you don't dip them, they will die anyway....

Copper will not manage this species of fluke (Neobenedenia). Praziquantel usually won't work either. The best treatment seems to be half salinity for 35 days.

Jay

DerekC · Feb 14, 2021

She is still scratching (12 hrs after the dip). I will dip again tomorrow.

Jay Hemdal · Feb 14, 2021

Try to get us a picture taken under white light. A three minute dip will only dislodge some of the Neobenedenia, but that is actually a good thing as removing them all at once, like I mentioned, can cause the fish to bleed out. You removed some already, then the fish has a day or two to heal its skin, and then you can try and remove the rest. Remember though, FW dips always carry some risk, and you will still need to run hyposalinity for 35 days to kill off any eggs.

Jay

DerekC · Feb 14, 2021

Her wounds seem to heal up. I plan to do another dip in a few hrs.
Just now, I also dipped my naso which I bought at the same time and QT in the same tank. No dandruff coming off. That means orange shoulder did not pass the flukes.
LFS water is 1.018 SG. I matched up my QT water to it. That is hyposalinity I believe.
Orange should carries flukes but eating a lot.
Naso big and fat but so far not eating. No flukes.
A pink square anthias is so shy and barely eats. 99% time hiding.
5 baby firefish seems to be fine. Small so I guess they don't eat much. 90% of time hiding in the PVC pipes.

I will see how many will make it to the display tank after 1 month or 2.

Jay Hemdal · Feb 14, 2021

1.018 specific gravity is not low enough to control Neobenedenia. It needs to be 1/2 salinity, so 17 ppt salinity or a specific gravity of 1.013.

Jay

DerekC · Mar 9, 2021

I believe RO dipping fixed orange shoulder. She does not scratch anymore. All 5 firefish died thou. So, I have the pink square (still hiding whenever I go to the room), orange shoulder, and the naso. They were in since Feb 7th. I will move them to display at the end of this Mar.

Thanks for your guidance, Jay.

Jay Hemdal · Mar 9, 2021

DerekC said:
I believe RO dipping fixed orange shoulder. She does not scratch anymore. All 5 firefish died thou. So, I have the pink square (still hiding whenever I go to the room), orange shoulder, and the naso. They were in since Feb 7th. I will move them to display at the end of this Mar.

Thanks for your guidance, Jay.

Just be sure you watch the fish closely, FW dips are meant to buy time, they rarely completely cure a fluke infestation.

Jay