Unknown Sickness

[Kirblit]

Ok, so my fish had ich so I did hypo twice (haven't seen a spot since 1st treatment) but afterwords they continued to scratch so I did Cupramine. I maintained just below .5 for 3 weeks. I stopped the treatment one week ago today and today I'm watching my fish and my Kole and my blennie are flashing again. I'm going to lose my mind, I don't see any white spots on them and I haven't in some time. The ich iwas probably cured after first hypo, but they must have had something else with it.

Here are some other facts about what I have seen:

When I did the Cupramine treatment all of the fish started flashing like crazy, almost as soon as it hit the water for the first dose (copper level is back to 0 now though).
The fish scratch and twitch every few minutes, and my Kole darts around a lot again, my clownfish don't really seem affected though.
I don't see any outward signs of problems such as excess mucus, or any white spots, fin damage or anything like that.
My blenny and Kole seem to be breathing heavier again.
Kole is def. stressed, he is starting to get HLLE again (it went away after first hypo), I know that some of this is because he's only in a 55 gal.
All the fish eat like pigs, this is still a good thing.

Here are QT tank parameters as of 15 minutes ago:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0 (I do a 30% WC every three days)
SG 1.025
PH 8.0

Could it be another parasite, if so how should I treat, or could it possibly be bacterial? I'm about to lose my mind, they have been in QT since Sep. and I can't seem to get them to stop scratching. The hypo worked, the cupramine seemed to work, but about a week after all the treatments they started scratching again.

Cupramine Thread
Cupramine Treatment Mystery

Original Thread From Sep.
I have Ich

Please help

[goldenmean]

After treatment are you putting the fish back in the DT??

The DT tank needs to be fishless for - I believe it is - 8 weeks so that the parasite dies out in the DT. No new additions (including corals) in that time or you could reintroduce the ich parasite back into your DT

[Kirblit]

Originally Posted by goldenmean

After treatment are you putting the fish back in the DT??

The DT tank needs to be fishless for - I believe it is - 8 weeks so that the parasite dies out in the DT. No new additions (including corals) in that time or you could reintroduce the ich parasite back into your DT

No the DT has been fallow since Sep., well I guess Nov. really because I thought they were cured after the first hypo. But it has been a good 6 months free of fish, the fish are still in QT.

[Paul B]

I don't know but you have to be doing something incorrectly. Your fish have ich not a bacterial infection. Even if they have a different paracite, copper will most likely kill it.
I don't like Cuprimine, instead I use a combination of copper and formulin at
.15 ppm for 10 days. It's guaranteed as long as you keep the level of copper up. If the level falls you need to start the 10 days over.
Good luck.
Paul

[Kirblit]

I don't think that it's ich, it would be gone by now. Believe me I wish I knew what it was. I think that it must be another kind of parasite, or gill fluke or something. I just don't have any outword signs on the fish to go with. Cupramine kills a small amount of parasites but not all, it def. had some kind of effect though. I just want to see what Lee has to say before I make any decisions. I have done a lot of research on diseases and I can't seem to find any that really fit the bill if you know what I mean.

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of the problem(s). Glad you understand the limitations of treatments. A copper treatment actually only can address a few of the 400+ pathogens, parasites, and maladies that affect marine fishes. It is especially effective on ciliated protozoans.

The reaction of the fish to the copper treatment is the first sign that there was/is a gill problem. Copper is an irritant and, should a fish have gill problems, the introduction of copper would be a severe irritation to the gill structure. A healthy gill will even sometimes cause an initial irritation to the fish, but since we usually treat ill fishes, it is hard to tell why the fish is irritated -- disease or treatment.

I'm glad you've chosen Cupramine. It is the best and safest form of copper to use. Even so, it is copper and an unhealthy gill will still be irritated. However, extending the treatment beyond the recommended 2-weeks complicates the matter. That is, the unhealthy fish were exposed to an extended copper treatment causing potentially severe gill damage.

Where is the gill damage coming from? Although there are water quality issues that can cause problems, there are parasites and pathogens, too. Consider water quality and poisons.

Nitrites are one of the most damaging poisons for marine fish and it affects their gills. If the QT process began, has had sometimes, or currently spikes with nitrites, this source of gill damage continues. Shouldn't the fish heal though? A good question. They can heal under a set of circumstances: the poison stops, the nutrition is available, stress is reduced or eliminated.

If a fish shows HLLE (MHLLE, I prefer) there is a possible problem with the nutrition. A fat fish is not necessarily healthy. A fish that eats well is not necessarily healthy. If the fish doesn't have the proper nutrients, it cannot heal from such things as a chemical 'burn' from copper and/or nitrites. I think this may be a part of the ongoing flashing problem -- they are not able to heal themselves (low nutrition or the poison continues or both).

As a side note, if the situation is indeed chemically induced with complications of low nutrition, then the gills are unhealthy and potentially unprotected by their normal mucous coating. A formalin bath or dip could be lethal. We never treat fish that have wounds or injuries, with formalin.

To help address these mentioned possibilities an hourly test by test kit for ammonia and nitrite has to be performed for a couple of days (except while the hobbyist is sleeping). A test kit is essential to use, that is sensitive to even small quantities of these poisons. The second immediate action is to revise their diet to provide the highest possible nutrition. Third, review all sources of stress then reduce or eliminate them one by one as soon as possible. If the space in the QT is a significant stress, their ability to heal will be lessened or even unattainable.

The other side of this coin is pathogen/parasite. I don't know your QT. If it is bare bottom, then close examination of siphoned waste could show signs of parasites. This is one step in the diagnosis process.

Ideally, the most 'infected fish' would go through examination including skin scrapes, fin clip, and gill clip for better diagnosis. Unless you are equipped to do this, that is not an option. If however you are near a fish vet or college or university or even public aquarium, they may be able to do this for you. This would be my highest recommendation at this point in time. There is a chance that the pathogen or parasite is rare.

There is one more thing you can do in your own effort to help with a diagnosis. Take the most 'infected fish' and give it a 20-30 minute freshwater bath following my recommendations: Fresh Water Fish Dip.

The importance of this bath is not to cure the fish, but to inspect the bath water for signs of any parasite or pathogen. It will require a very close inspection of the bath water. Let the water remain still and look at the bottom. Look at all 'layers' in the bath water. Filter some through a very fine/tight filter paper after you think you've inspected it all you can in the bath. This may give you some information about what may be going on. If you can look at any potential life form under a microscope or at least a strong magnifying glass and either photo it or draw it, someone may be able to identify it.

If you are sure there is absolutely nothing that came off the fish in this process, then that is good informaton too and we can perhaps use that to help diagnose.

If any fish dies, having someone you can immediately take the fish to for postmortem is worth having lined up before such an event.

Without a reliable diagnosis, a successful treatment would be no less than luck, and unfortunately there are a few dozen different treatments. Sorry, but that is about all the help I can be on this.

[SJS]

Wow - great info Lee - I'll remember this and hopefully never need to use it again..

[Kirblit]

Thanks for the info Lee,
The QT tank is quite established and there has never been an ammonia or nitrite problem in it. I don't know that I could feed the fish any better than I do, I feed them three times a day with my homemade mush (Mysis, formula 1, formula 2, formula brine, cyclopeez, selcon, garlic, vitachem, table shrimp, and nori) and the tang eats about a 6x6 square of nori everyday. I guess that I will just have to wait and see what happens and try to do the freshwater bath.

As for the HLLE he never had signs of it until he got the ich, and then it went away completely after putting him back in the DT for a while. When I put them back into the DT because I thought they were cured they started flashing again in about two days so I put them all back in QT and then he started to develop it again. I talked to a guy that works at an LFS near me that does scrapings on fish a lot and he is very good at disease recognition and he may be able to tell me more. I appreciate all the help but it sounds like a pretty grim outlook right now. I just feel kind of helpless to treat them, the lack of outward signs makes it very difficult.

One last thing is that the copper effected their gills not the possible parisite, is this correct and that's why they all started flashing?

[leebca]

One last thing is that the copper effected their gills not the possible parasite, is this correct and that's why they all started flashing?

It can be. It is unusual for the effect to be so broad-spread. One thing is that if the group gills were affected first from something, like the suggested nitrite or extended bout of Marine Ich, the copper could cause such a reaction in the group.

I wouldn't be too confident of the water quality and I would still investigate that thoroughly, starting with the quality of the source water, mixed water and then water in the QT. The fish are stressed and you want to be sure this is not one of the sources.

The HLLE shows that the fish are living on the edge -- a disease puts them over that edge. I appreciate the food products you've put together, but it is a recipe of mostly prepared foods (other packagers) rather than a true home recipe from scratch. That is to say, the 'recipe' is primarily a mix of packaged foods. I prepare my own food, but that is just one meal out of the 5 I serve every day. That is to say, the diet is varied even with the careful additions of raw foods from scratch that I put together. For about 18 years now, fish I keep have never have had MHLLE in my care.

. . .then he started to develop it again

I'm unsure what this means. After the initial Marine Ich outbreak you treated by hyposalinity the first time. Then does the above mean that you were sure Marine Ich displayed itself again after that? Why did you treat them twice for Marine Ich by hyposalinity? How did you verify the treatment was successful? or unsuccessful?

The lengthy time with Marine Ich likely residing in the gills can also provide extra opportunity for the copper to irritate that region.

[Kirblit]

They started flashing again after about a week after the treatment so I took them all out into QT again (HLLE healed after first QT in about a week, then came back when put back into QT) and did hypo again, I didn't see any spots after the first treatment was over, but I knew it could just be hiding in their gills so I treated again with hypo because I thought that maybe I had made a mistake. Here we are now after Cupramine, I'm starting to think you may be correct about the gills being damaged. The whole time that they have been in QT they have been in one treatment or another, no real down time. I think that possibly one of the best things I could do for them right now is just give them time. I plan on just observing for a couple of weeks to see if they may start to improve, or monitor for some outside evidence of something. I appreciate all of the help that you have provided me and I hope that I can get them to pull through.

[Kirblit]

Ok, I still don't know what is going on with my Kole and my blenny I have been reading up on a lot of diseases lately and their symtoms and the flukes/worms have stood out the most. The symptoms are very similar with heavy breathing, scratching mostly by their gills, BUT they don't look emaciated at all and are still eating well. Other than the mentioned their are no outward signs of anything The clownfish don't seem to have any symptoms of anything except I did notice that the female has had some stringy poop, but this could be from a very large cut that she had go right through her anal opening from a tang a couple of months ago but she has healed up fine. I'm just running out of ideas. If you could give me signs to look for or possibly recommend a good book that could help me decipher what is going on. I have been reading The Marine Fish Health & Feeding Handbook by Bob Goemans & Lance Ichinotsubo and it has been very informative of treatments for different ailments, but the flukes are the only thing that really stands out and I was wondering if I should try Praziquantel possibly. I plan on getting some anyway as a de-wormer for all new fish anyway, or any other recommendations on fluke treatments. I just don't get it and I don't want to put them back in the DT until it's solved.

As for any water quality problems the water is still stable and as a side note my clownfish spawned last monday and the eggs are due to hatch tonight and are fertile so I would think that this would mean the water quality is good. I also hate to see this because obviously they have been in QT waaaaay to long to feel that comfortable.

Thank you in advance
Kirby

[leebca]

Kirby,

Sorry for the angst you're going through. Diagnosis is the most important part of any cure. Unless you're sure what ails the fish, then treatment becomes a shotgun approach ending up with either nothing accomplished or the cure from unknown sources.

Curing is important, but it is best to target the problem. For now, you need to de-worm the fish. Since it is eating, put Praziquantel directly into its food at the rate given for the weight of the fish. Since all the fish were together at one point, treat all fishes you own for worms.

If you are trying to accomplish an internal problem, it would be best to do three treatments for internal pathogens. The Praziquantel will address one of the three. The other two treatments address internal bacteria and dinoflagellate infections. There is one product that addresses pretty much all three at one time and that product is also fed to the fish. The fish can be in a QT or in the display for this food product. Look for a commercially prepared anti-parasitic pellet food made by Jungle. That is its name.

Otherwise, in addition to the Praziquantel treatment you should also treat with levamisole and metrodinazole (or a saltwater fish product containing these ingredients).

If you are convinced it is flukes, then there are a couple of possible treatments, depending upon the kind of fluke. There are so many different kinds. There is no single medication or product or treatment that will address all the different kinds of flukes. Some flukes die in a FW dip; some in a Formalin bath; some with organophosphate-containing products (especially if the fluke is on the skin or surface of the fish). Without identification of the parasite, but certainty it is a fluke you are dealing with, then the shotgun approach here is to do all three treatments. If doing all three do not appeal to you, or you are still unsure about flukes being the problem, then you are pretty much on your own, without a clear diagnosis of the problem. I and others here can speculatead infinitum.

If you want, I would recommend you start us over. Post all the symptoms you think you see or have come across in one single post. Include all water parameters, how long you've had the fish, their size, foods, feeding schedule, maintenance schedule, etc., then at the end of the post, clearly list the things you've done to help cure the fish. This would be a fresh start and re-evaluation of the situation. From that single post I may ask for more details. Ultimately I will be more familiar with the situation, then having to put together this string of posts.

Holding the fish in quarantine for at least 4 weeks without any symptoms is a must, to verify that the fish has been cured. Don't get too anxious and put the fish back into the display without that long period of 'verification' that treatment was a success.

[Kirblit]

Thank you for the response I will condense it into one long post in a new thread so that it's easier to follow. I ordered the Jungle parasite product yesterday as I saw you recommend it in a post about the medicine cabinet. As for the Praziquantel I ordered Prazipro yesterday as well, I couldn't find Praziquantel in small enough quantities that I needed, and the large quantities were very expensive and I know that it would last for a few years and would prob become ineffective anyway. Can you use Prazipro in food if they won't eat the pellets of the Jungle product?

Ok I will start a new thread from the beginning now.
Thank you again,
Kirby

[leebca]

I think Prazipro is a bath/water treatment. The product Gel-Tek Ultra Cure PX can be used instead of praziquantel.

[Kirblit]

Ok Lee here is the entire story.

In early Sep 2007 my fish developed ich so I moved them to a QT tank so that I could treat them and let the DT go fallow. I know it was ich at this point, white flecks on them, flashing a lot, and moderately heavy breathing, and the spots came and went over the course of a week and they just became more numerous over time so I had to move them to the QT tank. These sypmtoms were only from my Kole & my Blenny, my Clownfish seemed normal as can be, and had no white spots, but the were moved to QT as well, so DT was fallow. The fish in question are a Kole Tang, two Occelaris, and a Klaushwitz Blenny.

Quarantine Tank

50 Gallon (approx 43 actual gallons)
Bare bottom
PVC & plastic decorations to hide in
Aquaclear 110 HOB filter with two sponges in it
Bubbler
MJ 400
Open egg crate top

Here is a picture





The QT tank was completely uncycled in Sep. when the fish were first added to it, but they were pretty sick and I didn't feel I had much choice to get them better. I did a greater than 50% water change daily over the amount of the cycle. The ammonia was never greater than .25 at any time, and I used Amquel to detoxify it as much as I could. The Nitrites also never went above .25 during the cycle time which took a month or so, the PH was between 8.0-8.1, temp 78-79. I didn't lose any fish over the course of the cycle.

Treatments Performed


Early Sep. 2007
I decided to use hypo as my treatment of choice as everything that I have ever read stated that it was easier on the fish. I lowered my salinity to 1.009(using calibrated refractometer) over the course of two days to reach the hypo salinity needed to kill the ich. At this point I was still doing daily 50% or greater WC as the cycle was still going. During the first I would say 4-5 days all of the spots that were present on the fish were gone and the flashing slowed down and then stopped. Everything seemed to be normal again. The fish were given 8 weeks in hypo in which the SG never went above 1.010 at any time. During the hypo I did have to treat with Furan-2 because of a secondary bacterial infection that came up, but everything was fine. After the cycle was complete I changed to doing WC every third day of 15 gallons. During the first 3 weeks or so I fed small amounts of flake food (I know it sucks) about 4 times a day, and nori, so that waste would be kept at a minimum (I always fed a homemade mush before, I will include ingredients later). This is also part of the reason that my Kole developed HLLE, but it went away in about a week and a half after feeding more vitamins and homemade mush. After the 8 week period of time in hypo I slowly started raising the SG back up to 1.025 over the next week to week and a half. All of the spots were still gone, and I didn't recall seeing any flashing, and my Kole HLLE was all healed up so in mid Nov. I put the fish back into the DT (I know now I should have left them for 4 more weeks to observe). I added the fish back into the DT and within 2 days they were flashing again, breathing heavy, and didn't seem right but no white spots were to be seen. I again removed them back to the QT in late Nov. even though I didn't see any spots, but they were flashing so I assumed the ich was in their gills.

Dec. 2007
I decided to perform the hypo again as I thought that possibly I had done something wrong and the treatment didn't work. I again lowered the salinity, but this time I lowered it to 1.008, and made sure it stayed there at ALL TIMES! All water params were stable and I tested them every two days, Ammonia-0, Trites-0, Trates-0, PH 8.1, temp 78-79. I also performed WC of 15-20 gallons every three days as I did before. Within 5 days of being back in the QT my Kole developed HLLE again, I assume from stress mostly. I was still feeding my homemade mush and nori as before. After the 8 weeks (I believe it was Feb now) of hypo at 1.008 I again started to raise the salinity, and once it reached about 1.015 I noticed my blenny flashing again and my Kole breathing heavy, and darting around a lot, but the clowns were fine as usual. I continued to raise the salinity back to 1.025 over a week. I began observation of the fish, a week passed and no spots but my blenny was still flashing, breathing quickly, and my Kole was darting around, kind of pale at times, and breathing quickly, and clowns were fine and everyone was eating very well. After another week of this I decided something else needed to be done. I assumed they still had ich and it was just in their gills and I couldn't see it because they never had any white spots again.


March 2008
I decided that the hypo wasn't working and decided to go with Cupramine instead because I thought it was a sure thing. I treated them for 21 days at .4 (Salifert) performing WC every three days just as before, and I added the makeup Cupramine to the WC water so that the ich wouldn't get a break at all. All water parameters were good during the treatment also, Ammonia-0, Trites-0, Trates-0, PH 8.1-8.2, and temp 78-79. During the treatment the fish seamed to be doing better but I would see the occasional flash, and some rapid breathing, but I didn't know if that was just from the copper. After the 21 days I added carbon, and did a 80% water change to get the copper out of the tank. I began observations again and within a couple of days my Blenny was still flashing, breating rapidly, and my Kole was breathing rapidly, and darting around, and would sometimes shake while swimming, but as usual my clowns were normal. At this point I was really getting frustrated, and here we are.


June 2008
Using Prazipro and Jungle, started on Sat. I figured that I might as well de-worm them anyway, even if that's not the problem.


As of Today

Water Quality
Ammonia-0 (API)
Nitrite-0 (API)
Nitrate-0 (API)
PH- 8.2 (LaMotte)
SG-1.025 (calibrated refractometer)
Temp-78-79


Maintenance
I perform WC every 3 days of 20 gallons (almost 50%) using Instant Ocean & RO/DI. I rinse sponges, and vacuum the bottom.
I check Ammonia, Nitrites, and PH daily all are steady


Feeding
I feed my homemade mush twice a day (I would say about a tsp.-tsp +1/.2 at a time), about 1/2 sheet of nori, and sometimes flake in between, and the occational frozen brine soaked in Selcon or Vitachem.

Homemade Mush
Selcon
Garlic Extreme
Vitachem
Formula 1
Formula 2
Formula Brine
Spirulina enriched brine
Mysis
Table shrimp
Nori
Cyclopeez
Flake
Muscles
SOAK IN VITACHEM OR SELCON BEFORE FEEDING NOW AS WELL

Symptoms/Observations of fish

Kole Tang
Darts around the tank sometimes, kind of "shakes" while swimming on occasion, breathing quickly but mostly after/during feeding and when he is swimming around a lot and gets excited, turns kind of "pale" when he gets moving around a lot and in the afternoons ususally, HLLE (this is really starting to heal up now that I stepped up the vitamins a lot more). He does not have any white spots still, no extra mucus, but he does have rub marks on his body from possibly flashing and darting around. Very robust body and he eats very well all the time, very good dark color, and blue lips when he doesn't turn pale. I have had him almost a year now and he is about 4"-4.5" long now.

Blenny
Flashes every once and a while mostly on gills/head, breathing quickly when he is out and about,bites at his tail occasionally, sometimes has black "blotches" on his face (might be a stress thing) around his mouth. Quite robust and good color, eats very well, and has a normal mucus coat. I have had him for about a year as well, and he's about 3" long.

Clownfish
They really look good except for I have seen some stringy poop from the female, but this could have been caused from a deep cut she got from my tang that was right across her vent about 3 months ago, but I don't know, she healed up nicely not even a scar. They have good color and eat very well, breathe normally and are very robust. They laid their first clutch of eggs last Thursday, and another clutch on Sat., I would think this is a good sign, but also a sign they have been in QT waaaaaaay too long. I have had them for over two years, the female is about 3" long and the male is about 2" long.



I hope this information can help, I will try to get some pictures but they are a little skiddish of the camera most of the time. They definitely had ich in the beginning I'm sure of it, but I haven't seen a white spot on any of them since early Nov. 2007 during the first hypo treatment, but other than that I haven't seen anything else on their body at any time, but they still flash and act strange. Could it really just be hiding in their gills that long? I just don't know what to think, if it has been this long (since Sep. 2007) I would think that any kind of parasite would have done them in by now, but I don't think that it's bacterial either . I have tried to watch them a lot, but I must admit it does make me quite sad after a while of watching. I just don't want to put them back in the DT without knowing, but I'm running out of options. Let me know if you need more info, or have any questions.

Thank you again,
Kirby