3 Blenny's scratching themselves?

[bwells]

I have a 6 month old reef tank 2 clowns, 4 Anthiaus, some soft coral, two cleaner shrimp snails, a pigmy angle, two mandarins, a lyre tailed blenny, a lawnmower blenny and a bi-colored blenny. I added the Anthiaus last week and the mandarins last week.

I noticed yesterday that my lawnmower, my bi-colored and my lyre tailed blenny's are all scratching themselves on the rocks. I dont see any parasite but they must be bothered by something.

None of the other fish are showing any signs of problems.

I was thinking using a fresh water dip on the blenny's to see if I can help them.

A friend suggested I try Melafix either in the freshwater dip or in a hospital tank.

Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks

 

[MacWilliams]

Have they done any actual damage or stopped eating ? Is them "scratching" the only thing they are doing that's weird? Little odd it's just the blennys.

 

[bwells]

I cannot see any other sign on the blennys. They still eat very well and their bodies and colors look great. The bi-colored seems to spend more time out of hiding and closer to the top of the tank than he was before, but it seems to be out of a desire to scratch himself on the LR.

I studied the bi-colored closely this morning and maybe, I can see one small witish spot along his lateral line on one side. But Its really hard to say because he moves fast and his body looks in perfect condition from what I can see. No other spots on the tail or fins or body. So then I thought maybe some kind of later line disease, but I don't see anything else to say they are ill. And on the yellow fang blenny and the lawnmower blenny, their color is such that I cannot see anything on their sides whatsoever. All three were still scratching this morning. The Lawnmower is also spending some time with my cleaner shrimp who obliges his request.

The three fish scratch enough that I am sure they have something going on because it just started happening in the last few days, coincidentally after I added some new Anthiaus and the mandarins last Saturday. I also added some live copepods on Wednesday.

After researching the topic, I have decided to try a freshwater dip of the bi-colored which is showing the most sever scratching and see what that does for him. I was going to add Melafix to the dip as a booster to maybe treat a broader range of problems. Then if I dont get any improvement, I will move him and the other two to a QT and maybe treat longer term.

Other than these three fish scratching themselves, my tank looks very healthy and the water parameters are in a good range. I did a 10% change on Friday and I will do another 10% tomorrow as well.

thanks

 

[MrTuskfish]

This sounds like a protozoan parasite; like brooklynella, velvet, or (most likely) ich. FW dips can bring some temporary relief to brook or velvet, but not ich. Unless the fish are in real distress, I wouldn't dip them. Melafix claims to cure about everything, (no real mention of parasites), but its just another herbal-tea-whatever cure-all. I would save my money or just flush the stuff if i had it. It probably unclogs drains too.

Read the 1st pages of the ich stickies at the top of the disease forum. If you think this is ich; all fish will need to be treated and your tank will have to stay fishless for 10-12 weeks. Your cleaner shrimp can't help with ich, the ich is too deep. I assume you are not using a QT with all new fish? I'm afraid you're about to realize that all the advice about quarantine is absolutely correct. If this is ich; I would try to use tank-transfer if possible. Chloroquinine phosphate is a great cure too, I'm a recent convert.

 

[bwells]

One other thing I failed to mention is that I received a copepod order from reef2go.com and placed all the copepods in my attached Refugium on Thursday morning. The scratching started Friday morning.

As of this morning, all fish continue to eat well and appear healthy other than the tree previously mentioned Blennys scratching very often. I see no spots of any kind on any fish yet. I am taking your advice and not dipping yet and not using Melafix. I did order some Methylene Blue as a possible FW dip additive.

I also noticed a lot of copepods traveling around under a thin coating of algae on the back of my Refugium this morning. I have not tried to catch one out and verify they are copepods but that is my assumption.

My plan for now is to wait and see if this spreads or shows more symptoms. I set up a QT yesterday for possible treatment of the fish I will try and get chloroquine phosphate from my vet or primary care physician tomorrow. I am thinking if I get the chloroquine phosphate, then I will put the three most distressed fish in the QT and treat with chloroquine phosphate to see how that goes. If this is not ich, then I wonder if I will still need to treat my DT or let my DT go without fish for 12 weeks? Would some other protoza need that long to cycle out in a no-fish set up?

I have 3 easy-to-move soft corals, two cleaner shrimp and 15 or so snails in my DT. So I am also considering moving my corals and inverts to my QT and treating the entire system with chloroquine phosphate.

Given what I read about using chloroquine phosphate, it sounds like I could treat my whole DT and still return my coral to the DT after using carbon and not medicating for 3 weeks prior. I am giving this some consideration because I am concerned that even if I succeed in treating my fish and the symptoms subside, would my tank still be infested and then when I add new fish, they too may get the itch while the infestation continues.

Would you have any thought about how some kind of pathogen/protozoa might travel to my fish from a copepod order? Is this familiar to anyone?

Thank you for helping to reduce my anxiety about this problem! I have a QT ready to go and I also got my FW dip tank temperature and PH matched if that turns out to be a possibility for helping the three Blennys in distress.