Clownfish ailments - Internal + Brook? (PHOTOS)

[adoptaspork]

Hey, guys - I posted a few days back about a mysterious disease on my 2 year old clownfish. It appeared to be brook, ich, or velvet. I moved all 3 of my fish in the tank (2 clowns and a sixline) to my QT and began treating with cupramine. Whatever the clown has (only the female *seems* affected) actually seemed to get MORE visible and worsened to this...

https://fbcdn-photos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t31.0-0/p370x247/12032743_10204587163068961_3978846554932286090_o.jpg

A few people that I talked to thought it looked like brook rather than ich or velvet, so I did a partial water change and started running some carbon to pull the copper from the system alongside preparing to do a formalin treatment as recommended for brook.

The day after running carbon to pull out the copper, the clown started swimming again. Since about Thursday, she's been sitting on the bottom breathing rapidly. Respiration is still a little high, but not as bad as it was before. ALSO, the white around her face seemed to disappear? However, she still will not eat. Both of the other fish will.

BUT. Today, I went to feed the fish again and she is swimming around with a clear-white string for lack of a better description hanging from her. Does she have internal parasites?! I'm not sure what I should be treating at this point. I've had this fish for 2 years, and she's always been plucky with a big appetite until a few days ago when this all transpired.

https://photos-4.dropbox.com/t/2/AABoaN80riF12GkoGeH8a2iOrAoT1fBL-jdugDAyRAG4dg/12/118385744/png/32x32/1/_/1/2/Screenshot_2015-09-16-09-52-48.png/EOfBqFsYqm4gASACKAEoBw/TsIBgo8vIVYvwVCL7eivrIfbvGiO7smAPJQCDiq6aGY?size=1024x768&size_mode=2

Female clownfish won't eat, hasn't really eaten since Thursday or Friday, hid in DT in the back near the sand gasping. Usually is busy flouncing around in her RBTA and attacks hands when put into the tank. Had a few *teeeeensy* white specks which made me wonder if i was even seeing anything. Tested water, it came out fine. Took water to LFS for backup testing, came out fine. SG was a tad high at 1.028 (I usually keep it 1.026) but was fixed and hadn't been that way the last time I checked. I do weekly partial water changes and the fish have access to various food such as formula two, omega one frozen and pelleted, etc.

 

[Deinonych]

Can't see the second photo as it isn't shared from Dropbox.

 

[grizwalt333]

Keep them in qt it sounds and looks like brook. Formalin will get them fixed but it's a slow process keep them in your QT for a month if not longer to be safe. The string could be a internal parasite or something worse I forget what it was called. Research parasites there are a few really good ID sites out there for fish diseases...

 

[adoptaspork]

Whoops... Sorry for the Dropbox. My phone is currently giving me issues uploading it elsewhere, but I'll work on it when I get to my computer. It...pretty much looked like any other generically googled clear-white string hanging out of a fish. :/ I will delve deeper into some of the parasite sites, though.

Update:
Since the white spots on the fish appeared very soon after adding cupramine and then disappeared just as quickly when I began to pull it out (with no return...?), and because of the weird stringy poop, I decided to try prazipro before jumping straight to formalin because if I don't have to put the fish through formalin, I'd rather not. I'm very afraid that although the wrasse looks like he's perfectly fine and hasn't had a single problem to date, I'd lose him in a dip because he stresses SO badly. I'd hate to lose him, and I can't deal right now with the guilt of possibly being the reason he died when I just had to deal with one of my rats who had cancer passing away this morning. Immediately after adding, there was some minor thrashing around which made me wonder if there were some flukes present, and the clown seems to be breathing a tiny bit better but still spends the majority of her time sitting on the bottom of the tank. She still won't eat.

Today is day 3 of prazipro, and the other fish are fine but the female clown is still sitting there. The whites of her stripes seem to be a darker color, as if there's more blood flow underneath? It looks like what I'd imagine a "bruised" stripe would look like, as poor of a description as that is. Usually they're more stark white. Her orange is still the same vibrance, though. There has not been a speck of white ich/brook/velvet stuff on her or the other fish (who... Never showed any) since I removed ved the cupramine from the system, though...

If it were brook, what is the explanation for the white fuzz's appearance and nearly immediate disappearance? Currently, the fish is not showing any visible symptoms other than heightened breathing... But, alas, her resp won't go down and she still won't eat. Also about 60 percent of the time she is sitting on the bottom with her fins splayed out...propping herself upright kind of like a watchman goby. I'll formalin dip if it's the last resort to get rid of this, but I just haven't been in the mood to lose more of my babies today.

 

[adoptaspork]

Also - I'm a super nerd with a high magnification microscope at home and was initially devising some plan to try to get a tiny scraping of the white fuzz to try to identify, but before I could it disappeared from her face. If any does reappear, I'll probably try this but for the meantime I don't have a completely positive ID.

 

[Polkman]

From what I've experienced with brook is that waiting too long will be the death of your fish. I lost my male pair the day of receiving formalin ms via express mail. He was fine 3 days prior, eating well and swimming fine. The female was not looking good either and developed the mucus layer. The moment I did the formalin bath, she started clearing up and after each bath she was looking better and better. Brook is awful, the longer you wait the lower the chances are for survival.

 

[adoptaspork]

Do you have any suggestions for a way to keep the wrasse from stressing to death in the bath? The clowns don't get too bothered by moving around. When he's moved, the male clown flips on his side for a few seconds and "plays dead" but then he rights himself and moves on. Female doesn't even bother. Wrasse will look horrible for DAYS after he's moved until he chills out again.