Coral Beauty with cloudy eyes - Melafix enough?

[Rekonn]

I have a 3" Coral Beauty that I took home from the LFS on Wednesday (the 10th) and placed in my quarantine tank. It's eating fine now, but has a cloudy eye and some white stuff on one of its fins. I've been dosing with Melafix at the recommended level. Am I doing enough? How long should it take before I see a difference?

More detail:
I recently started up a 90g tank and I'm using my old 30g tank for quarantine. I moved all the LR over to the new tank, but this one still has a DSB and a power filter with bio-wheel. Once I had the CB home under better lighting, I saw it had one white spot on its fin. It wouldn't eat any flake or frozen food I offered, but it did pick at the green algae I have growing on the back of the tank. Over the next couple days it started eating some of the frozen brine shrimp plus and then formula1 and formula2 food I offered.

Saturday morning I noticed one of its eyes was cloudy, went to my LFS, and got some Melafix. The recommended dosage is 1 tsp per 10 gallons, so I put in 3 tsp on Saturday. I did the same this morning and tonight the eye seems a little worse than when I first saw it on Sat.

Parameters:
temp 79-82F
salinity 1.021
nitrate 0
nitrite 0
ammonia 0 - .25

When I was at the LFS I brought a sample of tank water and asked him to double check my parameters. He measured .25 where I measured 0 for ammonia. When I got home I did a 5 gallon water change just in case.

 

[Rekonn]

Hmm, guess I found a really inactive forum. Should I post this somewhere else? The fish btw has a great appetite and is swimming around, but both eyes are cloudy and one fin has some white stuff too.

 

[Rekonn]

Just noticed that sometimes he rubs the eye that is worse against objects in the tank. Think a cleaner shrimp would help?

 

[leebca]

Welcome to the Forum, Rekonn.

When you post replies to your post, it looks like someone answered/replied to your questions/concerns. Some of us just look for the '0' replies and look at those posts to see if we can help.

Regarding Melafix, you should read this post I recently made:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=843901

Water quality is a condition that can contribute to a fish's inability to fend itself from a bacterial infection, which your fish seems to have.

Since you provided such good detailed information, here is a detailed response:

A single cloudy eye could be the onset of a debilitating disease, or parasitic attack (e.g., Cryptocaryon irritans), an indication of poor water quality (ammonia), or nothing. On the ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“nothingââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ side, it could be the fish injured the eye in a mild fight with a tankmate, net damage, ran into some decoration in the tank, or managed to pick up a mild bacterial infection. If think in this case, let's lean towards the water quality issue.

All of these ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œone-cloudy-eyeââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ situations are ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“probablyââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ not worth taking any specific action as far as the fish is concerned. You can help out by making a large water change with properly mixed and adjusted (matched) saltwater. The second thing you can do is make sure youââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢re providing the proper nutrition to the fish. See this post:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=785228

Check all water quality parameters. Monitor ammonia especially an hour after feeding. If water quality is eliminated for sure, then make sure there is no decaying matter in your system to address a possible bacterial issue. Time to do a thorough cleanup. This can reduce the numbers of bacteria in the water column. In addition to checking ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“the usual suspectsââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ with regard to water quality, also check for dissolved organics.

That was the way it was at the beginning, but now the infection is spreading and you should take action.

A fish with two cloudy eyes from a bacterial infection shows there is something ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“offââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ for sure. There is always bacteria in our tanks, but healthy fish keep it at bay. And in a healthy tank, the bacterial population in the water column, isnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t high. When a fish gets a cloudy eye or eyes from bacteria, then something has interfered with the fishââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s ability to ward it off, or there are too many bacteria for it to contend with. Too many bacteria (decaying matter, overfeeding, dead fish, dead snail or crab hidden away), a poor diet (see above reference), ongoing stress (tank too small, tankmate issues, water quality) ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Â something that is letting the bacteria get by your fishââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s normal defenses ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Â are possible causes. Look into these matters and make corrections. Check your water quality closely (keeping in mind that you cannot test for everything, so something could be wrong that youââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢re not even testing for. For this, you have to play detective.) Make sure you also check for dissolved organics.

This fish should be removed from your tank and treated with an antibiotic before it spreads any further. The treatment should be performed in a hospital tank, set up much like a quarantine tank:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.htm

I would prefer Maracyn Two for Saltwater fish as my first antibiotic choice. I would use it at twice the recommended initial dosage. I would emphasize a diet improvement according to the above reference AND the use of beta glucan while the fish is recovering.

BUT after a successful treatment, if you just return your fish to a problem tank, it will just become ill again. Heal the fish AND heal the tank!

If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

:rollface:

 

[Rekonn]

Thanks for the info, great articles. I've done another water change since my last post and continued the Melafix treatment. The Coral Beauty is doing much better now, both eyes have cleared up, and the amount of white stuff on the one fin is a fraction of what it used to be. I guess I got lucky and the bacteria causing the problem is the kind that Melafix can affect. Or maybe the Melafix did nothing, and the fish's immune system was able to fight it off, I'll never know.

I've also picked up some garlic extreme and will incorporate that into the diet for all my fish. I've added Maracyn Two to my shopping list for next time.

How do you test for dissoved organics?

In one of the articles it mentioned doing an oxygen test. How do you do that?

What do you think of copper baths? My LFS recommended that route if the CBs condition didn't improve.

 

[leebca]

Dissolved organics can most easily be tested by an organic laboratory equipped to do this. On the other extreme, a lot organics in the water may turn it cloudy or yellowish. Or, it could just look like the bubbles in the water take too long to break at the surface.

In between those two, are test kits for organics (total nitrogen). There is also a test kit or two for dissolved oxygen. Dissolved oxygen can be tested with a meter and probe, too.

A copper bath is pretty much useless. Copper doesn't enter the fish until it reaches too high a concentration. The diseases that copper affects/kills imbed themselves IN the fish surface. So the fish's mucous and top skin layer actually protects the parasite from the copper. Unless the bacteria are copper sensitive, (a small possibility), the dip would more likely threaten the fish more than the bacteria.