First CBB -- Internal Parasite?

[revaltion131]

I picked up this CBB for my 65 gallon a couple of weeks ago. It was eating well, alert, and looking healthy at the LFS, besides a few spots of Lympho on the fins. I wanted to keep the fish healthy and doing well, so I didn't bother with the stress of QT. I also have two neon gobies in the DT that are ready to clean, so I felt that would help. The CBB has been ready and willing to be cleaned thoroughly. The lympho is gone and he looked like he was going to be stellar for awhile.

Now, it looks like I've got a massive internal parasite to deal with. Here are the best four pictures I could get at this time of night. I'm referring to the clear bulge above his head. I have not seen the fish scratching on the rocks, but you can tell that the scales are beat up and in the first picture, you can see that it has beaten up its spines even.

I have never dealt with an internal parasite before, let alone one this large. The hypo-salinity is easy enough, but catching the fish out and treating with copper won't be. Besides the salinty, what would be the best way to treat this fish and does anyone have any clue what kind of parasite this is? Is it a parasite at all?

Thanks so much.

 

[Barracuda1]

are his scales sticking up anywhere?

 

[revaltion131]

No, they aren't. It looked a lot worse this morning, and is still slowly getting worse. It looks like it's got some kind of bacterial infection and is now actually missing most of the flesh, as in clean down to bones, on the top maybe seventh or eighth of his body. I'm still getting the QT set up (slow RO/DI unit is making getting 20 gallons worth of WC ready for the 65 slow-going) but once I do the butterfly will be going in there. I'm going to try to treat it with Maracyn. The LFS didn't know if we should use 1 or 2, so the idea is just guess and check. I'll also be adding vita-chem to the water itself and to his food. Is there anything else you'd recommend doing?

 

[Barracuda1]

You may want to make it a bare QT tank with nothing in it that it cound cut itself with, but if you can find the product,"Bio-Bandage" which is sort of a biological forming fish wound cover, that might help the cut, and now that he is out of the tank, you could use an antibacterial medication, but as for the bump, copper or malachite green may do the fish some good

 

[revaltion131]

The QT was bare besides a sponge filter and the heater. Unfortunately, the fish didn't make it through the night. From what I can find, it sounds like the visible external symptoms of the infection are the last that you see and usually at that point, it's the end of the road. From my eyes, the fish pretty much went from great to dead in 3 days with no tank crash or any catastrophic event like that. Here's what it looked like yesterday morning, before I had the QT ready:

The Maracyn is an anti-bacterial that my LFS uses to great success.

I thought I got lucky finding a healthy CBB eating prepared foods. I guess not so much. Thanks for the help.

 

[Barracuda1]

Sorry about the fish, but the way it sounds there wasn`t much to be done even from the start if it killed that quick

 

[revaltion131]

Agreed. It's really depressing that I lost the fish and that it was probably very painful. At least I have the meds now for future use and I have experience setting up a QT and netting out fish in an emergency situation.