Fish white spots - is it ick?

[mandel]

Hello

The next day after I bought this Imperator, white spots started to appear. I moved it to the QT, treated him 7 days with Aquarium Munster's Protomarin Intensiv (20mg copper sulfate penta hidrate, 1mg tetramethyl-4 & 4-diamino-triphenyl-carbinol) and a 30 minutes dip in Aquarium Munster's Furamarin (24mg nifurpirinol).

It started to look better after the treatment, but now, after 2 weeks of that he turns more and more to white. I noticed the discoloration is amplified especially when the lights are off.

Few months ago I lost a Forcipiger with the same symptoms.

The other fish feel fine. Could it be a fungus? Or internal bacteria?

Please find below the water parameters:
Temperature: 78.8F
PH = 8
KH = 8
NH4= 0.5
NO2= 0.1
NO3= 10
PO4 = 0.5
Cu=0
Ca=420
Salinity = 1.025

I'm looking forward for advice.

Thank you
Daniel

 

[JHemdal]

Yikes! That looks really serious. I would say it is either an advanced case of Cryptocaryon (with probable secondary bacterial infection) or a REALLY bad case of skin flukes.
Freshwater dips can be used to diagnose flukes (five minutes in same temp. FW - then look in the bottom of the container with a magnifying lens) HOWEVER, with a fish this sick, all the flukes dropping off suddenly will cause it to bleed out and possibly die within a few hours. Think of each fluke like a tiny cork - when they all drop off, the fish just loses osmotic control.
That 1/2 ppm of ammonia at a pH of 8.0 isn't very healthy for the fish - not the primary cause, but it isn't helping. I hope that is just an artifact of reading your test kit (some brands are hard to read at zero levels).

Sorry - the prognosis is very poor for this fish....


JHemdal

 

[paulamrein]

How quickly did it go from normal to what we are seeing now? What I gather it was about 2 weeks, You should see some improvement when the cysts fall off the fish, but it's not at all cured of ailment. So, with that said, improvement in appearance is a false positive that they are getting better in some cases.

 

[mandel]

Now I remember that a few days ago I've seen him pooping something that looked like a white tape (about 5-6 cm long, and 2-3 mm wide, irregular shape). I didn't realize at that moment that it could be a parasite.

Could it be a tapeworm? Could this be the cause?

Today I put the fish back to QT and started the treatment with Protomarin Intensiv.

Thanks
Daniel

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12088380#post12088380 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JHemdal
Yikes! That looks really serious. I would say it is either an advanced case of Cryptocaryon (with probable secondary bacterial infection) or a REALLY bad case of skin flukes.
Freshwater dips can be used to diagnose flukes (five minutes in same temp. FW - then look in the bottom of the container with a magnifying lens) HOWEVER, with a fish this sick, all the flukes dropping off suddenly will cause it to bleed out and possibly die within a few hours. Think of each fluke like a tiny cork - when they all drop off, the fish just loses osmotic control.
That 1/2 ppm of ammonia at a pH of 8.0 isn't very healthy for the fish - not the primary cause, but it isn't helping. I hope that is just an artifact of reading your test kit (some brands are hard to read at zero levels).

Sorry - the prognosis is very poor for this fish....


JHemdal

 

[JHemdal]

A tapeworm would not cause these skin lesions. It may well have a tapeworm, but those are rarely fatal over the short term, so deal with the skin problem first.

I cannot advise you about the Protomarin Intensiv - is that a European product?

The more I think about it, the more I think you might want to consider a freshwater dip. If it is Cryptocaryon, it may beat it down a bit so the Protomarin Intensiv will work. If it is flukes, you'll have to get rid of them anyways, so if the fish is so infected that it bleeds out, it would have died anway - so basically, there isn't much left to lose IMO

JHemdal

 

[Freed]

First thing that comes to my mind just from the pictures is velvet. Look much too large to be ich. I don't know of flukes though.

 

[JHemdal]

It isn't Amyloodinium (velvet). Cryptocaryon affects emperor angels like this - the trophont itself is small, but the fish's skin reacts to it by forming these large discolored areas.

JHemdal

 

[Percula9]

The fish definitely needs treatment. I'm surprised he's still alive. Is he breathing rapidly? I'm alarmed at the NH3 level, if it is that high it's causing undo stress. The disease maybe to advanced to save him. There may probably be extensive tissue damage already. Try your best and don't give up on him.

 

[mandel]

Yesterday he was all covered with ick and stayed with his mouth open at the surface.

I decided to try the freshwater dip. I put RO/DI water, raised the pH to 8 with Aquamedic pH/kH plus, put 1 mg of Aquarium Munster Furamarin (nifurpirinol), raised the temperature to 26 C, and aerated well.

In the first 2 minutes he fell on the bottom on its side, but he soon woke up. I let him 5 minutes in that water and moved him to the QT.

All the white dots fell off over him, but the eyes cloudiness is accentuated. I put nifurpirinol in QT too.

I'll keep you informed.

Thank you for you answers.
Daniel