Goby Larvae with ICH?

[mwp]

OK, so I admit I'm not SURE on this. Here's the nutshell. You all know that I inadvertently brought ICH into one of my tanks when I purchased "Fatboy" (male mandarin #2)...just didn't catch it when he was in the shop, only noticed he was covered in it the next morning. Didn't give it much tought at the time...figured the oversized UV would take care of it.

Well, as it turns out, ever since I've been fighting ICH. Why? The UV bulb had burned out without my knowning. I got a replacement bulb, but it turns out that either the replacement bulb is bad or the transformer actually went bad. Bottom line, I didn't have the UV fallback I thought I had. ICH had shown up in our 6 gallon as well when I transferred the percula babies to it...thought I wastin'g going to have problems but that just wasn't the case. Of course, the only fish in the tank that's having problems is the Neon Goby, the percs are FINE!

Things have gone from bad to worse in my book - despite trying to flash-sterilize utensils and my hands as I work from tank to tank (I blast everything with scalding hot tapwater), Ich has now reared it's ugly head in the Seahorse tank (a couple spots on the largest allardi) and in the Percula tank (one spot on Mama a few days ago, but all those fish seem pretty well immune).

I've been doing what I can through massive water changes, daily dosings of Marine Max, and the addition of cleaner shrimp where I could.

Which brings me to NOW. While looking at the GBG larvae this evening, I noticed two had abnormal appearances, specifically white spots on their ventral / belly region. My WORRY is that ICH has made it into my larval tank (although IF that is the case, I can probably ward it off with Methelyne Blue treatment). However, I'm not 100% sure that what I'm seeing is actually ICH.

I pulled the two questionable larvae and have allowed them to expire under the microscope, where I took pictures of both fish and their "cysts". Now, the thing I'm not sure about is that the location of the "cysts" combined with their "appearance", is almost more suggestive of the ventral fin "sucker disk" formation.

So what AM I SEEING? ICH? Or the SUCTION DISK formation?

Here are the pix!

Help?!

Matt

 

[olin]

Hi Matt, sorry to hear about your troubles - I think you may actually have a combo parasite/bacterial infection here. Cryptocaryon can be the stressor, but the bacteria seems to be the finisher. I don't have a definite cause yet, but it's something I've been working on myself. Seems to be a gram (-) bacteria that predominately infects gobies. Leaves clowns relatively untouched unless they are already stressed or ill. Can infect seahorses. It's a real pain, often lethal, and seems to reoccur. Sometimes the fish seem to be covered, sometimes clear. Sometimes it's lethal, sometimes not. I'm working on getting a real ID completed, but in the meantime, it (my strain) is to be sensitive to tetracycline and especially to chloramphenicol and ciprofloxacin. I would imagine people would also have luck with maracyn II etc.

 

[olin]

Nice job on the pics BTW, they are a big help.

 

[mwp]

So Olin, you think that that IS Crypt. on the larval gobies?

Matt

 

[olin]

Sorry, I wasn't too clear with regard to the larval gobies specifically (pretty tired last night when I posted). My guess would be that it is bacterial, not ich. Many larval fishes including most gobies I have worked with are pretty resistant to ich as larvae, and the lumps you photographed are pretty similar to what I have seen with this goby disease. Keeping the salinity to 3/4 in the larval tanks will help slow ich if that is what it is, and also seems to help survival with other diseases, probably by increasing oxygen carrying capacity and lowering osmotic stress. I've had a bit of luck with that if you don't want to mess with antibiotics on an unknown disease.

 

[JownsenJesus]

If its a black parasite with a white horseshoe nucleaus its cyrpt.

 

[mwp]

Well, you can see the pictures right up there JowsenJesus...you're looking at the same thing I am.

Matt