h flame wrasse fin rot??? help id PLEASE!!!

[salt newbie01]

So I got a pair of h. flame wrassesa month or so ago. acclimated them and all was well for several weeks. Then several of the fish in the tank got ich including the wrasses. After about 10 days I had a 38 gallon hospital tank set up, tore the tank down and removed all the fish and started hypo-salinity. Put the tank back together and started the 8 week count down. The male wrasse had a small white spot that I thought was ich on his top fin. Well the white spot went away but left a small hole. The hole got bigger and worked it's way all the way to the edge of the fin. I noticed tonight in thehospital tank that he has a hole in the edge of hid right gill!! He is swimming about with no problems and is eating healthy. He acts like nothing is wrong, but his top fin is looking worse and this problem with the gill is new. I have also noticed there is a place on the bottom of the tail fin. It is also new. I don't think any other fish is picking on him. He is by far the largest fish in the tank. Tankmates are as follows; female h. flame wrasse, filaminted wrasse, purple firefish, small royal gramma, red head goby, green banded goby, yellow neon goby and 2 wheelers watchman gobies. All signs of the ich are gone. They have been in the hospital tank for a week and the salinity has just gotten down to 1.009 temp 78 degrees f. I know there is a fin rot disease in freshwater fish - could this be a saltwater version. I hope someone can help id the problem and fast. It should be easy to treat with everyone in a hospital tank. I just need to know what it is and how to treat. These fish have a great personality and are beautiful, I REALLY don't want to loose them.

Here are some pics showing the fins and gill.

Thank you for looking and I hope you can help...

 

[Percula9]

You can try Melafix first. That should heal it up. If not then conventional antibiotics need to be used. The fish still look in good condition. I doubt you will lose them. It looks like fin rot, not bites. No fish large enough in your tank to do that I think. If the fish had ich, the fin problem is probably due to secondary bacterial infection.

 

[salt newbie01]

He is still eating ans swimming about so I hope he will pull through. There are just so many antibiotics to choose from. If I can't find melafix would maracyn 2 work? I know it is for gram-negative bacteria, which most infections are from what I have read.

If healthy fish that are in the qt with him eat the food that has been soaked in antibiotic, will they suffer ill affects from it ?

 

[kevin2000]

Maracyn 2 is far superior to Melafix and if the fish is suffering from fin rot it should help. When you use antibiotic pay close attention to water quality since the antibiotics may retard your bio filter.

 

[salt newbie01]

Well this is not going as well as I had hoped. The filamented wrasse dies 2 nights ago. He looked stressed out over the move into qt from the get go. He didn't have any signs of ich but layed around and hid almost all the time. He did not look picked on.

So I come home tonight and go look at the hospital tank. As I am looking at the flame wrasses I notice my big purple fire fish lying upside down on the bottom of the tank! He looked fine all this time in qt. Was swimming around color was good - and he never showed any signs of ich. I don't understand what killed him. Could the low salinity had something to do with it? What about the maracyn 2 treatment, could it have caused his demise? I don't have any experiance with low salinity treatment, just what I have read. Has anyone used this treatment before? It would be nice to talk with someone who has done it first hand. I decided to go this route because from what I have read it is the least stressfull treatment on the fish. So I thought!! At this point I am soo frustrated. I don't know whether I should stick it out longer or SLOWLY start bringing the salinity back up and then treating with coopersafe. It took a week to get the salinity down to 1.009 and now they have been at that salinity for a little less than a week. I don't think that would be long enough for all the ich to die off.

Anyone has any advice or experiance?

Thanks


On a side note all the other fish show no signs of ich - the flame wrasses are swimming around and looking good. The males finage and gill don't look any better but the important thing is that they don't look any worse. I guess maybe they are the silver linning right now.

 

[LargeAngels]

Maracyn II would not have killed the fish.

Do a FW dip on the Flame wrasse in a clear container and look for "jelly" like things. It may be flukes, which are not affected by copper or hypo. Flukes are also almost never visible unless they crawl on the eyes. A good treatment for flukes is Prazipro.

 

[flameangel88]

It's difficult to see the eye from the first three pictures but the last one it looks like something there. I know you mentioned the fish was eating well and all that but during this whole time did you notice the fish had any head jerky movement (like head shaking)?

 

[caseyjones]

The only help I can offer is that when I was working for a wholesaler almost every flasher wrash and many fairy wrasse came in LOADed with flukes. They will attach and begin taking up the blood that should have gone to the fins which causes them to rot away. They are usually on the eyes too. Also it is never advised to use melafix in saltwater just like you can't use stress coat, it will cover the gills and make it nearly impossible for the fish to absorb oxygen. I fresh water dip every wrasse I put in my tank. Also heavly affected by flukes are Angels and some Butterflies.

 

[LargeAngels]

That is why I treat every fish for flukes with Prazipro.

 

[salt newbie01]

Thanks for the ideas. Do you think doing a FW dip while the fish is in hypo would be too stressful? Or would it possibly be less stressful since they are already at a lower salinity than normal. I will do the Fw dip soon. How long should they stay in the dip?

flameangel88
I don't see anything on the eyes. What do you think you see? No I haven't noticed any jerking or shaking motions.

 

[flameangel88]

flameangel88
I don't see anything on the eyes. What do you think you see? No I haven't noticed any jerking or shaking motions. [/B]

I just look over at home and couldn't see anything wrong with the eye but when I was looking at the pics in the office I noticed something white spots (extremely small). I don't know what to say because my home monitor is supposed to be much better than the one in the office. The reason I asked about the jerking/shaking motion is that both are usually signs of flukes.

For flukes I think Prazipro is the best treatment. As for FW dip you just need to dip it for about 4 minutes and you should be able to see if the fish has it or not. I don't think it's going to be that much more stressful plus the earlier the better if it has flukes. I remember reading somewhere if the fish stops eating for 3-4 days the chance to save the fish flukes is very slim.

Good luck with your wrasse.

 

[LargeAngels]

Hypo is ONLY affective against ich. Sometimes a 2 min dip is long enough for flukes to fall off. I only use FW dip to detect presence of flukes (or velvet) and to relieve the fish of them. It does not kill the eggs so without treatment they will return.

I would FW dip ASAP to see if it is flukes. If flukes I would treat with Prazipro.