Help! Christmas Wrasse in dire trouble!

[krullshards]

Hi guys, I need some help here. I bought this christmas wrasse about a week ago, maybe less. I had set up a 5 gallon tank with some established live rock about a month ago and have some emerald crabs and a couple of peppermint shrimp in there. I have a clown goby in QT that I was thinking I'd either put in here or in my biocube.

I decided to get this christmas wrasse and was thinking about putting him into my main Biocube after I moved a couple of my fish from there into my new 125 that I am trying to set up this weekend.

Anyway, I didn't QT him since I had the 5 gallon and there's no fish so that's the QT, really.

He's been eating like a champ and swimming great. Today he didn't eat and was sitting on the sand quite a bit and sort of hiding under the rock. I had decided on pulling him out of there and sticking him into my always up 29 gallon hospital tank, but when I came to do the water change and looked for him, he seemed significantly worse. Can't seem to keep himself upright in the water. I thought he was dead, but he isn't. He's still hanging in there.

I noticed some white stringy stuff coming out of his anus, so I'm not sure if we're looking at internal parasites or something else I read on the QT thread here about anchor worms.

Here are some pictures, what do you guys think? I have prazi that I can start administering in my hospital tank immediately, but should I try a fresh water dip? I only even bring that up because I know it's effective against flukes, but this guy seems to have INTERNAL parasites so it seems like that won't help and will probably kill him in the state he's in.

Is he a goner? What can I do to try to save him?

PH: 7.85
Specific Gravity: 1.025

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 40

 

[krullshards]

One more thing.. I noticed that he had a discolored patch on his skin too. Initially I noticed that and thought there was something wrong. I only saw the white poop(?) later..

 

[krullshards]

While waiting I decided to try prazi to see if it would help. He was in there for a couple of hours, but alas, he didn't make it. He's gone.

If anyone has any ideas what might have been the issue or what I could have done to save him, please do share so I can prevent this from happening in the future.

I feel like I should have prophylactically treated him with prazi and dipped in paragard. I don't know if that would have helped though.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[krullshards]

Hey, I decided to resurrect this thread and see if anyone has input.. I am strongly suspecting internal parasites did him in. Are there any thoughts as to whether a prophylactic PP treatment would have helped him?

 

[snorvich]

Read this.

 

[krullshards]

Thanks for the link Steve! Much appreciated. However, I didn't see listed in the symptoms, anything about white stringy poop. I'm trying to remember if I saw any of the other symptoms..