Help with fish illness diagnosis

[chriscsada]

Hey everyone, I am just reaching out to see if anyone can help me identify what parasite or illness my hippo tang has. I have had it for about 2.5 months in my 180 galon reef tank and she is about 2.5 inches long. She has always scratched a bit at first when I got her but recently I have noticed she does a bit more once and a while, but not a lot during the day and after the first week not at all for over a 1.5 months or so but just started again recently. I have attached a picture and you can see right above the lower black line with the hook in it, her skin has a red line the same on both sides, and appears she has worn the scales off. No other fish have any issues and are fine and all my parameters are the good to go and have been stable. The Tank is 1.5 years old. I have kinda ruled out ick, and am leaning more towards flukes but I don't have a lot of experience with disease in fish as I haven't had any issues to date. Any suggestions would be great if any one has a idea of what she has going on. She eats very well and hasn't shown any signs of slowing down that way either. Its been about a week since I have noticed and I have been monitoring her and it isn't progressing very fast and she is always out mingling with her mates.

 

[griss]

Our fish disease experts are going to ask for a video over a minute long, under white light, showing both sides of the fish. You can post the video to YouTube and link it here. They will then be able to better assist you.

@leebca @Dr. Reef @HumbleFish

 

[Dr. Reef]

my eyes are getting old but i didnt see any white spots on the fish. so we can rule out ich. I would give it a 3-5 min freshwater bath and then do a prazipro or hypo treatment for flukes. and hypo doesnt have to be 1.009, you can go to 1.012-13

 

[chriscsada]

Ok, thanks for your input, that is the plan, I am just not looking forward to stressing her and wanted some input before I went a head with the treatment. I Have my qt tank set up and prazipro and will get the treatment started. Is there a chance the stress from the treatment could bring on ick and should I copper treat her as well before I put her back in the dt?

 

[Dr. Reef]

copper will not rid flukes. If you wanna be 100% sure to rid flukes and ich/velvet all in 1 go then you can do copper treatment along with prazi and that will rid ich/velvet and flukes.