Karma bites back - Uronema on my Pictilis Anthias

[mattcoug]

I took great advantage of a Thanksgiving sale to pick up a bunch of Pictilis Anthias for a really great price - 60% off normal! It might cost me more in the end.

I ordered 5 females and 1 male. One of the females was DOA, less than 24 hours in the bag. Sounds suspicious.

A couple of the fish has some scuff marks on them - looks like they had some fights before getting shipped out? Sounds suspicious.

These suspicions made me decide to do CP treatment in QT rather than TTM or Copper.

I moved them into a brute can with an airstone with the shipping water, and dosed prime to bind to ammonia. I then adjusted the 40G QT tank to match salinity(1.018??) and temp.

I then dosed formalin and let the fish stew for 10 minutes before carefully moving each to the QT tank.

One female, with a red mark, then looked like she would die within a couple minutes. She was laying upside down, and barely breathing. I thought I killed her with 10 min of formalin. A couple hours later she was swimming around like nothing happened.. Yay!

That was ~68 hours ago. 48 hours ago, I dosed CP at 30mg/gal.

5 hours ago I saw the male was hiding in a PVC pipe - so cute, except he was floating upside down. Ops, well I carefully took him out and put him in a bucket. I gave him Methylene Blue and a 30 min Formalin dip, then gave him a fresh bucket of clean water. He was almost fully recovered. Yay!

I then cought and thoroughly examined each of the remaining four females. One looks clean, two have additional discolored patches, and the fish that had the red mark from the start, now has an obvious full-blown Uronema infection with one side looking almost fully dissolved.

Good thing I am alone in the house today - I almost became international with the amount of French/sic coming out of my mouth.

I have now upped the dose of CP to 80mg/gal and added in 25mg/gal of metro. The male is still separated but with the same dosage plus 1ml/gallon methylene blue.

I thought my problem would be getting them to eat, but it now looks like my problem is to not let them get eaten.

I'll include some photos so you can join the pity party.

What am I thankful for this thanksgiving? I learned my lesson in the past, so these fish were fully QT from all my established tanks/equipment.

~68 hours ago - see the red freckle/mark
----




2 hours ago -
------



Oddly enough, this girl is still swimming around like nothing happened. She might be dead tonight.


Stay safe folks, QT your fish!

-Matt

 

[Deinonych]

Holy cow, that's a traumatic Thanksgiving! Hope things end up well for you. :hmm4:

 

[ThRoewer]

Sorry to hear about the losses. I hope you will be able to save the rest.

There is a reason why I marinate all my fresh fish for 45 minutes in formalin and then keep them a couple of months in QT.

 

[mattcoug]

No new fish deaths yet, so the 80mg/gal CP + 25mg/gal Metro appear to be helping. Even the fish the the previous photo is still up and about.

I am starting to worry about bacterial infections now, so I will likely add kanamycin into the mix today.

 

[mattcoug]

Well, my early optimism is completely gone. In the past 3 hours, 2 fish died. I still have the male in a dipping bucket, he is alive but can't swim upright, and responsive only when I do something like moving the heater. I have 2 remaining females in the QT tank . One has a red mark, one looks unaffected.

At this point, I suspect the CP and Metro are likely only killing free swimming bugs. I am open to suggestions if anyone has experience saving these guys once internally infected.

I have confirmed the diagnoses with an intramuscular microscopic examination. This was deep inside the muscle behind the fish's wound.




Here are postmortem photos of the fish from the original post,






So far the list is:
Nov 23 - Shipped overnight
Nov 24 - 1 female DOA
Nov 28 - 2 females dead in QT

 

[ThRoewer]

Usually, when uronema has penetrated the tissue or entered the bloodstream the fish are beyond rescue.

Who did you order these from?

 

[mattcoug]

usually, when uronema has penetrated the tissue or entered the bloodstream the fish are beyond rescue.

Who did you order these from?

la

 

[Deinonych]

I have confirmed the diagnoses with an intramuscular microscopic examination. This was deep inside the muscle behind the fish's wound.
View attachment 334806

Sorry for your losses. Very cool that you were able to identify the cause via microscopic examination, though. Was the Uronema specimen still alive and moving around when you identified it?

 

[ThRoewer]

la

Well, at least LA will give you a full refund.

... Was the Uronema specimen still alive and moving around when you identified it?

Uronema is different from obligate parasitic protozoan. While Cryptocaryon, Amyloodinium, Brooklynella, and the like only feed on living fish and leave the fish as soon as it is dead, Uronema feeds on dead tissue and bacteria and therefore will stay with the dead body and actually thrive on it until it is totally dissolved.

Also the likelihood of Uronema infecting a healthy fish is rather low. It needs a somewhat infected wound or damaged skin to start with. That's why you see it predominantly with freshly imported fish that often had too much ammonia in the bag (ammonia burns) or where housed in overcrowded holding tanks where they injured each other and transmitted pathogens via direct contact.

 

[Deinonych]

Uronema is different from obligate parasitic protozoan. While Cryptocaryon, Amyloodinium, Brooklynella, and the like only feed on living fish and leave the fish as soon as it is dead, Uronema feeds on dead tissue and bacteria and therefore will stay with the dead body and actually thrive on it until it is totally dissolved.

Yes. That's why I asked.

 

[mattcoug]

LA has been great in the refund/replacement policy. But based in the marks I saw when u bagging then, I suspect they may have been doomed when I got them.

I saw them moving inside muscle tissue in the microscope, but didn't find any in the gills.

 

[ThRoewer]

LA has been great in the refund/replacement policy. But based in the marks I saw when u bagging then, I suspect they may have been doomed when I got them.

They were already doomed when they were bagged, probably even before that.

I saw them moving inside muscle tissue in the microscope, but didn't find any in the gills.

Uronema isn't an ectoparasites but feeds on dead tissue. Infections of fish are usually opportunistic because the fish have tissue damage in combination with a weakened immune system. It usually gets deathly when uronema enters the bloodstream.
So I wouldn't expect to find uronema in the gills unless there is damage to them.