Niger Trigger pic - whitish discoloration

[Deacon]

When this Niger trigger arrived from Liveaquaria 12 days ago it was perfect. It has been very active since day one and eats great. 3 days ago these appeared on it (see pic). The fish still is active and always hungry. This side of the fish is the worst, the starboard side shows minimal discoloration. The spots, flukes, whatever, also seem to be in slightly different places from day to day.

There's also a yellow tang in the tank (125 gal.) that was added the same day. The tang still looks fine.

Any ideas on what I'm dealing with here? Sorry about the low quality pic.

 

[Spracklcat]

Moving around day to day? Sounds like a macroscopic parasite, no? And of course you have him in quarantine right?

 

[Puffer Queen]

I can not view the pics - might be my lap top.....

Problem here is that whatever the trigger has, the tang has been exposed to as well since the trigger was directly added to the display tank.

Any treatment will need to be done in a separate tank. What else is in the tank?

Can you describe the spots - salt like, patches, eraser size? Where are the areas in questions??

 

[Anthony Calfo]

they are huge indeed... Monogenean flatworm parasites. Quite commonly on the eyes (as with your image here... often ascribed to Neobenedenia). [folks... do note the opaque "fluke" like critters on the eyes, behind the pectorals... mid flank, etc in the first picture]

They are quite easy to dip off the fish (they usually respond to copper, though I dont often use or recommend it... and they respond to formalin and even just extended FW dips).

The greater issue here is that while it will be easy to purge them from the trigger once pulled back to a QT tank... the display has now been infected. You may have more than a few fish catshes to make. Do see the big thread archived here at RC on "catching fish in a display" (many easy tips there)
--------------
"Genus Neobenedenia, which is much larger and lives on the skin of many tropical marine species, causing problematic disease in marine aquaria."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenea

But please do see the fish path refs of Noga, Post, Untergasser or Blasiola&Gratzek for more hobby specific info and treatments.

 

[Deacon]

edit: I typed this before seeing Anthony Calfo's reply above. Thanks for the info.

No other critters in the tank...just the Niger and the yellow tang. No live rock, the rocks you see in the pic are about 80 lbs of base rock for structure.

The spots are oval shaped and about 3mm long and are kind of a translucent white color. You can't always see them unless the fish is at the proper angle relative to the light. As seen in the pic: They are a few (four to be exact) widely spaced on the fish's body and more on the fins. There's even a couple on the left eye. As they move around they leave a whitish patch which seems to go away fairly quickly.

As i mentioned before, the fish seems to be oblivious to the problem...no scratching, flashing, or sulking and it eats like crazy.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Deacon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10886240#post10886240 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Anthony Calfo

... and they respond to formalin and even just extended FW dips).

It looks like I have some fish to catch. How long of a freshwater dip do you recommend?

 

[Anthony Calfo]

Freshwater dips on otherwise healthy fishes (fishes that have been established/eating well for weeks or months prior, etc) are to be for 5 minutes minimum (with pre-aearated, temperature and pH adjusted water).

Any FW dips less than 5 minutes are weak and dips less than 3 minutes are almost completely ineffective (so says Gratzek & Blasiola... of which I humbly agree from my experiences as well).

That said... I dunno if FW dips alone will knock off your critters specifically. Time will tell. If you don't see progress after the first dip... add formalin to the next dip (next day). Follow the mfg recs to be safe for starters... 1 drop per gallon of "Quick Cure" for example (thats a malachite + formalin cocktail... rather effective and not too aggressive as meds go for all but scaleless fishes)

 

[Deacon]

Thank you to A. Calfo and everyone for the information.

For the life of me I can't find the big thread about catching fish in a display tank (I did run across quite a few small threads with some interesting ideas.

Anybody have a link to that thread?

 

[Puffer Queen]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=707656

 

[Jeff]

I just received a Niger Trigger from Dr. Fosters and Smith 3 weeks ago. So far he has been very healthy and calm. I wonder if mine may have been in the same holding tank as yours. i will have to keep an eye on him.
Good luck with yours

 

[Puffer Queen]

Is your trigger in quarantine??

 

[Deacon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10887880#post10887880 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Puffer Queen
Is your trigger in quarantine??

No, not yet. I'm sitting at work right now and will later have to figure out how to catch the thing.

 

[Deacon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10887771#post10887771 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Engine 7
I just received a Niger Trigger from Dr. Fosters and Smith 3 weeks ago. So far he has been very healthy and calm. I wonder if mine may have been in the same holding tank as yours. i will have to keep an eye on him.
Good luck with yours

Yeah, I've had nothing but good experiences with LiveAquaria and always top quality fish. Not sure where the flatworms came from but the only other living thing (besides the trigger and the tang) I put in the tank was some chaeto I got from an LFS.

Could the parasites have ridden in on that?

 

[Puffer Queen]

Parasites can come in with anything wet - rock, inverts, corals, algae, sand, fish, drop of water under your fingernail.............

 

[Deacon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10888074#post10888074 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Puffer Queen
Parasites can come in with anything wet - rock, inverts, corals, algae, sand, fish, drop of water under your fingernail.............

Dang, if it ain't one thing its another.

...oh, and thanks for the link to the fish catching thread, after reading awhile I realized that I had seen it before, but the searches I did brought me to the 2nd page of the thread, so I missed the great ideas at the beginning. Think I'll try the drain method...now to find some big storage containers.

 

[tapm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10886304#post10886304 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Deacon
edit: I typed this before seeing Anthony Calfo's reply above. Thanks for the info.

No other critters in the tank...just the Niger and the yellow tang. No live rock, the rocks you see in the pic are about 80 lbs of base rock for structure.

The spots are oval shaped and about 3mm long and are kind of a translucent white color. You can't always see them unless the fish is at the proper angle relative to the light. As seen in the pic: They are a few (four to be exact) widely spaced on the fish's body and more on the fins. There's even a couple on the left eye. As they move around they leave a whitish patch which seems to go away fairly quickly.

As i mentioned before, the fish seems to be oblivious to the problem...no scratching, flashing, or sulking and it eats like crazy.

Thanks for the replies.

If there are no other critters in the tank, I would just leave them in the main tank and treat them in there. As Anthony C. said, your main tank is now infected with eggs and even if you get the flukes off the fish they will come back unless you treat the whole tank. I would treat with formalin or prazipro and you will have to do more than one treatment to make sure you get all the flukes when they hatch out of the eggs to break the life cycle.

 

[Deacon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10894595#post10894595 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tapm
If there are no other critters in the tank, I would just leave them in the main tank and treat them in there. As Anthony C. said, your main tank is now infected with eggs and even if you get the flukes off the fish they will come back unless you treat the whole tank. I would treat with formalin or prazipro and you will have to do more than one treatment to make sure you get all the flukes when they hatch out of the eggs to break the life cycle.

I've actually been tossing that idea around. (The tank is a 125 gal. with sump, Tunze 9015 skimmer, phosban reactor w/chemipure elite). I'd turn off the carbon and treat the tank with Quick Cure (a product mentioned by Calfo).

Anybody have any opinions on this plan?