Parasite

[marrone]

I've been fighting this parasite in my tanks for years now, ever since a fish that I got carry it from my QT to my MT. It usually looks like something has burrowed into the fish and leaves a scab on the fish body. In this case the fish had an extreme case of it. Usually if the fish is eating it will survive, if not it will last for a month or long before it dies. Tried a lot of things but just can't kill it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1ob2-EGlWo

 

[HumbleFish]

Kinda looks like brook: https://humble.fish/brooklynella/

Most non-clownfish are immune, but there are always exceptions. Like perhaps what you are experiencing.

 

[marrone]

No, not even close. There is no slime or mucus on the fish, it looks like there is something burrowed under the fish skin. I have had this problem for a number of years now, though this looks extreme. Most of the time I see a scab on the body of the fish, where it looks like something has burrowed into the fish. The fish will usually retreat to the side of the tank and may look off color wise, but it will continue to eat, though maybe not as much as before. In time the fish may come out of it and go back to looking fine, other times the fish will stop eating altogether, and over time, in some case a number of months, will then die. Usually it's only one fish that is infected at a time.

 

[ThRoewer]

It's definitely not one of the usual protozoan suspects (Cryptocaryon, Amyloodinium, Brooklynella,...)

It might be a type of parasitic worm or copepod, though many of those have way too complex lifecycles to reproduce in a tank and infect multiple fish beyond the one who brought it in. In many cases, these parasites require several intermediate hosts, most of which are inverts but may also include birds or mammals.

That only one fish at a time is affected could mean that it is one and the same parasite that jumps from fish to fish.

Has any fish been infected another time after getting over it or is it a one and done situation where each fish may only get affected once?

Is there anything hanging out of those lesions?

What animals (including inverts and cartilaginous fishes) do you have in that tank and which are or have been affected?

Did you ever catch a fish with this to inspect it up close or do a necropsy on a fish that didn't survive? That's definitely what I would do.

BTW, it would also help tremendously if you could provide a video that is optimized for viewing on a computer screen. Vertical videos don't play well on computers (or only at greatly reduced resolution) and are generally suboptimal for fish or tank videos.

 

[marrone]

It's very hard to get a good video, using my phone, as the glass is fairly thick and fish is consistently moving and of course wouldn't face the right way, this also makes getting a picture really hard too.

It's been something that has gone on for about 6 or 7 years now. A while back I got a tang in that was beaten up and put it in a QT, but it wasn't doing well and I then placed it into one of my smaller tanks, which only had a couple of fish in it. The fish eventually died but all my other fish came down with similar symptoms and eventually died. Any new fish that I put in the tank came down with the same problem. Eventually I left the tank empty for about a week or so and the issue went completely away. That tank has a sump and a filter sock, which possibly could have absorb the parasite, or it could have just died off.

Unfortunately even through I cleaned out the QT a fish that I put in there afterwards carried to parasite into my larger tanks, which have a lot of fish in them, and has made it very hard to get rid of.

What seems to happen is more than one fish maybe infected but it seems that only one fish at a time gets it really bad, which can last for months before it either comes out of it, back to normal, or dies. I have had a couple of fish get it more than once too. The symptoms including heavy breathing, especially when feeding the fish, and marks on the body plus some scratching, but not a lot. Initially I thought it maybe Ich, than I thought that it maybe gill flukes. I've treated with high levels of copper, Hypo, very low 1.0006, Prazipro, and I even got Praziquantel powder and treat at 6 times to recommended level, and nothing seems to work. I've try to keep cleaning wrasse in the tank, and when I have they do they seem to have somewhat of an impact, as the fish are usually not as bad when I do, though I do see the cleaner wrasse scratch too.

All of the fish have been effected, from Angels, Tangs, Wrasses, Groupers, Triggers and Hogfish, where some of the Hogfish don't seem to last. I have no inverts in the tank, as it's a FO tank.


I have sent a fish that just died for a necropsy a couple of times. The first came back with nothing on it but the second one I was told the fish had Ich in the gills, but I don't think that was the real issue.