raw spots on chromis'? Please help and identify.

[rsteagall]

Maybe this is nothing, but my chromis' (5 of them) have been acting solitary for a few weeks now. Some days they act ok, but several days at a time they are acting just plain wierd. They have been basically just sitting in one place. I'm noticing some spots on them that look a little raw with a scale or two missing. I only got pictures of 2 of the fish, but there is another one with similar spots. One fish has a raw spot on his head, and the other has one on his body.

Are these just spots from rubbing on things and sitting in one spot? If you look closely on the tail of the picture below, you can see a few small black spots. Maybe these are on all Chromis'?

Anyway, what do you guys think. All my other fish including 2 royal gramma, 2 clowns, 1 neon goby, 1 bi color blenny, and 1 6 line wrasse are all looking fine. I haven't noticed anything picking on the chromis'. I think there are 2 of the 5 chromis that look fine.

What gives?

Thanks for your help!

-Ryan

 

[rsteagall]

Not to plant ideas in people's heads with a diagnosis, but is this black ich caused by planarian worms? I do have a small out break of planarian worms that started a few weeks ago.

 

[rsteagall]

subtle bump.

 

[rsteagall]

Do I need to provide any further information for diagnosis help? I've been really worried about this for the past 2 days. As you can see, they are lathargic and just hanging close to the front and side glass. If they move, they just move to a different spot and stay there for hours. One of them has been in the same spot all day on the front glass. The other is now back in the rocks somewhere being very still. I don't want it to migrate to other fish whatever it is. Please let me know if you need more information so I can assist you in assisting me.

Thanks.

 

[Angela Short]

That does look like black ick dotts on the back fin.

 

[rsteagall]

I've captured the 2 chromis with health issues. I'll have to build an emergency hospitol tank tonight. I'll have a 10 gallon in the next 30 mins available to me. I'll be putting over an Aqua-Tech 30-10 filter in this 10 gallon that has filters that have been cycled in my main tank Any tips from here on out? I've never done a quarantine tank before... ever. I have plenty of reading to do I guess. A quick guide someone could leave me would be very helpful.

2nd thing, what regimen is suggested with these 2 chromis.

I'd appreciate a speedy response since I'm in an emergency mode.

Thank you all!

 

[rsteagall]

I captured the 2 chromis that were looking bad and put them in a bucket that contained water from the tank. While I arranged my QT, one of them died within 15minutes of putting them in the bucket. The other one stayed about the same.

I have setup the QT tank with some pvc pieces in the bottom and am using my aqua-tech 30-60 from years past that had actually been running on my main tank. So, the filter pads should contain plenty of bacteria. I have a heater and am using a 13w florescent desk lamp for light. I have the sg set to ~1.016 right now.

I know this is just 1 chromis I'm going through alot of trouble for, but its a learning experience and hopefully I'll be able to save him. If I can this will give me confidence for the future.

I've ordered a new bulb for my UV filter. I'm sure my other one was old and not doing much. This is probably why these problems came about or at least they would have had a better chance of being prevented. When I get it, I'm going to run it full stream for at least 2 months in my main tank


Concerning the QT... Should I change out one if the pads for a new one with new carbon? Is there anything else I should do right now?

Thanks,
Ryan

***Sorry for the double post. Some things were relavant to the other post.

 

[Angela Short]

How is the chromis doing? Any diagnosis on why the sudden feeding strike and lethargy?
As long as the water quality is good, I would hold off on changing the filter pad unless its extreamly full of deitrus. I would be afraid to take out 1/2 of the bio in a new QT so fast.

 

[rsteagall]

One died when I moved it to qt. The other is still alive, but not feeding. Althought lastnight I noticed he moved around spots instead of staying one place. Still no appetite.

I checked PH and Ammonia. Both were fine.

I wish I knew if the emerald crab inflicted these injuries. All the other fish in my main tank are still doing good.

 

[Pandora]

They look like bacterial skin infections. You said that they have been moved to QT, have you tried an antibiotic yet?

PS: May I use one of those pics for my disease photo archive? I have several hundred photos already, all private donations from people who email me through my site, but not that many SW ones yet. You can also see other skin infections if you check there (click on the WWW icon over my post, then click on the Disease icon)

 

[rsteagall]

Yes, please use one of these pictures.

I talked to my local LFS today. He suggested 200mg of erythromycin added to the 10 gallon tank. I have some that I gave my chickens once. He told me that would be fine to use.

I'll add some tonight.

Is there anything you can suggest to help me make him eat?



Thank you.

 

[Pandora]

That should be alright (if you had a choice, often recommend tetracycline, more broad spectrum, but many skin diseases are gram positive, which erythro treats). Make sure you take carbon out of the filter but keep the tank well aerated (these treatments often make aeration more of an issue; do partial water changes every other day, replacing the meds by the same ratio lost through water change). I would not worry about them not eating at this point. This secondary to illness and there's no way to make them; they also can go a while without starvation being an issue, like you. When they start to perk up and look like they are more active, could try a tiny bit of food, but just be aware of how easy it is to pollute a 10 gallon tank that is going to essentially have no cycling capability (since the antibiotics will kill off ALL bacteria, good and bad). Thanks for the pic!

 

[rsteagall]

hmmm ... i think i got confused. I went to TSC this evening and bought some Terramycin. Its a broad spectrum antibiotic.

Anyone ever used this to treat fish? Is it safe?

 

[Pandora]

I don't believe Terramycin is an actual generic antibiotic name (there are a limited number of antibiotics that have ever been discovered for use with people or animals, and we have to know them all for microbiology ). Terramycin is most likely a brand name for tetracycline, in much the same way as Kanycin is an aquarium pharmaceuticals brand name for kanamycine. Does it say anything else on the label?

EDIT: Just looked it up, and it is oxytetracycline, essentially the same.

http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic2/oxytetracycline.htm

(ignore the specifics for human medicine as injection, your form is sold at petmeds and is fine)

 

[rsteagall]

I feel like Dr. Frankenstein over here. I couldn't find exactly how much or active % to add per gallon of oxytetracycline. The few sites I saw said to add 1/4tsp for 10 gallons.

I have a package of Terramycin. THe package is 182g with 10g of oxytetracycline. If I knew how much oxytetracycline to add per gallon I could figure out the proper dosage.

For now I just guessed and used hte 1/4tsp suggested from the package I got from TSC. I definitely wouldn't think this is too much. If someone can help me figure it out and let me know that would be too awesome

 

[Pandora]

Ryan, unfortunately, some things in this hobby are less of an exact science than they are Dr. Frankenstein's lab. You have to take into account that in human and veterinary medicine (which for the large part doesn't include fish), titrating between effective doses & lethal doses requires accurate measuring of body weight, which isn't very practical with small fish, so there is a lot of "guestimating" in this practice. And then there isn't that much research into specifics of how fish physiology (of fish not valuable in the food aquaculture industry) responds to various antibiotics.

Agreed with Rondalet's post in the other thread that ideally, they work best when fed, but given that your fish have skin infections and also aren't eating, a bath should be fine. As for how much to actually use, we go back to the guestimation... 1/4-1/2 tsp sounds roughly what I have used in the past. On how tetracycline & erythromycin differ, they act by different mechanisms (inhibit different elements used in protein synthesis) and as mentioned above, have a different spectrum; in general, tetracycline is a little more broad.

 

[rsteagall]

This is the first time I've ever medicated a fish with a QT, so I'm pretty ignorant about the whole process. Is 1/4-1/2tsp a one time dosage, or should I do this daily?

Thanks.

 

[Pandora]

I wouldn't just add daily. You will be unsure if you are just piling on more active tetracycline on top of the old med (concentrating it). What I do is do partial water changes every day or every other day, to replace at that same concentration; for example, if you added 1/2 tsp the first day, change 1/3 water out next time with 1/5-1/6 tsp added (give or take). As I said, no need to make this that exact a science, just an example. In theory, this method would actually decrease the concentration of active med in the water gradually, depending on half life, because some medication will degrade; but this is only over a few days, and I'd rather err on the side of not overdosing.

 

[rsteagall]

I wonder how long a fish can go without eating. I haven't seen him eat since last Friday or maybe even before that.

 

[Rondelet]

Ryan,

Just left a comment in other post - but as Pandora said you should try to keep everything in one place.

As for the dose rate - assume your package contains 10 mg oxytetracycline (OTC) active (had a look at the picture and this should be correct). However, dose rates for bath treatments in the literature are all over the map ranging from 38-48 mg/gal daily, to 385 mg/gal for 2-3 hour bath (daily for 7 days), to 1.5 g/gal for a 1 hour bath (also daily for 7 days) (note I've converted from L to gals). IMO, giving your fish 1-3 daily baths will just stress it out and make matters worse. The good news is that over dosing your fish is very unlikely. Thus I would go with 50-100 mg/gal daily with water changes as suggested by Pandora. The best way to measure the amount is to mix the whole package into a volume of distilled water and then measure out appropriate aliquots. If you find it would dissolve into water, you may have to first dissolve it into a small volume of ethanol, which can then be mixed with distilled water.

As for feeding, you should try and get something like live brine shrimp or frozen worms or chopped fresh mussel - anything to get the fish back onto feed as this will help a lot. Looking at the pictures, it seems to me that something may have been taking pot shots at your fish suggesting that simple aggressive behaviour may have been the culprit. If true, then separating the fish will eliminate this and allow the fish to heal. However, as you are treating your water with OTC, you should expect your filter to crash and the water quality to go off in your Q/Treatment tank. For this reason it is very important to keep up with the water changes.


Hope this helps.