Round cyst?

[ThRoewer]

Tonight I noticed a small round item on the tail fin of my percula female. Because my percula are right now in hyopsalinity against Ich I took her out and had a closer look at this under the microscope.

It seems to be beneath the skin (I tried unsuccessfully if I can wipe it off with a Q-tip), is near perfectly round and appears to be about the same color as the fish's fin.

Has anyone an idea what this could be?

 

[snorvich]

I cannot even hazard a guess. sorry.

 

[ThRoewer]

I forgot to mention that it looks like Tobiko (flying fish roe) in size and color.

Well there are lots of strange things out there and you can't know everything.

When I got the 3 gramas two weeks ago, one had a sesame seed size white cyst on the back near the end of the dorsal fin.
Before I put him into quarantine I checked it out under the microscope and was able to wipe it completely off with a Q-tip. The fish lost about 3 scales but didn't show any signs of distress before or after or showed anything else like that yet.
The cyst stayed intact and seemed to have been just loosely attached to the outer layer of the skin, below the slime coat.

I really need to get the camera adapter for my microscope.

 

[Whiterabbitrage]

I really need to get the camera adapter for my microscope.

Ebay!

 

[snorvich]

I forgot to mention that it looks like Tobiko (flying fish roe) in size and color.

Well there are lots of strange things out there and you can't know everything.

For the more esoteric stuff, billsreef on RC would be a good source (marine biologist at the university staff level) or if you have Noga, that may be useful as there are some good pictures.

 

[ThRoewer]

This morning I noticed a second, larger and less regular shaped growth on the body side of her left pectoral fin. It is in the orange section of the fin and has the same color. There might be also another her body but I couldn't get a clear enough view so far to confirm this.
The first cyst has not changed in size or color so far.
If they were white it could be Lymphocystis but with it being body I'm clueless.

It seems there is also something else going on with both percula: they occasionally scratch their lips on hard surfaces, spit, gulp, twitch, shake and appear in general as if something is bothering them.
This behavior started to increase when I began to raise the salinity slowly 2 days ago.
My guess so far is some gill parasites and I plan to start a round of treatment with PraziPro today.

Here is the history background so far.
I have the percula pair in Hyposalinity at 1.010 since new year's eve (33 days) against Cryptocaryon and after the trophonts fell off no new showed up.
I added my also infected fridmani male 4 days later (took some time to catch him) and his Cryptocaryon infection went away like on the clowns. But he got some secondary bacterial infections from the lesions of the parasites and from fighting with the clowns.
I treated those with BiFuran.
On day 17 I added a newly bought fridmani female after putting her through a 10 min freshwater/formalin/malacite green dip. She never showed any signs of infections.

The percula are wild and have been with other fish in one of the (1st) stores coral Frag tank since at least mid September. I have them since mid December and they showed Ich a few days later.
In the about 3 month I've seen them at store they could have picked up a broad variety of diseases from all the other fish that were handled through that system. Normally I would have stayed away but I bought them anyway because in all that time they remained healthy looking and you don't see these in that color variation very often. In fact they were the reason that I finally decided to get back into reef aquariums again.

The male fridmani is ORA tank bred and spent at the most one day at the (2nd) stores invertebrate (shrimp & snail) system. He was the first fish in my display tank and showed never any sign of disease until he got infected by the percula.

The female fridmani is also from ORA and was for at least 2 weeks at the (3rd) stores invertebrate (shrimp & snail) system.

 

[snorvich]

Does the LFS run copper in their system?

 

[ThRoewer]

I bought these from 3 different LFS and all fish where in systems with invertebrates (shrimp, crab & snail) and corals.

So I'm absolutely sure they don't run copper on those systems. I actually try to avoid buying from systems where they use copper.

 

[ThRoewer]

Just a quick update:
It went away by itself.
I think now that it may be some form of lymphocystis or a kind of "wart".

 

[alfieferenzo84]

I bought these from 3 different LFS and all fish where in systems with invertebrates (shrimp, crab & snail) and corals.

So I'm absolutely sure they don't run copper on those systems. I actually try to avoid buying from systems where they use copper.

Why avoid copper at lfs?

 

[ThRoewer]

I masks all kinds of diseases (ich and velvet to be the most concerning) and promotes other like for example Lymphocystis. Another danger is kidney and liver damage if a fish is for too long exposed to copper or most other medications. That is one of the reasons why treatments in a HT are always preferable over DT treatments - you can stop medicating when the fish are clean and don't have to continue for all the encysted parasites to hatch.

 

[alfieferenzo84]

I masks all kinds of diseases (ich and velvet to be the most concerning) and promotes other like for example Lymphocystis. Another danger is kidney and liver damage if a fish is for too long exposed to copper or most other medications. That is one of the reasons why treatments in a HT are always preferable over DT treatments - you can stop medicating when the fish are clean and don't have to continue for all the encysted parasites to hatch.

Good point. In past I would only buy from 1 store that runs copper and dates when fish came in. I would only buy fish that was there for at least 3wks and never had issues.

Now I'm buying from other stores n I swear I got every problem in the past 3mo in my tank now. Really sucks

 

[ThRoewer]

That's why you should always quarantine your new fish.

The longer a fish is at the store the more time he has to exchange pathogens with his fellow inmates and new arrivals. When it comes to diseases the fish in a connected system are only as old as the newest arrival. So even if a fish has been at the store for weeks, the new arrival from last night might have just infected it with something nasty.

The thing most don't get is that wild fish may come with some internal parasites but are otherwise generally healthy. It's in the holding tanks at the collection station/exporter, at the importer/wholesaler and finally stores where they get infected.

You usually can't circumvent the first levels in the originating locations. Most of the times you can also not get around the wholesaler level, but you can for sure cut down the time they spend in the worst of all - the LFS system.

In general you should buy your live fish the same way you buy your fish for dinner at the fish market: as fresh as possible.

 

[snorvich]

Good point. In past I would only buy from 1 store that runs copper and dates when fish came in. I would only buy fish that was there for at least 3wks and never had issues.

First, the longer a fish is at an LFS, the greater the chances it will contract a problem; as such buying directly from the shipping bag is less risky. Second, an LFS that runs less than a therapeutic dose of copper means that you must quarantine for a minimum of 4 weeks to allow any problem to exhibit. A non-therapeutic dose of copper can mask ich, velvet, and brook.