Sailfin tang - white swollen mouth

MrsReefK

New member
Have a desi sailfin tang that was acting like normal until yesterday. She's went through a full round of TTM and a freshwater dip. Nothing came off during the freshwater, and she never showed signs of ich.

I separated the 7 fish into 2 tanks after TTM because the angel was nipping the sailfins fins for the remainder of quarantine.

Yesterday started their first round of prazipro and she now has a swollen mouth and breathing rapidly. I wish I could get better pics, but my phone isn't capable.

I was going to do a round of prazipro, then a formalin dip, then another round of prazipro and proceed to observe for 4 weeks. Her signs of illness have me concerned, should I stop prazipro and treat her differently? There's a blue hippo in her same tank that is not breathing rapidly like she is.

She's still eating, not as much of an appetite prior to prazipro, but I know prazipro can suppress their appetite a bit.

Any ideas? The water is not as cloudy as the pic makes it out to be, FYI.

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Do you see her pecking at the glass at all? Is she eating any algae? Sometimes the pecking can cause damage.

Since she is breathing rapidly, are there any other symptoms like swimming into the flow, hiding? Flukes can also cause rapid breathing but there weren’t any after the dip?
 
Sailfin tang - white swollen mouth

Do you see her pecking at the glass at all? Is she eating any algae? Sometimes the pecking can cause damage.

Since she is breathing rapidly, are there any other symptoms like swimming into the flow, hiding? Flukes can also cause rapid breathing but there weren't any after the dip?


She's not pecking at the glass. Has eaten the nori from the clip all day today here and there. Not near as much as she normally does, but she did eventually eat all of it (with blue hippos help).

Really she's hiding a bit, but not much different than she was before this showed up, this group of fish are quite skittish and seem to be hiders more than I've had in the past.

I can surely FW dip her again tomorrow to see if any come off at all. Shouldn't harm her more considering she's already rapidly breathing, right?

Isn't swimming into the flow at all.


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Yes, that should have been plenty of time.

FW dips won’t help gill flukes so you may not see any come off.
 
Yes, that should have been plenty of time.

FW dips won't help gill flukes so you may not see any come off.


Got it. I'll try another FW did tomorrow. Otherwise, do you think continue prazipro? When I looked up swollen mouth searching google, a lot of HLLE info came up. Should I be concerned or look into that further you think? I'm a total rookie when it comes to disease and differentiating from injuries like this.


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Usually with HLLE you just need to improve water conditions and feed vitamin soaked foods.

I prophylactically treat with prazipro so I would say yes.
 
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Usually with HLLE you Justin need to improve water conditions and feed vitamin soaked foods.

I prophylactically treat with prazipro so I would say yes.


Got it. I haven't been soaking foods in vitamins, sounds like hlle or no, I need to start.

Any good threads you're aware of or any well known vitamins I should look for in particular?


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FW dip, no signs of flukes to my eye, I was looking for tiny white. There was definitely some "skin" pieces that came off. Should I be concerned or "normal" with FW dips? Did 4 min again today. Currently doing the blue hippo and then the others later on.


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The skin pieces coming off are more than likely flukes. I should have asked you to take a picture when you dipped.
 
The skin pieces coming off are more than likely flukes. I should have asked you to take a picture when you dipped.


Shoot. They were just small pieces of transparent skin. Both the blue hippo and the sailfin had them come off.

No white "dots" at all.

Ok... flukes cure is prazi? Then FW dip between each prazi treatment to see if it worked?


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I haven't dipped the others tonight like I planned. We'll see what they bring tomorrow when I dip them. Googling now to see others examples of this skin from FW dip.


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Google freshwater dip flukes falling off and look at the images and see if that looks like the “skin” that was falling off.
 
I'm not seeing anything with the same "skin". I had it come off the wrasse as well on the first dip.

Definitely wasn't flukes of any images I can find online.

I'm getting nervous about her mouth. Was hoping it'd improve a bit today, we will see what the next couple of days bring.




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Sailfin tang - white swollen mouth

Alright, bad news. The tomini tang now has swollen mouth, showing a white area on his lips as well. Lights are off right now, will try and get a pic when they're on. Not good, any ideas now that we now 2 fish have it and not just "one injured mouth"?

On a somewhat positive note, sailfins mouth is looking like the swelling is going down.

They're both still eating like champs. I stopped prazipro yesterday, they're in normal SW now. I can formalin dip this evening to see if that gets it? Very strange that it's hit 2 of them now.

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In case this may be important, I thought the angel was nipping the sailfins fins, and he still could have been. But I notice the tomini has "chunks" out of its fins as well, much like the sailfin.

Possible diseases/parasite with the mouth combo, or pure coincidence with the angel nipping, not sure. But if it's helpful, putting it here.


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