sick pipefish

[mfinn]

I picked up a pair of yellow multi-banded pipefish a couple weeks ago.
Things were looking ok until the day before yesterday, when I noticed one of the pipefish looked as if it has mucus on it's body. not spots like ick, but a coating of sorts, over the back half. Also on it's dorsal fin.
And it looked pretty lethargic and didn't want to fed, even though it was the more aggressive one at dinner time previously.
They were put in a tank with mostly zoanthids, but with a couple octospawns and a couple branching hammers.

As soon as I saw the pipe in that condition I pulled it out and moved it to a setup qt tank. It netted very easy. Wasn't swimming very fast.

The only meds I have at this time is chloroquine phosphate, so I dosed just under 3/4 teaspoon in a 29 gallon tank.

The tank had some pods in it from some live rock, but I also grabbed a big wad of chaeto from a sump and shook out as many pods and amphipods.

Yesterday it hung out mostly in the fake plants and couldn't get a feeding response from mysis or cyclop-eze.
But today it is going after Mysis and is swimming out in the open and acting almost normal.
But the back 1/4 of the fish has a very red appearance that I didn't see yesterday.
As the pipefish swims around the fake plants, every once in a while it's tail will brush the fake plant and it visibly jerks it away like it is sore.

Any clue?

What other med should I get?

All of the mucus is gone and the color looks normal except for the back part of the fish.

And looking at the pictures, the camera really picked up the red and it is a little excessive.
It is red, but not quite that much.

 

[Blue spot]

What pumps have you got in the tank ? Mine got the end of its tail in the pump and it looked like you're photo. It did heal up eventually in the sump , I just kept it well fed.

 

[mfinn]

The way the tail looks now was not the way it was when I first removed it from the display tank.
There was something else involved and this seems to be a secondary problem.

FWIW, the pumps are a pair of Tunze 6055's

 

[ThRoewer]

I'm not sure what it is and what may help, but CP is the one medicine you shouldn't use with pipefish and seahorses - it kills them.

 

[mfinn]

I'm not sure what it is and what may help, but CP is the one medicine you shouldn't use with pipefish and seahorses - it kills them.

I would like to read more about this.
Do you have a link to more on the subject?

 

[mfinn]

I'm not sure what it is and what may help, but CP is the one medicine you shouldn't use with pipefish and seahorses - it kills them.

After reading your post, I did some looking into CP and pipefish and I am seeing some evidence that CP may not be the cure all I usually use.

Thank-you for the heads up.

So what I've done since then is start 20 gallons of water mixing and added carbon to the qt tank.
I am going to pull 10 gallons of water from my 240 reef and change that out while I'm waiting for the water to mix. I'll give it about 6-7 hours to mix.

Once I've done the bigger water change I'm going to dose with Metro and some Furan-2.
I also have some Kanaplex coming later today or tomorrow.
I've been told all three are compatible together with pipefish.

 

[mfinn]

Might not use the metro

 

[mfinn]

Well, after a week and a half, my pipefish is acting pretty much normal.
It's been a week in furan-2 and kanaplex.
It's eating like most pipefish I've had. Usually very picky about which piece of Mysis it will eat, after looking at 4-5 first.
It hunts for pods all the time. I add several different types of pods every couple days.
It no longer swims around with a clamped tail fin, but the last 1/4 of it's tail is still pretty red.
I've looked around at different yellow multibanded pipefish pictures and noticed many pictures show them with fairly bright red on their tails. So maybe this one has a little bit redder tail.
Thinking about putting it back into the display tank tomorrow with it's mate.

 

[ThRoewer]

Good to hear.
I think in this was bacterial. These pipefish are quite sensitive to those.