Need Help! 10" Mata Tang very sick

C

curt2199

Member
I have a 125g QT system that had a few fish doing well. I had been running Chloroquine Phosphate because I had a flame angel as well as a few other more sensitive fish. I had a disease breakout from no symptoms to full blown with fish dying within 24-36 hours. The only thing that had changed was that I added a large 10" Mata Tang that I bought from another person. I noticed crypto cysts on him after I added him but they were gone in a couple days and he was looking better. Fast forward a week and I have lost 4 fish including 3 nice tangs and a large moorish idol (that was eating well).

The mata tang is of most concern now because he is show size and I paid $$ for him. The symptoms of the disease were like crypto, velvet, and black ich. It's possible that there are multiple infections here. I immediately did a 50% water change when I caught it and then siphoned the tank to the drain, letting the topoff continually fill it until I had dropped the salinity to 1.012-13 to help with oxygen and parasite concentrations. I then dosed prazi pro followed by cupramine and I believe I have gotten the concentration to around 0.25-0.35 however I have lost my color chart. I'm attaching a pic of the last test if someone could help me confirm the level. The Mata has been shedding slime for the past 3 days now and had cysts all over him. He appears to have a thick layer that is shedding and I'm not sure what disease this is consistent with.

Any help would be appreciated. He is now 2 days on cupramine and although he looks horrible he is actually swimming around now compared to hovering at the bottom like yesterday. He is still breathing rapidly.View attachment 5345View attachment 5346


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Right now I'm not sure that I can get a good reading because I'm treating cupramine. I need to pick up an ammonia alert badge.


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It's possible the CP dosing killed off the bacteria colony which caused a spike but I saw clear parasite cysts and immediately jumped to that. I also found a place between PVC where food had been accumulating and it looked to have fungus growing on it. So I'm wondering if it could be fungal. I siphoned it out. Either way the system has had about 75% or more of the water changed out along with siphoning any detritus so the water conditions should be improving.


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Ok guys, I can't believe it but the guy is a fighter. I want to do everything I can to help him.

I found him on his side this morning breathing rapidly. I assumed he would be gone within a couple hours but just had the girlfriend check on him and he's out swimming. He clearly has some erosion and looks like some areas where flesh is showing through. The only thing that has changed since yesterday is dosing Oxytetracyclin (had to use the cattle version from farm and fleet) last night and then I did a water change shortly after because he seemed to be having adverse reactions to it however some is still in the water. I did the water change and got the salinity down to around 1.010. I'm stopping by the LFS soon and am going to get a good antibiotic.

I'm assuming because the flesh is showing, he couldn't take a formalin bath and I assume that anything containing formalin would be out?

I just took a video, you can clearly see the skin being eaten away exposing flesh. I'm really leaning towards something bacterial at this point!

[video=youtube;vRmko_E-U4E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRmko_E-U4E&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
While it doesn't help much, the only similar thing I have seen was on a freshly imported butterfly fish. The problem was restricted to the face and mouth of the butterfly. Over the course of a week its mouth fell off and and continued until the face was exposed bone. I went through all my text (including college text by Noga) and internet research without even finding something similar. Only after talking to an importer did they state they have seen similar and nicknamed if "face eating disease." They did not have a cure. Several butterflies from the same import suffered similar and other fish in the shared QT also died (but their face didn't dissolve.)

Which leads me to suggest try and find a person who has a good rapport with their importer and ask if they have seen similar.


I also add. I have a very large and petty comprehensive list of all the medications up on my reef tank site. It'll help if someone recommends a medication to understand what it is and what it does along with contradictions.

(scroll down just past the pump dosing info)
http://www.basementreeftank.com/9.html
 
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I would relax with all the meds. If it's not ich, why stress him with copper? I would slowly do a large water change to get all the chemicals out of the water. Also, I hope you're not running hypo and copper at the same time. Makes it much more toxic.
 
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Shouldn't be much copper left in the water as I've done several water changes. Also I was using cupramine which has been used with hypo although not recommended.

This morning has been very positive! He looks horrible but I went downstairs to find him swimming around without stopping to lay in the bottom and rest. The antibiotics are definitely working. I stopped again last night and picked up erythromycin to combine with the triple sulfa and have gram negative and gram positive antibiotics in there. I attempted a little food this morning and he wasn't interested but I know it's early. His breathing has definitely slowed which is a huge positive.


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Glad he's getting better. Good thing you got the copper out. Seems like the antibiotics were a good call. One thing I can add is that it's a big fish and that helped him a bunch. Little guys would of been long gone by now.
 
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kinda sounds like u may of caused most the issues with poor water quality and multiple treatments of different meds some meds don't mix and havening salinity that low plus all those meds could of cause numerous issues. ammonia burn fungus issues toxic over dose of meds list goes on . that's the issue with qt u should only have so many fish in em and never add any till the others r out I seen people have fish in qt for a month then add another fish well there goes a month wasted cause of contamination . any who keep up wih them water changes and before u go dumping meds in make sure that the meds r able to be mixed together safely . I cant tell u how many people qt wrong and fish never make it to dt . good luck man keep us updated they r beautiful tangs
 
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