BornToHula

Yesterday I noticed my Melanurus Wrasse appears to have a swollen gill, or maybe some type of growth causing it to pop out? I've tried to google search this but came up empty. His breathing is labored, and didn't eat yesterday. The issue just occurred in the last couple of days, so I don't think it would be a tumor. Maybe trauma or a anemone sting? Has anyone happened to seen anything like this this before? Sorry for the bad quality on the pictures, I can't seem to get him to come to the front of the tank. I uploaded a videos as well.

I believe its called Green Goblin Anacropora.

I attempted to take some top down shots during my water change yesterday. Most turned out super blurry, but here are some of the better ones..

Can't do shrimp in my tank - they end up being expensive feeder shrimp! Between the melanurus wrasse and crosshatch trigger, shrimp are dead before they know what hits them. If it ends up getting to that point I'll either have to get a file fish or copper banded butterfly. I decided to go ahead and try to take care of of the aiptasia last night. I ended up not having any Aiptasia-X left and made a kalk past to do the killing. I used an old pointy syringe from a Salifert test kit to shoot the kalk paste into the mouth of the aiptasia. I had to do some reef tank twister but I managed to get the big one way in the back of my tank, along with the two other small ones that were easy to get to. Still no signs of them this morning but I'll keep checking up on them. I'd be very surprised if I managed to kill all 3 on the first go. Thanks! I tend to not be online as much these days, but I'm still working on my tank everyday and enjoy posting an update every once in awhile.

Thanks - its amazing how enjoyable a reef tank is when you are not dealing with some unwanted outbreak thats killing everything! Unfortunately to remove the rock with the big aiptasia would mean tearing down the entire right side of my tank. Its on a base rock at the very rear, pretty much the worst possible spot (which is why it took so long for me to see him). I think the best move will be to remove the lights & canopy so I can get a better look at him and hopefully give him a mouthfull of Aiptasia-X. Aiptasia -X worked well for me several years ago in my 75 gallon, so maybe it will work this time too. I'll need to act quick though. Thanks! Yeah probably so. Wishful thinking...

Things have been going well overall for my tank. A few things I will need to address: 1) Aiptasia have started popping up. I found one huge one (at least a couple inches across) and 2 tiny ones so far. The huge one is in one of the worst possible places to get to. I'll have to remove my light fixture to try and Aiptasia-X it. The last time I added anything to the tank was in November last year, so no idea where these guys came from. I guess they can lay dormant for awhile. Is it bad to just rip them out with tweezers? 2) A few of my bubble tip anemones have moved to where they are hitting some coral. I will have to find a way to remove them. I'd like to end up with just 1 red and 1 green left in the tank. 3) Vermetid snails have grown pretty much everywhere. They arn't harming anything yet, just a visual nuisance. Kinda disappointing they have spread so much, considering I was aggressively going after any I saw pop up. I wonder if the way I broadcast feed is contributing to their spread - I have been just melting a few cubes and then pouring them in without turning any pumps off or anything. Other than that, coral growth has been good and fish seem to be very healthy.

It has been awhile....

He didn't make the night. For the female, she is looking healthy and eating normally. Tonight will complete the 4 doses of furan 2, and be 96 hours with the Kana and Metro. Tonight I think I will do a large water change (90-95%) and run carbon on it to remove the antibiotics and just do a Prazi treatment with no antibiotics. So far all the other fish in the main tank are looking fine and acting normally.

Added Prazi this morning and hooked up a few more air pumps. No change in condition yet. I did try feeding him just using a syringe into his mouth but that didn't work. I have something that I think will work as a feed tube so I'm going to go ahead and try to force feed him as a last ditch effort. Edit. Did the forced feeding. Used 3 drops of clove oil for 3/4 gallon to sedate him. I couldn't tell if the syringe went all the way to his stomach or not but it was pretty deep in there. I dosed about a ml of a NLS pellet sludge I made up. Think I've done all I can for now, time will tell if any of this will work!

No change in his condition overnight. I think at lunch I am going to go ahead and dose PraziPro as well. From Sunday afternoon to now there hasn't been any benefits from anitbotics, so I'm guessing now it must be a parasite. From what I can tell using Prazi with antibotics is not encouraged due to the possible lack of oxygen. I have a big air pump running now at about 50% that I can crank up and several more small pumps and air stones I can add. With all that going I think it should be okay. I don't want to kill the female trying to save the male though. Don't think I will try the forced feeding. I don't have a tube or barb that is narrow/rigid like is suggested on the videos. I do have a pippette that I cut the narrow tip off of, but I am concerned that it is sharp and would cut up his insides. I did see some videos online that had just a short syringe tip that was just placed in the fish's mouth and not all the way in the stomach. I may try that.

With the dog it was kind of a freak accident. My dog, Olive, had been playing with coozies for years kind of as a dog toy. Turns out it's really bad if they eat them! The coozie couldn't pass the stomach, but threads were hanging off of it and moved to the intestines and tore them all up. So after that $5K lesson, no more letting Olive play with coozies.

I haven't heard of the forced feeding before. Honestly I just got done having emergency surgery on my dog after she ate a coozie a few weeks ago, so after that bill my Vet budget is nil.

Hes looking the same tonight (not good). I went ahead and did a 25% water change and did the fresh doses of Furan 2, Metro and Kana. Whether or not he survives, I'll continue to do a full treatment of antibiotics then a treatment of prazi on the female incase she has the same thing.

Yeah I tried nori that was soaked with some chopped up garlic yesterday morning but it didn't work.

No I didn't post on the national forums, but I did some googling the other day and there are a few other cases where triggers stop eating. The responses came to the same conclusions as we came to here, either bacterial infection, parasitic infection, collected with cyanide or being harassed. We can eliminate the last two causes, these guys have been in captivity for years, and they weren't being harassed in the tank. That leaves only the bacterial infections or parasitic infections. I think I went about the treatment in the right way. Treating a possible bacterial infection first, since there are some minor signs of a possible infection, while there are no obvious signs of parasites. We'll see if he is still kicking when I get back home tonight, I haven't given up yet even though prognosis is not good.

Things are not looking good No interest in foods what-so-ever, and is having trouble staying upright. Sorry for the bad video, but you'll get the idea.

Did the 2nd dose of Furan 2 tonight. No change in the Trigger's eating habits. Seems uninterested in food in general today. I'm going to pick up some more feeder shrimps and try to hand feed him tomorrow. Video is me feeding a bit of LFR food. This was after trying krill and few pellets. .

I have dosed the metroplex, kanaplex and Furan2. I bought some ghost shrimp today while at river city. While the female was merking the shrimp left and right, the male was only lazily going after them. I ended up grabbing a couple with some tweezers and hand feeding the male. I took a video of the 2nd shrimp I hand fed him. Not sure if he really ate any or not.

Cool, thanks for the help with this. I ran to river city and picked up some KanaPlex. Kana seems to be used more with Mextroplex than Sulfa & Metro together, so I will go with whats known to be okay together.

Just making sure I understand correctly, you used the mix of antibiotics at the same time? So I could use the Furan 2, Metroplex and Sulfaplex all at once.

I got both the male and female out of the tank and into a quarantine tank. On up-close inspection of the male, he has a super slight haze in his eyes. It looks like it could be from rubbing against the glass, or perhaps a early stage of eye clouding. I am going to start with a antibiotic treatment in a few hours. I will then follow up with a PraziPro treatment afterwards. Any advice on what to use? I bought Furan-2, SulfaPlex and Metroplex yesterday. I am leaning towards Furan-2 mainly because it says it treats fin & tail rot and eye cloud on the box. I noticed on the metroplex it says to mix with food, which would be a challenge considering he is not eating.

No luck with the fish trap today. The trigger was swimming around more and tried to eat both pellets and krill, but seems to be spitting it out after its been in his mouth.

I won't separate them. I failed at getting the male out yesterday, he wouldn't even come out of his hiding place for more than a few seconds. Going to try again in a little bit. The female should be pretty easy to grab with some food.

Intestinal worms. I'd almost catch it out and just put it through some proactive treatments since we have no idea what may be the issue. I've heard of fish going through hunger strikes but this fish has been captive for years prior to your tank. Yes, I guess I probably need to try and get him out of the tank and start some treatments. I don't know if it shows up well in the video, but he does have a small tear on his dorsal fin and top tip of his tail fin. I figured it was from him hiding in the rock like he likes to do at night, but thinking about it now make me wonder if it could be a bacterial infection? Would PraziPro be a good medication to start with?

Any white stringy poop? No, not that I have observed. What would white stringy poop be an indicator of?