Snarknose Goby Disease

[JHitch]

Hello everyone, this is my first saltwater aquarium, and actually my first fish. I have had him for a few days and something is wrong. I’m familiar with freshwater systems and instantly thought ick. Now I’m not sure as it could be lymphocystis or velvet. He is the only fish in a 32 gallon tank, but he does share the tank with sexy dancer shrimp and hermit crabs. 
 

I’m looking for a confirmation on his diagnosis and maybe some recommendations for treatment. 
 

thank you in advance!

[empresto]

Will probably need a picture of the fish for anyone to really help with a diagnosis.  If treating with meds, need to move the fish to a tank that will never hold coral.

[banasophia]

Yes, please see if you can get some pics so we can see what’s going on and try to help. 🤗

[filefishfinatic]

5 hours ago, JHitch said:

Hello everyone, this is my first saltwater aquarium, and actually my first fish. I have had him for a few days and something is wrong. I’m familiar with freshwater systems and instantly thought ick. Now I’m not sure as it could be lymphocystis or velvet. He is the only fish in a 32 gallon tank, but he does share the tank with sexy dancer shrimp and hermit crabs. 
 

I’m looking for a confirmation on his diagnosis and maybe some recommendations for treatment. 
 

thank you in advance!

fw dip 

[JHitch]

I attached a photo and now I do not see it. Here are a few more

[banasophia]

Aww poor lil fish. 😢 Let’s see if we tag @Humblefish if he’s available to help. 🙏 

[Humblefish]

That’s most likely Ich: https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/402060-marine-ich-fish-disease-information/

[DaJMasta]

Certainly looks like ich or velvet to me.  I recently had a sharknose with ich and did the tank transfer method (as described at humble.fish) in a 2 gallon bucket with a sponge filter and a heater.  Fed him every day, changed containers when instructed, he's been ich free for a while now.

 

The bigger problem will have to be that to be sure the tank isn't harboring ich, you will have a longer wait time until you can reintroduce him or introduce any other fish.

[filefishfinatic]

ick prob do fw dip. dont get fish for a month and it could probably cure itself if you make sure the fish isnt stressed and it gets fw dips 

[Tired]

37 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

ick prob do fw dip. dont get fish for a month and it could probably cure itself if you make sure the fish isnt stressed and it gets fw dips 

Bad advice. Freshwater dips can be a useful way to initially knock some parasite load off a fish, but repeated dips are very stressful and won't kill off the infection. Ich can sometimes be managed with healthy fish and very good diet, velvet is usually lethal without treatment. And it takes way longer than a month for most diseases to die off in the tank, even if the fish was entirely removed and the tank left fallow. 

[JHitch]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts! I did a 3.5 min freshwater dip last night and this morning the fish is 90% better. Not sure if this is actually possible but visually I can see the difference. I have a UV sterilizer coming today and I may do another dip tomorrow or Friday. I am limited in what I can do as I have shrimp, crabs as well as clown fish in this tank. It is a new tank. I do not have a cycled quarantine tank available.

 

thanks again!

[DaJMasta]

Generally speaking, cycling is not necessarily a thing for quarantine tanks.  You take fresh saltwater and put it in with a sponge/hob filter, and you provide some hiding spaces.  Bacteria will develop with time, but especially with the tank transfer method, you explicitly start with only clean, dry equipment to transfer into and rely on the volume of water to dilute and keep the ammonia down until the next transfer (though something like prime or another ammonia/nitrite reducer can help with this).

 

I'm glad you fish is seeing some relief, but this could have nothing to do with the dip and could actually just be a different lifecycle stage of the ich, and in either case, your fish is not cured, a dip is a temporary treatment. https://humble.fish/freshwater-dip/

[Tired]

You might consider starting to set up a QT, in case the disease comes back. It's likely that all the fish in the tank are infected, so you might need to treat them all, depending on what disease that is. 

[Humblefish]

@JHitch Did you see any flukes drop off during the freshwater dip? https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/402275-flukes-fish-disease-information/

 

Freshwater dips will also provide temp relief for Brooklynella & Velvet.

[JHitch]

I did not. I have done it three times. After the second they were “gone” now they are back. Sadly I have started to treat the tank with reef medic.

[filefishfinatic]

On 9/1/2021 at 8:40 AM, JHitch said:

Thank you everyone for your thoughts! I did a 3.5 min freshwater dip last night and this morning the fish is 90% better. Not sure if this is actually possible but visually I can see the difference. I have a UV sterilizer coming today and I may do another dip tomorrow or Friday. I am limited in what I can do as I have shrimp, crabs as well as clown fish in this tank. It is a new tank. I do not have a cycled quarantine tank available.

 

thanks again!

get a diatom filter and use formalin/copper. feed it food enriched with fish oil or live whiteworms or baby brine shrimp. it will be better like that (i am snapping in real life) 

[Tired]

All effective ich treatments that can be dosed into the tank are harmful to invertebrates, and as such should not be dosed into a tank with inverts. 

[Humblefish]

22 hours ago, JHitch said:

I did not. I have done it three times. After the second they were “gone” now they are back. Sadly I have started to treat the tank with reef medic.

This is basically the same thing as using Medic but cheaper: https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/peroxide-h2o2-dosing-for-parasites-in-reef-tank.725/

[mcarroll]

Too many unasked questions to be this far into the thread.

 

Is this fish eating?  If so, what and how much?

 

How is his behavior?  Seems like he must be out and about a lot to get the pics I'm seeing.  Does he seem stressed?

 

Fish get diseases not due to the presence of the disease vector, but due to their own susceptibility....which is caused by stressors like being handled, being with other sick fish (high number of free swimming parasites), being in a brand new tank (unstable chemistry), etc.

 

If the fish is still eating and acting fairly well and those stressors that caused the problem can be removed, then the fish will heal on its own using its immune system.  A few freshwater dips can help as long as catching the fish is fairly easy and low stress.   (Chasing the fish around the tank for an hour with a net isn't going to help anyone's stress levels.)

 

Last, is your UV filter online yet?  Make sure it's running at "maximum kill" level....this might mean a lower flow rate for the unit depending on what brand you have.  Use the lowest recommended flow rate if that's the case.

 

You need to do something (UV, diatom/micron filter, reef-safe chem like Ruby Reef's products, etc.) to cut the number of "swarmers" in the water down close to zero.  Take multiple approaches if possible.  E.g.  UV and micron filtration; UV, micron and chem; etc.   (Although it's about "velvet" which is only similar to "ich", this is a good read:  Velvet (Amyloodinium) infections in fish can easily be avoided.)