fungus on pectoral fin/any in tank treatment?

[mappa]

I have a fairly new 90 gallon set-up (go into details later) with a Disjardini that had a fair sized (1/4”) white fungus like patch on his pectoral fin. I later (couple days) noticed a smaller one on my Majestic Angel’s pectoral as well (see pictures). There are other fish with no signs of illness yet and for now it would be difficult to do a quarantine tank as recommended. I have considered lowering the salinity to 1.015, right now I use Scripps natural sea water. I also have considered getting a fair (50 gallons) of sea water, heating to tank temps. And flushing with fresh sea water at my already 1.026. Here are the pictures and I will go into more details later as I do some of the basic water tests and see if anything is high. Pictures are very faint, but they are fuzzy white with blotches that are a little thicker in the field. Fish are eating garlic dipped sea weed and Ocean Nutrition Formula 2.

[mappa]

The tank is a FOWLR, new set up using live rock, live sand and partially old filtration and partially new...it is stocked fairly heavy for being a new tank (rookie mistake), I was trying to prevent aggression. There is a 5-6" Mappa, 6" Foxface, 4-5" Yellow Tang, 3" Huma huma, 1" Damsel, 3-4" Majestic and a 6-7" Disjardini.

[leebca]

The fish are in a much-too-small tank and thus under a considerable amount of stress. With stress comes a whole list of things that can and do go wrong. Some are chronic, happening over a long period of time, others are acute, displaying symptoms in a short time. Even if you find your current water quality 'good' there is nothing to say that is has good times and bad times. This would be a chronic stressor. Also, there are other things to consider with regards to water quality: What is Water Quality including equipment choices, maintenance, having the proper filtration, and keeping the water properly balanced with alkalinity, magnesium, and calcium.

I cannot clearly see the 'fungus' you mention. So, the diagnosis is still up to you. However, all the things you're thinking of doing have no affect on fungal infections, so if you are right about it being a fungus, what you're planning or thinking of doing will give no help for the fish.

In order to choose a path forward, we need to get a better idea of the problem, give it as best a diagnosis as we can, then apply an appropriate treatment.

I will need better photos to help you with diagnosis. However you can also look on the Internet at photos of fishes with the disease known as Lymphocystis. The reason I suggest doing this is that many hobbyists think their fish have a fungal infection, when it is really a viral infection that looks similar.

Lymph looks like clumps of white cauliflower. Fungus is definitely fuzzy. However other diseases look like fungal infections. In fact, fungal infections are rare, but the other diseases that look like them are more common.

No matter what, the time has come to reduce the stress on your fish. The 90 gallon is not suitable for large fishes, especially ANY Tang or Rabbittfish over 3" in length. They have to be moved out as soon as you can.

The 90 gallon is not suitable for any of the large Angelfishes that are past their juvenile stage. Right now that Majestic belongs in a 180 gallon or larger. The Angels and Tangs and Rabbitfishes need a lot of swimming space.

The 90 is only good for a Trigger that is less than 4" long. So for a short time the Trigger can stay, but it will need a new home before the end of this year, IF you are feeding it properly.

The fishes we desire and are attracted to are sometimes the fishes we can't really care properly for. Don't worry about making these errors, we've all been there. But the kind of hobbyist you are will be determined by how you will correct those errors. You should read this and start finding new homes for those fishes (now that you understand why they are displaying problems): Fish Stocking Limit - for FO and FOWLR

Rethink the fishes you want to keep and then get the aquarium system that is proper for them or choose other fishes that fit the system you have.

We're here to help, if you care to post more photos. If you decide it is Lymph, then reducing the stress on the fish is the best cure. There is no treatment to cure fish of Lymph other than to remove/reduce stressors and improve diet.

[mappa]

Lee, I appreciate your opinions and facts and will have to differ on a few of your comments. My Majestic is more like 2 1/2" and the others slightly smaller, I might have overestimated their sizes a little. I have noticed aggression from the Yellow Tang directed at these two fish and the Foxface (it is actually a Spotted Foxface, smallest of the Rabbitfish group) and have a better feeling this is the ONLY stress going on in my tank at the moment. Even at that, it seems they are holding up to the Yellow Tang better, but the initial attacks might have caused fin damage equating to the openness to infection. After testing, water quality is above good for a FOWLR (not as good as my reef tank). Their food is a variety of the best frozen and dry foods I can obtain based on a fairly extensive research into this. The only thing is the garlic is in question, but I have no reason to believe it is harmful. All of these fish (except the tangs and foxface) came from much smaller tanks for an extended period of time with observation on health. The other group (tangs & foxface) came in as part of a trade and had initially grew up together, so I figured their aggression would subside a little.
I do have plans to remove one of the tangs, the foxface and damsel, but the others will stay as long as this size tank can support their needs (this is where I have a difference of opinion). With that said, the slow growing Huma huma, the smaller Angel (smallest of the larger Angels) and one of the Tangs I believe will be fine for a while. The Mappa's growth will most likely be the first to force a larger tank and I believe this group will have very little impact on each other with proper water changes and diet..my opinion again.
Maybe I am stubborn?, but I do still take your advice seriously and think you have a lot of great information on here Lee. I have kept and bred many freshwater fish and many reptiles over the last 20 years and salt water is a whole new thing for me to learn and understand. I tried a reef tank over 15 years ago when everything was DIY and have fiddled with a reef tank for the past year before getting my first tank dedicated to fish. For the remainder of the fish I plan to keep (Mappa, Majestic, Huma and Tang..say the Disjardini), what size tank would you specify?

[leebca]

Thanks for your compliments. What may be missing is the 'why' I made such comments. It comes from my knowledge about detecting fish stress, and how humans cannot detect it very well.

Embark on a mission to learn more about stress. What we humans see is less than the tip of a deep iceberg of stress. For a better understanding these two posts are a good start:
Stress (and the Single Marine Fish)
and
Stress - A More Technical Discussion

Your fish are under considerable stress and that's a fact. I can prove it if you are willing to take their blood samples and have it analyzed. I have done experiments regarding stress and find the one common factor that never lies is blood chemistries. Thus, I don't think comments I make about what makes for stressors as opinion. You might think this is opinion, not knowing what I have tested, experimented and researched.

I wish to politely say that what humans observe is meaningless when it comes to what is or is not stressing a marine fish. So your observations don't persuade me when I have evidence of how fish react to stressors, one being space, to the contrary. The subtleties of stress expressions are extensive. For instance, fish-to-fish expressions are subtle but can be detected by the discerning human eye on occasion: Sometimes all a fish does is give another fish 'a look.' At other times, the body movement or just positioning is all it takes. Sometimes just a timely raising of the dorsal fin is all it takes. Humans can easily pick up on a fish being chased to a corner, or being attacked, but I can assure you that such events are at the very 'end of the line' stress indicators. That is, the real stress begins before these things are seen by the human eye.

Other times all seem well, until the fish blood is analyzed to find the fish is stressed. The stress is identified, removed and the blood test shows the fish not under stress. The 'stress' can be a component in the water we can't measure with our test kits; one or more that we can; space; nutrition; competition; and tankmates. These are the ones I worked with.

Humans have little idea on how animals communicate (to each other and to humans) when they are in the water -- even chemical and electrical signals are sent! (How can we 'see' these?) But a fish communicating its stress directly to a human is almost non-existent. What humans do see is disease, injury, and overt strange behavior, but nothing that leads up to these 'end of the line' stress indicators. Fish communicate to each other when the stressor is other fish and sometimes the environment, but they don't clearly signal to a human when the water quality is slightly off, or space is short. When water quality gets pretty bad (death, strange overt behavior, etc.) or a chronic condition develops with time, then we can see it manifest itself in different ways (disease, infection, opportunistic infections (fungus), lymph, not eating, etc.). The definitive measurements are blood chemistries, when it comes to determining fish stress. You are free (of course) to disbelieve me and the research and just go by your own anecdotal observations. Most hobbyists take your position -- I don't see it, so it doesn't exist. Some hobbyists do note behavior indicative of space stress such as fish 'pacing' now and then, or fish when settling down for the night, getting 'restless' as opposed to calmly finding their sleeping place, and more times than 'usual' during a day the fish coloration will change to dark (especially at feeding time). These are very subtle space signals (after tankmate issues are eliminated), over the more obvious territorial behaviors and tankmate mismatches.

If you'd like to discuss this further in this thread, we need to be on the same page with information. You need to do reading and your own research if you'd like to update your own opinion. As an aside, the differences between freshwater and marine fishes is so wide that when it comes to space, the two aren't comparable.

If you have not given accurate fish sizes, then my recommendations are not applicable regarding the specific fish, however the general statements are more than applicable to the species.

The 8" Desjardini needs about a 500 gallon aquarium, or one that is about 10 feet long would be okay, assuming water volume was over 300 at a depth of no less than 24 inches. So, I would move the 7" one you have now into that tank very soon. For sizing the rest, you can find my recommendations as I previously linked: Fish Stocking Limit - for FO and FOWLR.

[mappa]

"fish length - Measuring from the tip of the mouth (‘nose’) to the base of the tail, not including the tail. The base of the tail area is known as the caudal peduncle."
With this said, take another inch off my fish as all my measurements where tail included. My Disjardini would be about 4" based on this measurement. I originally threw out there sizes to get the post off and not as concerned with their sizes over finding out what the actual disease was.

I would like to happily say, my fish are better with nothing done. I think they where wounds from the yellow tang that developed a small infection on the wounds and the yellow tang has calmed down after establishing himself.

I would never put my fish through the stress of netting out to draw blood unless doing some form of study. If you are going this far, then why not make all fish that can not breed in captivity, not suitable for any aquarium. Considering that breeding is natural and if not possible then there are other issues going on, they must be suffering stress as well.

I have read all of your articles/posts and you are very informative. Thanks for the time.