Uronema Marinum will ruin your day

zibba

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I have been treating some sick zebra swallowtail angelfish that are showing signs of uronema. I can't be positive that's what it is, but I'm treating with kanaplex, bifuran, & metro as outlined by @Humblefish / hedgedrew. I've been mixing the metro into food but the male stopped eating a few days ago so I've been dosing the tank with it as well.

Seems that the red spot is going away slowly on the male but he has not started eating yet. I'll be doing another water change tonight before doing the 4th dose...fingers crossed that it goes away soon so I can strip the medicine and get the fish eating again. It's always a fine line with medicating fish.

Hopefully you find something that works!
 

Travisz

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I haven't dealt with this bacteria but I know for sure when you use formalin its best to treat the fish in a smaller container and super oxygenate the water with a bubble and give them just a dip basically
 

Val Shebeko

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This is by far the worst thing I've delt with. I'm no newbie either.

Anybody care to discuss this jacked up ciliate parasite and it's fission reproduction.

I have yet to get a good school of blue/green Chromis. They always come in with it. I've tried 37% Formalin and Copper at a therapeutic level and it seems to be nearly resistant to everything.

Anybody care to share their experiences specifically with the blue/green Chromis? I feel that it may just be that these little fish are just weak and can't tolerate treatment well. They go down one by one usually until there is only one left. I think buy this time the formalin takes affect. 24 hours later. I usually do a good dip first, and then put them in the QT with maintenance dose. I'm fixing to try another batch of fish. I've been buying 7-10 at $4.99 each and loosing most of them. I tired other treatments as well. I think I may hyper-oxygenate the water with this next batch. Kinda wondering if the Formalin is depleting the oxygen too much. I've never had it affect any other fish though. Same tank...same doses. I've also noticed the UM seems to be very resistant to even doubled the recommended doses of 37% Formalin. Snorvich seems to discourage anybody from even keeping this species. So I'm assuming he knows just how difficult they are to cure from UM. One thing is for sure, you don't want to get this junk in your DT. I'm buying them where I know it's already in the system so I can experiment with treating it. Ohh and BTW...I've already done a skin scrap and scoped it. It's definitely Uronema.


UV in smaller tank so that water goes through 4 or 5 times and hour through as strong a UV as possible. Or hang a couple of UV's. Any thing in the water gets cooked. After a couple of week everything will be cool. The fish thst die right away were gonners anyway. Get a refund.
 

lpslover

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Thankfully have never dealt with this parasite, but chromis have always been my favorites. At first they would all drop dead the day I got them. What worked well for me and resulted in 90% of them doing awesome was to start treating them like uber fragile fish. They are not your average damsels. I started sticking them in a reef gently acclimate, adding a standard dose of methylene blue and stress guard to the starting water and running the approximately two hour slow drip acclimation. The methylene blue is a nice topical antiseptic, it reduces stress by darkening the water and allowing the fish to feel protected so it can calm down, and most importantly, because it changes the way hemoglobin behaves it helps reverse hypoxia and nitrate poisoning. Literally went from 90% fatality with a 1hr bucket drip acclimation, no dips or medicines, to a 50/50 rate by adding methylene blue to the starting water, and finally a 90% survival doing the above. Replicated this a few times with multiple tanks and various suppliers. I've come to the conclusion that they are really prone to hypoxia and stress induced shock. So possibly hitting them with formalin etc immediately is counterproductive with this fish? Maybe a QT with methylene blue, stress guard, some plastic plants, a UV sterilizer, metronidazole laced food daily, and small daily H2O changes would give you the best chance of having the fish survive long enough to clear the parasites?
 

SammiMitch

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I bought 5 of them and one by one they started going down. And I'm very new to saltwater tanks. I thought my cycle just hadn't kick in...glad I know it wasn't entirely my fault. I had a lone survivor...and in his honor I named him Marcus Luttrell. He's thriving now, never got sick.
 

Fercho

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Here's my two cents:
I have had a 90 gal tank for almost 5 yrs.
Since the begining i bought 3 green/blue cromise.

They have been just fine to today exept 1 that died a year ago but not from the desease mentioned in this post.

In the 5 year tank life i have added two groups of 6 extra cromis to have a nice looking school of them.

The 1st group was added somewhere in the third life year of the tank. That group was fine for the first week to week and a half. And then they started dieing one by one from that wound-like mark on either side.

Eventually they all died exept my 3 original cromis fish. (How could i tell the original from the new? The original were larger. )

I tryied adding a new group a year after because i really wanted a medium to large school of cromise in my 90 gal, but the same story happened. The second group died one by one under the same circumstances as the 1st group.

During both times that i added new cromises i knoticed some aggression from the original 3 towards the two new cromise groups.

I stopped adding new cromise fish because i dont like it when my live stock dies. Didnt want more beautiful fish dieing because is sadening seen them go.

I dont and never treated or quarantined any of the cromis fish. All came from the same store. The two groups and the original 3.

My personal belief or conclution is that they die from the stress caused by the territorial aggression.
If you look closely, the spot that looks like a wound is missing all of the fish scales.
I believe the cause for the missing scales is due to the aggression and nipping from the aggressor.
Leaving an open flesh wound.
I, as well as the coment above form "Triggreef" suspect the wound becomes infected and the fish come to an end.

By the way. Two of the 3 original cromise i bought almost 6 years ago are well, healthy and still kicking.

None of the other species of fish that live in my 90 were ever infected or died during the loss of the two groups that were added a while back.

I apologize for the long post.
Just wanted to include every detail.
Hopefully this helps someone somehow determine whats really causing this beautiful fish die.
 

melypr1985

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I'll be getting in a new group of 50 on wednesday. I'll pay closer attention to them and try to keep track of how many we lose, why and try a few things to see if it helps keep them alive.
 

Humblefish

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vonjankmon

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Copper for three full months works. I was having the same problems getting Chromis from my quarantine tank into my DT. They kept dying from Uromena and it was driving me crazy. I finally found that copper seemed to cure them but within 2-3 days of removing the copper from the tank the out break would be back and I would lose another.

I finally ended up leaving my last two Chromis in the 10G hospital tank with copper for over 90 days. Figured at that point either they were cured or it was never meant to be, removed the copper and waited another three weeks and no symptoms.

They have been in my DT for 6 months or so now and are happy and healthy. One of them still has the scar from Uromena on its forehead but that is the only sign. I have sworn off Chromis after this experience though, no idea why they are so easily affected but it was a crap load of work curing them.
 

Travisz

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It's seems strange too me that so many people find chromis to be fragile fish. I've always had exceptional luck with chromis. To be honest I've never heard of this parasite that you speak of. I've been doing this now for short over four years. And worked a breif time in a live fish store. I guess that goes to show you learn something new every day. Maybe it's the lack of acclimation or poor acclimation that kills thess chromis. Stress is a major factor for new fish and reduction of stress when introducing any fish is the best way to go. Rambling mind blown about chromis
 

caity

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Chromis notoriously do pretty bad in captivity. I have stopped ordering them in because they just drop like flies. They typically have infections and the stress of shipment doesn't help them much. I have 2 in my personal tank and I started with 8.
 

lewis.maryann08

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I bought 6 of them from vivid aquarium and I lost one all the rest are doing great I have had them 2 weeks..
 

Chknsamich

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Pretty sure there is some type of uronema in most system if not all. So dont freak out and go breaking down and bleaching your whole system now. Most tanks have them and doesn't even know .it seems to only attack selected species.

I have tried everything there is so far and nothing works. Metro, formalin, fresh water bath, into CP at 80mg per gallon. The high concentration of CP worked for as long as it was active in the water. As soon as i filter it out the chromis start dropping with the tail tail wounds.
 

zibba

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Not as easy to find as it used to be, but it can still be had (see links below). Also, any vet which specializes in reptiles should have it on hand.

http://www.wchemical.com/tricaine-s-ms-222.html

Scroll down for Finquel here: http://www.pondshop.com/catalog/meds.htm

As always, you deliver. Thank you, sir!

Hopefully I can get it here before the fish starves. Have you ever used clove oil instead?

Seems the redness is going down on the male but the black spot on the female is staying the same. Female is still eating.

Will probably try erythro after one or two more doses of kana/metro/nitrofuran unless you think differently.

Pretty sure there is some type of uronema in most system if not all. So dont freak out and go breaking down and bleaching your whole system now. Most tanks have them and doesn't even know .it seems to only attack selected species.

I have tried everything there is so far and nothing works. Metro, formalin, fresh water bath, into CP at 80mg per gallon. The high concentration of CP worked for as long as it was active in the water. As soon as i filter it out the chromis start dropping with the tail tail wounds.

I wouldn't disagree with this. I know I've introduced it to my main system and lost a bunch of fish during that process. But the outcome has been a stricter QT protocol so that fish going in are healthier and have a strong immune system. Same with ich for me. I have it in the system but the fish rarely show outwardly-visible signs.
 

PaulKreider

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We order them in at the LFS about 25 at a time, they usually drop pretty quit several a day.

When I put 10 in my DT they all quickly dropped 1 by one, definitely looked stress related as they were always quite scared to come out.

I eventually gave the FIJI hand netted chromis a try, which came in much larger than the others I had tried before. But of these still only one survived. He's still in the DT, I want to add more but until somthing gets figured as to how to increase their survivability.

I've QTd them with copper and they seem to stop dropping as fast after a few days. But still very finicky fish.
 

007Bond

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Great thread,...kind like reading a good book that you are looking forward to the happy ending :)
I really want to own some of these fish,...I have a very large system and see others with large tanks that have groups of them. I was aware that they havea tendency to pick each other off, but I didn't know about this seemingly big issue with them.
 
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Reefahholic

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I bought 5 of them and one by one they started going down. And I'm very new to saltwater tanks. I thought my cycle just hadn't kick in...glad I know it wasn't entirely my fault. I had a lone survivor...and in his honor I named him Marcus Luttrell. He's thriving now, never got sick.
Oddly enough, I seem to always have one or two survive each time also. I'm not sure if these fish were saved at the end due to the medication kicking in or if they were more tolerant to the parasite than the others. Either way, most show very little visible symptoms in the LFS or when they start dropping like flies at home. Either way, UM peaks my interest with Chromis more so than any other disease. Brook comes in second as it's very difficult to stop as well.
 
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Reefahholic

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Great thread,...kind like reading a good book that you are looking forward to the happy ending :)
I really want to own some of these fish,...I have a very large system and see others with large tanks that have groups of them. I was aware that they havea tendency to pick each other off, but I didn't know about this seemingly big issue with them.

I'll be getting 15 more soon. Should be coming in this week or next. This time I'm very interested to try some Chromis from a new LFS I found. I'll be documenting the results with video.
 
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