Penny Watch 2009 - Day One

I am in the middle of a very interesting new adventure. The other day, I was at the LFS, when I was approached by my new friend who works there. He said that he had a sick fish that he thought was going to die if it stayed at the LFS. But, it is a sick fish, so he can’t exactly sell it. He offered to give me the fish for free, as long as I tried to nurse it back to health. If it gets healthy, I get a free fish, and if it dies, we aren’t any worse off than if I didn’t take it from him. So, I took it.

One of the reasons I was the one he approached about it was that he knows I have a quarantine tank (QT) that is kept in relatively good condition. Obviously, with this being a sick fish, it needs to be quarantined.

The type of fish is a Copperband Butterflyfish. So, I decided to name it “Penny”. Hence the name of this post – Penny Watch 2009. I will regularly update here on Penny’s condition, and hopefully document some of the trials and tribulations of nursing a sick fish. I will hopefully get to take pictures every couple of days to document the condition of the illness… ah, yes… the illness…

It appears that Penny has Lymphocystis. It is a virus, which has no direct cure. Fish immune systems can combat the virus, as long as they are in high quality water and are eating well. This is a particular problem with Copperbands, in general, because they do not easily acclimate from the wild to captivity. Also, the virus weakens the immune system, making the fish more likely to contract other illnesses like bacterial infections, fungal infections, or parasites. For more information on Lymphocystis, in general, you can check out the following articles:

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/Lawler_Lymphocystis.html
http://www.vet.uga.edu/VPP/clerk/Kurkjian/index.php

The cysts are white bumps that grown on the skin or fins of the fish. On Penny, the Lymphocystis seems isolated to one of the fins, which is good because I can watch closely to see if it spreads, contracts, or stays about the same.

We’ll consider this to be Day One of Penny Watch 2009. So far, Penny has eaten a few times. It seemed to like brine shrimp the most. It also poked at some nori (yes, the sushi sheets – it’s good vegetation for fish). The mysis I fed it today were not as popular as the brine shrimp, however it did seem to eat one or two morsels.

As far as treatment goes, I am doing everything I can. Frequent feedings (twice a day), frequent water changes to keep water quality up (once every 3-4 days, as opposed to once every two weeks), etc. I am also dosing medications - an antibacterial and an antifungal treatment. I know that Lymphocystis is a virus, but I'm worried that Penny's immune system is weakened, so they are just precautionary medications.

For now, we will end this fairly lengthy post with some photos:

A truly beautiful fish - a Copperband Butterflyfish aka "Penny". Right now, Penny measures approximately 1.5 to 2 inches across.

I really hope that this fish pulls through.

I know this picture is fuzzy, but you can kind of see the cysts on its fin. It's the white spots.

Still not perfect, but a much clearer image of the cysts on Penny's fin.