White growths on rescued maroon clownfish?

We rescued a mated pair of maroon clowns from a majorly algae infested tank -- Penn is the large female and Teller is the little male. We can't remember if Penn had the beginnings of these growths when we rescued her, but they've been spreading. We've been keeping them in a QT tank until we scrubbed the algae tank and got it back up running. She's still got the appetite of a starving dog and does not seem to be bothered by it. We treated the tank with copper.

The parameters in the QT tank are:
Ph 7.0 (wow, good thing we just tested this for this post!!! We'll be fixing the PH, but we don't think it's related to Penn's weird growths...? maybe it is)
Nitrite 0
Nitrates 20
KH 240
GH 180
Salinity 1.023

See pics for weirdness. Apologize if fuzzy, but she's really wiggly!

 

Do they look like a type of fluke?

I would hazard to guess it's probably a parasite of some sort.

How did you treat the tank for copper?

 

Googling fluke now! Never heard of it. We also think it might be some kind of parasite. or...hole in the head? Lymph? Brook? :*(

Our awesome LFS gave us some Coppersafe to treat the tank with. After the first dose of Coppersafe, the white growth retreated into her head. We thought, wow, awesome, we got it! Then a few days later it was back and there were TWO growths culminating in what you see in the pics. We have been doing frequent water changes on the QT tank with water from our 90g display tank (that water is near perfect all the time).

When we rescued her she had large spots -- kinda like freckles on her -- and she had some fin rot. That all seems to be getting better, now this. Poor girl! We suspect their previous owner was just waiting for the algae to take over the tank and the fish to die. Very sad.

 

I do not believe it's Lymphotosis or Brookynella. Please go to the end of this link to view fluke like parasites.

Marine Fish Diseases and Parasites

 

Well I haven't had this

 

But here is my plan for what I would do first go to the food section and bump up his diet as in buying rods food soaking it in selcon then freezing it in garlic guard. And every few days try to give him some live brine with selcon for a treat if possible. Next is medications, btw how big is your qt, if copper safe helped alittle it is probably a parisite so go online or to your Lfs and get some medication for treating parisites like erythromycin and treat your maroon. This should help quickly and effectively good luck. Ps clown fish are quite odd, like last week my white strip maroon lost his first strip and 2 days later he had a gold front strip !! So remember anything can happen just be ready

 

Yes! I have been to that site many times in the last week, trying to figure out this strangeness! Thanks for the reference though as there are so many fish sites out there, it is sometimes hard to sort through them all.

Our QT tank is very small -- 10 gal -- because we never thought we'd have to quarantine more than one fish! I am worried Penn is getting a little cabin fever in there and we hope that the tank they were in will finish it's cycling soon so we can get them back in it.

I am remembering the order of things now. Penn had the freckles and fin rot first, then the first white growth started, then he seemed to be getting some mouth rot. That's when we dosed the tank with copper. After the copper treatment, the mouth rot went away, and the white growth seemed like it was going away -- shrunk down to a bulls-eye looking thing (flat, with a dot in the center). Then few days later, popped up again and second growth started. We dosed the tank with smaller copper dose after doing a few water changes but it doesn't seem to be doing anything now.

As of today, it seems the first growth is burrowing deeper almost like a hole is forming in her head.

We've been dosing the food with garlic and sometimes Metro-something (can't remember the name at the moment). Maybe we need something stronger....

 

What about a methylene blue dip? Anyone have any experience with this?

 

Just want to update everyone in case other people have this. Surprise surprise, it was definitely the bad pH that caused Penn to get these growths. We started treating the pH right away with 8.4 and Penn's growths started shrinking. We didn't realize the addition of copper would strip the pH so much and we also didn't check the water parameters as often as we should have in the QT tank. Again - putting this all up for other's reference.

LFS said, yeah, that'll do it. Even 2 points change in pH for a fish is akin to a human naked on the beach in 100 degree weather and being instantly transported to the Arctic!

Penn & Teller are both back in their rescued and clean home tank and loving it! Thanks for the thoughts!