Severum with peeling skin? Ideas?

[TahoeFish]

Hi all.

Six weeks ago I had two red spot severum's sent from a breeder in NYC. After they settled in I notice one of them as some grey areas that look like peeling slime coat. My best description is when you get a sun burn and it starts peeling and then you wear a shirt and sweat, you dead skin will look like what is happening on the sev. Now if I consolidated it all it would be maybe 5 % of his body at most, but it is spread on his body, well behind his head. Fins are not involved. It has not appeared to increase in six weeks. The water stats are ideal. I do a 20% water change every 5 days. He is growing (probably about an inch over six weeks to 3-4 inches) and he eats voraciously, is active, begs for food and etc. I did a full 14 day course of malachite green/formalin (Quick Cure) because the only thing I could come up with was costia or ichthyobodo. No change. No flashing. And, because I don't have a quarantine tank, he is in with others and no other fish has shown signs of this or any other illness. Poops are dark and appear normal and regular. This is the best I can do with photos.

Any ideas? I did post to the emergency section a while back with no response.

 

[pi-eyed]

Possible ammonia burn from shipping? Maybe packed to ship with too much stress coat? I recieved a fire eel that way before. Too much stress coat in the shipping container gave the fire eel too much slime coat. took weeks to get him back into shape(he's fine now).

----Chris

 

[TahoeFish]

Interesting. What I remember is that the fish were in a very small amount of water and there was a bunch of clear/whitish slime in the shipping bags. So your idea makes sense. However, I only use prime as my decholor agent. Wounld I expect to see some improvement in 6 weeks? Is there anything else I can do other than water changes? Thank you for your ideas.

 

[pi-eyed]

Interesting. What I remember is that the fish were in a very small amount of water and there was a bunch of clear/whitish slime in the shipping bags. So your idea makes sense. However, I only use prime as my decholor agent. Wounld I expect to see some improvement in 6 weeks? Is there anything else I can do other than water changes? Thank you for your ideas.

From what you said about the white stuff in the shipping bag, sounds like they over did it with the stress coat.. Continue doing your water changes with prime(good stuff)... If it is a slime coat issue then stay away from using stress coat and aquarium salt. If your sev has excessive slime coat you don't want to add to the problem. It took several weeks for my fire eel to get back to normal..

Hope this helps,
Chris