Lympho on Auriga

[marquesalan]

I finally figured out that my Auriga Butterflyfish has Lympho! She is eating like a pig and very active. I have heard dozens of suggestions on how to rid of this. One was to use Melafix and keep the water quality up and it will disappear. Two is to add Maracyn 2 since it is a bacterial infection and third to scrap the growth off. Can I just improve the water quality and wait it out? Does Melafix really work on this?

[Alastair]

Lymphocystis is in fact not a bacterial infection, but rather a viral infection. As such, antibiotics such as Maracyn 2 will be ineffective against it, as I suspect would be Melafix. The virus is roughly analagous with warts in humans, and except in rare instances where it affects an area of the fish that inhibits feeding, breathing, etc, is non-lethal. In most cases, under good water conditions, a healthy diet, and minimal additional stress factors, fish will recover from lymphocystis on their own. It's not uncommon for recently imported marine specimens to exhibit this infection. Moe has speculated that it is caused by stress from capture, handling, and adjustment to aquarium life may reduce the fishes immune system and thus render them especially susceptible to it; my own experience handling recently shipped fish has led me to suspect that stress due to salinity fluctuation during shipment (e.g. the tendency of wholesalers and lfs to employ hyposalinity in the hopes of reducing ich outbreaks) may be a major causitive factor.

Recently some have speculated that acyclovir (an antiviral) may be effective when swabbed on the hypertrophied cells, but to the best of my knowledge this is unproven. In short, the best approach is to do nothing; keep the fish happy and healthy otherwise and it should clear up over time (may take several months, IME). I would not surgically remove the infected areas unless they pose a clearly immediate risk to the fish (i.e. on the mouth preventing feeding) as this will simply open the fish to secondary infection and may liberate viral material into the tank.

Thats my .02, anyway.