After the Fishocalypse, fish ready?

[Treefer32]

So, a few months ago, back in late March, I lost 14 out of 19 fish to electro shock therapy. Heater malfunctioned, didn't heat up the water, but had enough electricity going through the display that the fish became weak to all different types of parasites and diseases. I don't know if any 2 fish died of the same signs and symptoms.

Some had purple discoloration around the gills, others had no signs of damage, and some had white eyes, and the list goes on.

I have 3 fish now that survived and are doing fine for the last month. The tank has settled out with the scrubber slowing down in production and the tank slowly having the algae accumulation dieing off now. I feel like it's at a turning point. I've added a dozen new corals and they appear to be all doing very well. I watched my 3 remaining fish tonight for an hour and they seem to be at the most peaceful they've ever been. Just casually grazing on algae all over the tank, and casually swimming.

How do I know whether the parasites / diseases that spread through the fish I had, are done and for lack of a better word, burnt out. And won't restart with the addition of new fish? I'd like to have more than 3 fish in a 350g display.

I have remainng a Dragon Wrasse (was the first fish and has survived everything!), Black Tang, and a Fox Face Rabbit fish. The tang is 3-4 years old was in a different tank for over a year (not mine). And the Rabbit fish is close to 4 years old (also from a different tank, different from the tang). The foxface and tang constantly swim together. They seem to get along well.

I just don't want to disrupt the peace and any potential diseases, if these fish are immune to whatever pests were in the tank when the electricity went through it, does that mean the parasites and/or diseases are just dormant now, waiting for weak fish that aren't immune? The fox face even had, what I was pretty sure were flukes, pretty bad. Had several leisions while the bad heater was on and about 2 weeks after the heater was replaced. Now though, I'm happy to report, all his leisions have healed and no signs of flukes that I can see anywhere on him. He was in pretty rough shape, but recovered fully.

Does that mean that flukes and worse are still alive in the tank waiting for the next weak fish? How do I test or validate if there's still bad creepy crawly's?

 

[Mjrenz]

So, a few months ago, back in late March, I lost 14 out of 19 fish to electro shock therapy. Heater malfunctioned, didn't heat up the water, but had enough electricity going through the display that the fish became weak to all different types of parasites and diseases. I don't know if any 2 fish died of the same signs and symptoms.

Some had purple discoloration around the gills, others had no signs of damage, and some had white eyes, and the list goes on.

I have 3 fish now that survived and are doing fine for the last month. The tank has settled out with the scrubber slowing down in production and the tank slowly having the algae accumulation dieing off now. I feel like it's at a turning point. I've added a dozen new corals and they appear to be all doing very well. I watched my 3 remaining fish tonight for an hour and they seem to be at the most peaceful they've ever been. Just casually grazing on algae all over the tank, and casually swimming.

How do I know whether the parasites / diseases that spread through the fish I had, are done and for lack of a better word, burnt out. And won't restart with the addition of new fish? I'd like to have more than 3 fish in a 350g display.

I have remainng a Dragon Wrasse (was the first fish and has survived everything!), Black Tang, and a Fox Face Rabbit fish. The tang is 3-4 years old was in a different tank for over a year (not mine). And the Rabbit fish is close to 4 years old (also from a different tank, different from the tang). The foxface and tang constantly swim together. They seem to get along well.

I just don't want to disrupt the peace and any potential diseases, if these fish are immune to whatever pests were in the tank when the electricity went through it, does that mean the parasites and/or diseases are just dormant now, waiting for weak fish that aren't immune? The fox face even had, what I was pretty sure were flukes, pretty bad. Had several leisions while the bad heater was on and about 2 weeks after the heater was replaced. Now though, I'm happy to report, all his leisions have healed and no signs of flukes that I can see anywhere on him. He was in pretty rough shape, but recovered fully.

Does that mean that flukes and worse are still alive in the tank waiting for the next weak fish? How do I test or validate if there's still bad creepy crawly's?

If there were any parasites in your tank then they are still there. The only way you can eradicate them from your system is with a fallow period (no fish in the tank) for 76 days. Some parasites take longer to starve out than others and ich takes the longest at 76 days with the exception of uronema which cannot be eradicated. The only way to prevent them from being reintroduced is by implementing a strict qt process for all new arrivals
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fallow-periods-going-fishless.190324/
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/thread-links-to-all-things-quarantine-fish-inverts.602917/

 

[Treefer32]

Yeah, I get that, I don't know that fallow periods help with anything but Ich do they? I don't know if I even had any ich. Heh. I suspect uronema given that the deaths started with anthias. From there it's hard to say, if it was organ failure from shock therapy, bacterial infections, flukes, or other things.

 

[Mjrenz]

The only parasite that can't be starved out by a fallow period is uronema. I'm sure the broken heater didn't help anything

 

[Mariette]

While we’re talking about going fallow, have a look at this horrifying article. I was 1/2 way done my 76 days of fallow when I came across it and had to pull the substrate and start again.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/why-a-fallow-period-will-sometimes-fail.536167/#post-5546152

 

[Treefer32]

Ha. That's horrible. A lot of people say to QT everything. I've done QT in the past. And I'll be honest and say that The QT was harder on the fish than what it was worth. I had more fish refuse to eat in the QT. And there's no natural food to eat in a QT. In the display with established rocks and established substrate, there's pods, and abundance of things to nip at and provide sustenance until a feeding reaction of frozen or other foods is taken. I've also noticed a pattern of group behavior. Usually 1 or 2 of my fish would agressively eat whatever i Put in the display. This triggered new fish and others, also to ehibit the same feeding behavior. They learned from a communal evnvironment when, where, and how to eat. This promoted the fish's overall health and growth, whereas they wouldn't have the opportunities to learn these behaviors in a QT. Plus, treating for diseases using Copper, hyposalinity (only works on some versions of ich) can be done incorrectly and/or the preciseness of measuring tools in the hobby is insufficient to not screw something up. I know there's a dozen arguements for QT, and the reasons for it outweigh not.

I look at this situation I was in. If I Had QT'd the fish for 90 days (which is what I used to do), then, put them into the display. And the heater was malfunctioning, I would have had the same end result. Or very similar results. For me, the issue is the failure in equipment vs. sufficient QT. Heater malfunctions, probe malfunctions, power outage, return pump goes out, powerheads quit working. Etc. There's a lot of detriment in making sure the equipment all functions properly on the display to maintain stable parameters. Which, in turn, provides a healthy environment for the fish.