Baby Steps into Quarantine

Bob Wiley · Sep 30, 2020

DAY 61 — Cloudy water is officially back. Totally bummed out right now. It's been 2 days since treating with GC. Yes, I know prazi only needs 24 hours to do its work, but getting to the 5-7 days mark like @Humblefish and others recommend seems daunting at best. And then I'd need to do another dose!

For the record, here is how I dosed the GC: per the instructions I used 1 whole packet (because I'm dosing 10 gallons) and I just dumped the whole packet right into the tank. I'm not re-dosing after 48 hours like API recommends, but instead waiting 5-7 days, doing a 25%+ water change and then re-dosing.

After dumping in that packet, it looked like a snow globe in the tank for a bit. A lot of the GC particles ended up dusting the bottom of the tank, which is still dusty today. The water started clouding up maybe 24 hours ago, but only got noticeably murky this afternoon/evening.

Firefish dorsal is growing back if it's any consolation.
Oh and the goby seems to get a red line that appears and disappears, going from its mouth and down its jaw, almost like a vein.

Bob Wiley · Oct 1, 2020

DAY 62 — Witnessed all fish eating again this morning. Water still cloudy.

Here's a shot of the redness I was talking about on the yellow watchman goby. It appears to be two spots—one under its eye; the other on the corner of its mouth.

(sorry about the reflection of the towel)

But those dots connect sometimes to look like a line.

Now, this is still much improved over where it was at a week ago. Back then its gills were bright red as well. But these couple of red spots have lingered around and I'm not sure why.

For comparison, here is its right side

Much more normal than where we were a week ago.

Bob Wiley · Oct 4, 2020

DAY 64 — Did a 40% water change today, threw in some carbon and added some sand (from the DT) in a container for the goby, as recommended to help it de-stress.

Serenity now. Serenity now.

All 5 fish have been eating too, which is a good sign. Goby still has redness, but again, the hope there is it's somewhat due to stress and that the sand will help.

Contemplating adding second dose of GC tomorrow as it will be 6 days since the first dose...

Pros:

Its the last dose of anything.
The first dose really seemed to help turn around the firefish and the goby, so maybe a second dose will aid them even more.
I would feel better knowing that both life stages of the flukes/parasites that prazi takes care of would be killed off.

Cons:

Not sure if anyone would need a second dose, as no one has flashed/scratched or shown any signs of flukes in awhile.
Goby might be stressed due to meds causing cloudy water.
I'd like to get rid of cloudy water and can do so with carbon and water changes over the next few days.

Bob Wiley · Oct 6, 2020

DAY 65 — Water still cloudy, despite the water change. Goby has not taken to the sand. At all. It prefers to hide in between the walls of the tank and the sides of the container. I guess this creates a natural cave for it to hide in. I have noticed the firefish flashing again as of the past couple of days. It does it mostly when it is feeding time, but it's still worrisome. Because of this, I decided to do the second dose of GC.

I got a little 3 oz paper cup from the bathroom, filled it with water from the tank, dumped the GC packet into it and stirred with a toothpick as best I could. Then I dumped that into the tank and rinsed it out by dunking the cup in and out of the water. Not sure if it mixed better this time rather than just dumping the packing straight into the tank.

Bob Wiley · Oct 6, 2020

DAY 66 — Over the weekend I noticed the water temps in the inverts QT rising higher and higher. Concerned, I set out to determine what was going on. I do very little to this tank and haven't messed with the heater since setting it up, so calibration seemed out the window. I turned my focus to the thermometer. It could be that the probe had slime/algae growing on it which was causing a faulty reading. Or it could be that the thermometer needed new batteries. The worst case scenario would be that the heater itself broke and I'd need to get a new one asap.

About a day later I noticed the water temps in my fish QT begin to elevate as well. It seemed unlikely that both heaters (Eheim Jager 50W) would crap out on me at the exact same time. It also seemed unlikely that both thermometers' (Zacro LCD Digital) batteries would go bust at the exact same time too. So I decided to start with the probes.

I took the probe out of the inverts QT, cleaned it off and then let it hang in the open air for a bit. I knew the temp of the room, so I figured if it is reading things accurately it should reflect the actual room temp. And sure enough it did. Since the probe didn't appear to be the issue, I adjusted the heater to compensate for the overheating.

Today the fish QT got out of hand. Every time I'd walk by temps were 79°, 80°, 81°, 82°. what the heck. I even unplugged the heater to see if the water would cool down. Nope, kept getting warmer. Bad powerhead motor? Unplugged. Nope. Finally fed up, I decided to replace the batteries and see if that helped. These thermometers are only 2 months old, so I figured the batteries would still be good. Popped in a new one and my temps instantly read 77.5°.

Now I turned my attention back to the inverts QT, whose thermometer was still high. However, replacing that battery brought on a new worry. It was cold! Like 74° and falling. I quickly realized my error from the day before. I turned the heater down 4° thinking it was too high. But in reality it was set just fine as I'd always had it and my adjustment made the water colder. A quick readjustment to the temp setting and the heater kicked back on. We're on our way back to normal temps again.

All of this is to say if you have anything that runs on batteries, have extra batteries on hand and swap those out first when troubleshooting. It seems that with these Zacro thermometers, they start to error high and then really high when they run out of juice. I don't recall there being a low battery indicator, so this is really your only warning. If you take these low battery readings literally you could end up making heater adjustments that cause dire consequences. Fortunately I think I caught mine before any sustained cold/hot temps could cause any problems.

Another idea is just to go with stick-on, mercury-like thermometers that don't need batteries. Although I do not know if they are as accurate or as easy to read than a digital.

And finally, heaters do break. BRS has good advice to just replace your heaters every year by default. But it'd also be wise to have backups on hand just in case something goes faulty prior to your yearly replacement. I do have 1 backup that I use to heat my mixing water. So I could have leaned on it in a pinch here. But that's just 1. If the heaters in both QTs failed at the same time I would have been SOL and found myself running up to the LFS or Petco to get something cheap.

In other news, I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that I, once again, forgot to remove the carbon from the filter when dosing GC #2 last night. Ugggggggggggh. I removed it first thing this morning. At worst it was in there for 10-12 hours. I'm not doing anything to adjust for this. Not redosing now. Not waiting days to redose again. I'm done with it for now.

The clowns are due to come out first. They show no issues related to what GC treats anyway. I figure I move forward with getting them out of QT this week and keep an eye on the other inhabitants. If they start showing signs of flukes then I'll consider another dose of GC at that point. Otherwise we're focusing on transitioning to the DT!

Super Fly · Oct 6, 2020

thanks for this. Have you seen any more WSP since treatment? I'm considering removing few fish that aren't eating food mixed with GC to instead medicate via water treatment.

Bob Wiley · Oct 6, 2020

It's been about 10 days since I've seen anything close to WSP. That was just some stringy poop by one of the clowns which I can't be sure was WSP.

But to answer your question, no. I have not seen any more since treating with GC.

How are you mixing the food with GC? Are you using Focus as a binder? I use Selcon as a supplement as well. I think those two things are supposed to keep the food smelling good while keeping the medicine attached to it.

From what I know of General Cure, tank-dosing it is more for getting rid of external parasites, like flukes. Mixing it in with their food like you are doing is supposed to be what helps with internal ones that can cause WSP.

This sounds like a similar situation to yours.

Maybe isolate those fish and try to get them eating the medicated food before moving onto tank treatments? Might want to switch up the food too. I know if mine weren't eating back when I was mixing in Metro to their food, I would switch from LRS to Mysis shrimps just to give them something different to consider.

Here's an old thread that I reference. Looks like Fenbendazole might be an option if GC isn't working for you. Some worms can be prazi-resistant.

Either way, keep us updated and good luck!

Super Fly · Oct 6, 2020

Bob Wiley said:
It's been about 10 days since I've seen anything close to WSP. That was just some stringy poop by one of the clowns which I can't be sure was WSP.

But to answer your question, no. I have not seen any more since treating with GC.

How are you mixing the food with GC? Are you using Focus as a binder? I use Selcon as a supplement as well. I think those two things are supposed to keep the food smelling good while keeping the medicine attached to it.

From what I know of General Cure, tank-dosing it is more for getting rid of external parasites, like flukes. Mixing it in with their food like you are doing is supposed to be what helps with internal ones that can cause WSP.

This sounds like a similar situation to yours.

Maybe isolate those fish and try to get them eating the medicated food before moving onto tank treatments? Might want to switch up the food too. I know if mine weren't eating back when I was mixing in Metro to their food, I would switch from LRS to Mysis shrimps just to give them something different to consider.

Here's an old thread that I reference. Looks like Fenbendazole might be an option if GC isn't working for you. Some worms can be prazi-resistant.

Either way, keep us updated and good luck!

yeah medicated food was mixed w focus and garlic for flavor but still the Anthia refused to eat anything except sometimes when I used Calen-eze. Havent tried mysis, will give it a go before trying removal. Thx.

Bob Wiley · Oct 8, 2020

DAY 68 — Did a 5 gallon water change tonight and placed carbon back in the filter. That has reduced some of the cloudiness, although the water is still murky.

The blenny was the first to find the sandbox, but has since gone back to his corner. Soon after, the goby was in there as well. We have also seen that the firefish likes to sleep in there too.

Making plans to move the clowns to the DT sometime this week.

QT 2 (inverts)
11 weeks is almost up as well, so we'll be making preparations to drip them into the DT soon.

First thing to do is to get all three tanks synced up on salinity and temperature to make the transfers easier on the animals.

Then we'll probably take a gallon or two from the DT and use it for a water change in the fish QT.

Bob Wiley · Oct 10, 2020

DAY 70 — Moved the clowns into the DT today.

Process

Make sure the salinity of both the DT and QT match
Make sure the temperature of both the DT and QT match
Fill a specimen container with water from the DT (about half full)
Net the fish in the QT and place them in the container
Immediately take them to the DT and release (submerge container and then rotate it so that it moves away from the fish. This places them in the tank with little effort. I wanted to avoid dumping/pouring/netting/whatever else might stress them out)
Lights off, let them chill

Salinity
DT: 1.025
QT: 1.024/5

Close enough for me. I knew these were going to be close because I mix new water to be in between 1.024 and 1.025.

Temperature
DT: 77.2°F – 77.4°F
QT: 77.4°F – 77.6°F

This is as close as it's going to get with these basic Eheim Jager heaters. I'm actually surprised I got them this close.

After getting them in the tank we left them alone, with the lights off, to get acclimated. They stick to each other like lost puppies. A few hours later we tried to feed them just a little food to see if they'd take it. Nope. So we just left them alone for the rest of the afternoon. By about 7pm we turned the lights on, just to start getting them used to lights again (they haven't had lights since the LFS two months ago) and also because we were going to try feeding again a little bit later. Spoiler alert: they weren't interested this time, either. But that's OK. All told, we probably had the lights on for about 2 hours tonight, and for the past couple of hours there is just ambient light from LEDs in the room.

I'm sure this is an adjustment for them, but if anyone's gonna make it through this it's these clowns. They've been our best eaters and least problem fish. In observing them all day they seem to be doing well: they are doing the typical clownfish wading-swim; there are no signs of distress; and they are keeping with each other.

Bob Wiley · Oct 11, 2020

DAY 72 — Well it was supposed to be a celebratory weekend, but we awoke this morning to the sight of the firefish, lifeless in QT.

At this point I can only speculate as to what caused him to perish. It seems like he went downhill after the first dose of Prazipro a few weeks ago and just limped along until yesterday.

The Watchman Goby seems to be doing better since we put the sandbox in there.

But now that we've had a death in the tank I'm concerned about keeping eyes on the YWG. I want to make sure he's eating and that his redness is gone for good. So that will mean removing the pipe from his sandbox, which he likes to hide behind.

Tonight we did a 4 gallon water change on the QT and removed all pipes. The blenny never utilized the pipes, just hiding out in a corner of the tank. And the YWG still has some places to hide (in between sandbox and aquarium walls, or up against sandbox walls inside).

QT 2 (inverts) is officially done. Today was the end of 11 weeks in quarantine for them. Here was our process for transferring them to the DT:

Fill a specimen container with about an inch of water from the QT (enough to make sure all creatures will be under water while in there). I place a piece of tape to mark the water line.
Grab/catch all inverts and place them in container
Take container to DT and start drip acclimating them with DT water. I do this for an hour, and every time the water volume doubles I dump out about 50% of it and then continue with the drip.
After an hour it's time to transfer. We pulled the pistol shrimp first (no reason, other than we didn't want to be sticking our fingers in there around him while trying to get the hermits out). Dropped him off in the tank and then proceeded to transfer in the hermits as well.

The pistol shrimp then decided that he wasn't going to move an inch from the spot we dropped him, but needed a hiding spot. So he put on a show for us—

All in all, an eventful day. But really disappointed about that firefish. He was always one of our best eaters and personalities. I really thought we were going to get through QT with everyone. Looking back on his time here, though, I'm reminded that we were fighting stuff with him from the first week on: white stringy poop; constant flashing; lethargy; no appetite... I don't know what more we could have done for him.

thewalkingdad · Oct 12, 2020

Sorry about the loss. You sure did put in the effort, no doubt about that.

Bob Wiley · Oct 12, 2020

Thanks, yeah I'm not really sure how long he would have survived if I'd have put him straight into the DT when we got him. I think he was one of those fish whose problems medication masked.

Regardless, I'm definitely taking this into account for my QT Post Mortem and how I can do things differently next time around.

Bob Wiley · Oct 17, 2020

DAY 77 — We moved the goby and the blenny out of QT into the DT tonight.

Thus completes QT.

Over the past week, the goby was not seen eating as much and was paler than normal. My fear was that it just needed to get out of there and onto real sand and hide in real holes. His redness had mostly disappeared, except for a small dot on the corner of his mouth. So I was willing to take the chance and see how he does in the DT. Maybe getting in there and making friends with the pistol shrimp will be the salve he needs.

And with the firefish gone, it just made sense to add the blenny at the same time as the goby. The blenny's impact on the DT is not going to be much above and beyond what the goby is going to bring to the table, so it made sense to just add them both tonight.

In other news, one of the clown's has had white, stringy poop all week. Well, I say "all week" but we've only seen it poop twice. Once earlier in the week and then again today. Both times were WSP. Therefore tonight, I decided to medicate the food (GC + Focus + Selcon in a mix of LRS Reef Frenzy Nano + frozen mysis). The GC is supposed to be reef safe, so I am medicating right in the DT. I have no idea if this is a new thing since joining the DT or if it has had this all along. I would have thought the meds we threw at them would have remedied this issue awhile back, but I guess not. Anyway, fingers crossed.

Bob Wiley · Oct 17, 2020

Forgot to mention my transfer method yesterday.

I drained 2 gallons from the QT and dumped it. Then I drained 2 gallons from the DT and poured them in the QT. The idea here being that the fish in the QT will acquire the scent and smell of the DT so that when they're transferred into the DT there will be no, or less, aggression towards them.

Now, I don't think it mattered much in my situation but I thought I'd try it nonetheless. The clowns are less aggressive and (can be) more territorial. Plus the fish I was transferring in were bottom dwellers, while the clowns are column swimmers. And finally they had all spent 2 months in QT together (without fighting) and had only been apart for a week. This was not a situation where I'd had existing fish for years and was looking to add more. But again, I just thought I'd try it. No harm, no foul. The YWG and the blenny went in without a hitch and have settled into the tank. The clowns could have cared less.