Brooklynella fir over 30 days and counting

[Sariena]

Hi there this is my first post here..sorry this is long but I wanted to cover all the bases and questions I see have been asked others with a bit of backstory...

I am fairly new to saltwater aquariums (5 months) and although for months I educated myself about the fish, suitability, requirements etc, I was severely under educated about the diseases that they arrived with and severity of marine diseases as compared to freshwater (have 6 freshwater display from cichlids to fully planted. 11 tanks in total with saltwater, hospital, quarantine, grow out etc)

I have a 20g tank I started with inverts and mixed corals..including harder to keep corals like Flowerpot.. and it is thriving so after quarantine, I added a firefish and a watchman goby..that tank appeared to be a success so I cycled a 50g for a FOWLR with uv, oversized protein skimmer, canister filter rated for 150g, 70g hob, Macro algae 60 lbs of dry coral rock etc)
Kh 170
PH 8.1
Nitrate <6
Calcium 450
Phosphate 0.02
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Salinity 1.025 ppt

This is my trial run as I have a empty 125g waiting to see if I will be successful...

I set up 3 quarantine tanks first and ordered my first batch of fish including..2x Oscellaris clowns. I was told that almost all clowns were captive bred..apparently not, found out later they were wild caught. All went fine for almost 3 weeks, no signs of disease, all eating fine.

So I moved them all into the empty cycled display as I needed the quarantine tanks for the next batch of ordered fish.. Shortly after the small clown started to concern me, had white patches, stopped eating and swimming around. I watched him closely and he died with 2 days..long story short after much reading and process of elimination I assumed he had brooklynella as when I H2O2 bathed him after reading this site, mucus and stuff peeled off him and was floating in the water.
I quickly got to work ordering everything from the USA in medication that I could (Im in Canada) and removed the second clown as a precaution. I bathed her as well (12.5 ml H202 in 10 cups water for 30 min) and again the same mucus.. she appeared that she would make it until the meds arrived but no...
Then my royal gramma, my coral beauty and Tonami Tang started showing symptoms...I finally got kordon rid ich plus..I can't seem to get 37% formalin so this was my choice...metroplex, paracleanse and kanaplex which took 2-3 weeks so I continued the baths on all the fish every 48 hrs cleaning the tanks and equipment with bleach each time.

Very long story short..I lost the gramma and the angel too as the meds didn't come in time

The chromis and damsels never seem to have gotten symptoms and I could not move them to one of the quarantine tanks as I had one with my surviving Tonami tang, one with a Bannerfish that came with a huge uronema spot ‍ one with anthias and a wrasse that came with flukes and god knows what but could have been whirling disease??..BTW I hate the practice of stores low dosing copper instead of quarantine/treating wild caught fish before selling to unsuspecting customers with no live guarantee for any amount of time. Those new fish died within 2-3 days out of the low copper even with medication. In freshwater, the stores guarantee from 3 days-2 weeks...but anyways that is for another thread.

So I took out all the live rock out of the display and soaked it for a week in bleach/freshwater, then freshwater with prime..and took out all the live sand and boiled it for 1 hr over 160 degrees then set it outside to dry for 20 days...

I treated the bare display with the chromis and damsels with hyposaltinity, kordon, and then H202 for 30 days as per this site recommendations aside from the overnight dosing as I work nights and don't have an auto doser.

I fed the damsels and chromis with alternating food/focus with paraclense, then food with metro and kanaplex, I converted and added 9 mollies some are juvenile ..to the tank which are still swimming fine without symptoms after 20 days.

So I think I stopped it in the tank without going completely fallow for 6 weeks plus the fish with symptoms were in it less than a week. Do you think I'm correct? Or do you think it's lying dormant and will come back?

Soooooo...
My tang however is still the problem. I have been H202 bathing 30 minutes and treating with metro, every 48 hours. And 2x weekly I feed him food with kanaplex. While he is in his bath, I completely disinfect his tank with bleach, new filters and 100% water change.

He has never stopped eating, does not appear sick but after a couple days I can see dark patches and he starts to hide more, and after each bath there is considerably less mucus that comes off him ..but it's still there after 30 days of this regimen..he is too the point he just swims into the net as he knows relief is coming.

How will I know when it is gone? When no slim comes off him? And if so, how long after before he is safe to go back? Poor bugger is small at 3.5 inches..but you can tell he is miserable in the 10g and my heart breaks for him.
Is there anything more I can do? This has got to be taking a toll on him.

Please note that no slim comes off him in the tank, just after the 30 min bath in h202. But I do see darkening patches on his skin that go light grey after the bath.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ah ha now I see, in my panic I missed the logical red flags. I can not get formalin at all here, but I ordered Rally reef pro from the US should be here by Dec 8th..and ordered a small bottle of 37% formaldehyde (all they had on Amazon that ships here) but it won't get here until mid January so hopefully the Tang won't need it by then as the rally worked.. fingers crossed. Should I continue the dips minus the metro until it arrives to keep it at bay at least?

FW dips are temporary relief and will buy you time until Rally arrives. Also you can get some meds in ontario at Pets drug mart and in Quebec area- Canadian fish Vet

 

[Sariena]

Thanks for the link. That’s an old post, but it is a regular post, not a “sticky” so I try not to edit those. It is full of errors though. Just to point one out, he says you can’t use plastic bowls for the dip. But, wait, they sell peroxide in plastic bottles (grin). Then, peroxide is an oxidant. Like ozone and chlorine, you cannot just use a set dose. The amount of active oxidizer is based on how much is left after organics in the water have been reacted with. That differs in each tank, and it differs over time in the same tank. Bottom line, you need test strips to accurately dose it.

The problem with trying to use formalin malachite green mixtures is that to get the formalin high enough, you’ll overdose the fish with malachite green.

I wonder if you could get formalin from a lab or pharmacy?

FW dips are temporary relief and will buy you time until Rally arrives. Also you can get some meds in ontario at Pets drug mart and in Quebec area- Canadian fish Vet

OK so fw dips it is! Thank you! And as for antibiotics/formalin, I tried Pets drug mart a while ago and would need a prescription from a vet and my vet said she wouldn't prescribe for fish..all they have without a prescription is what I can fet on Canadian Amazon. Namely kordon products with formalin. I will see if the Quebec place will ship site unseen.

 

[MnFish1]

I now get that about the metro..but I respectfully disagree about the kanaplex. It is the preferred method in freshwater when you have sensitive fish or shrimp..kanaplex can be added to food with focus and fed.

By the way - thanks for the answers to my questions in the other post. I have treated many freshwater fish as well, and - I'm curious why oral kanaplex would be used unless there was a very specific reason. The problem with oral dosing is that unless you have 1 fish in 1 tank, and you can calculate the extremely small doses required - and you can verify the actual amount of drug the fish is getting, its really impossible to know if the fish/shrimp/whatever is getting a correct dosage. If you try to do with in a tank with multiple fish and inverts, there is no way to know if any of the fish, etc are getting the correct dose - kanaplex has a narrow therapeutic window. Dosing it in the water itself (in a hospital tank) - allows one to know exactly the correct dose each organism is receiving. Note - I'm not wanting to start a debate about kanaplex in freshwater - but just making the point that dosing it orally can be fraught with problems and I'm curious which specific diseases one would treat with it in that manner?

PS - hope the tang is getting better!

 

[Sariena]

By the way - thanks for the answers to my questions in the other post. I have treated many freshwater fish as well, and - I'm curious why oral kanaplex would be used unless there was a very specific reason. The problem with oral dosing is that unless you have 1 fish in 1 tank, and you can calculate the extremely small doses required - and you can verify the actual amount of drug the fish is getting, its really impossible to know if the fish/shrimp/whatever is getting a correct dosage. If you try to do with in a tank with multiple fish and inverts, there is no way to know if any of the fish, etc are getting the correct dose - kanaplex has a narrow therapeutic window. Dosing it in the water itself (in a hospital tank) - allows one to know exactly the correct dose each organism is receiving. Note - I'm not wanting to start a debate about kanaplex in freshwater - but just making the point that dosing it orally can be fraught with problems and I'm curious which specific diseases one would treat with it in that manner?

PS - hope the tang is getting better!

I definately see your point re the complexity of the dosing. I have just followed the formula for feeding as outlined on the Seachem site. I did not know that it had a narrow therapeutic window..thank you and I will look into that more.

Feeding "appears" to make it easier to target certain fish with bacterial infections while minimizing the risk to certain sensitive fish like catfish, ghost knife, aquarium plants or inverts etc.

For example if many fish have a bacterial fungus infection in a planted tank..you can feed the fish the medicine without adversely affecting the plants..I have not done this as I have hospital tanks..but many do not.

It allegedly also targets internal infections like dropsy when time is of the essence as freshwater fish do not "drink" the water as marine.. so faster than the time afforded to absorb from the water column. Plus there is some debate that freshwater fish don't actually absorb meds through their skin..but I have no knowledge of which side of the debate is correct.

Of course I am no scientist and this is just what I have learned/read over the years and on the Seachem site; conversely, as I have also learned over the last couple days, that advice could have been reevaluated and has changed.

I am always looking to evolve, learn and change when I'm educated on new or more logical interventions to help my animals. So thank you very much!

 

[Sariena]

By the way - thanks for the answers to my questions in the other post. I have treated many freshwater fish as well, and - I'm curious why oral kanaplex would be used unless there was a very specific reason. The problem with oral dosing is that unless you have 1 fish in 1 tank, and you can calculate the extremely small doses required - and you can verify the actual amount of drug the fish is getting, its really impossible to know if the fish/shrimp/whatever is getting a correct dosage. If you try to do with in a tank with multiple fish and inverts, there is no way to know if any of the fish, etc are getting the correct dose - kanaplex has a narrow therapeutic window. Dosing it in the water itself (in a hospital tank) - allows one to know exactly the correct dose each organism is receiving. Note - I'm not wanting to start a debate about kanaplex in freshwater - but just making the point that dosing it orally can be fraught with problems and I'm curious which specific diseases one would treat with it in that manner?

PS - hope the tang is getting better!

Sorry I didn't address why I used it with the Tang..and maybe incorrectly.. I was using it as a prevention to any bacterial infections that may arise from open sores left by the parasites. Like the vet gave me antibiotics after spay/ neuter surgery for my dog/cat to prevent secondary infections.

 

[MnFish1]

Sorry I didn't address why I used it with the Tang..and maybe incorrectly.. I was using it as a prevention to any bacterial infections that may arise from open sores left by the parasites. Like the vet gave me antibiotics after spay/ neuter surgery for my dog/cat to prevent secondary infections.

I would definitely - NOT use kanamycin as a preventative - given bacterial resistance, etc.

 

[Sariena]

I would definitely - NOT use kanamycin as a preventative - given bacterial resistance, etc.

Duly noted..thank you

 

[MnFish1]

Duly noted..thank you

Here is a nice letter from the FDA - - of course this does not pertain to the use of kanamycin by people - but its interesting reading about antibiotics in fish food. https://www.fda.gov/inspections-com...am negative,as well as resistant tuberculosis.