Fish sick just before getting new tank conundrum - need help

[coolbreeze]

Hi all - I could really use some help here. I have a 15g nano cube which had 2 small clowns and a royal gamma (soft and lps coral too) up until yesterday. Had the clowns for about 2 months, the gamma maybe one month.

I just got the water box 20 cube as a small upgrade and new home for them, it’s currently no fish cycling.

I noticed maybe 3 weeks ago the gamma kept rubbing himself against my Zoanthids. A bout a week later I noticed my clowns starting pooping long white strings. Figured it was some parasite so I gave medicated food but there was no noticeable improvemeant.

2 days ago the gamma died, yesterday one clown died. I’ve never experienced this type of fish death before. I’m almost certain the gamma introduced something to my tank since I got from LFS and noticed the rubbing almost immediately after. The clowns were perfectly fine prior to adding the gamma and came from a specialty clown seller online whom I trust much more.

My question is what the heck do I do now that I have this brand new tank setting up for the last living clown and all my coral? If my remaining clown even last long enough to get him in the new tank, can the ich or whatever other parasites live on the coral? Obviously I’ll be getting new fish for the new tank too and really don’t want this to happen again.

Thanks so much and sorry for the essay

 

[mrpontiac80]

Sorry to hear that. Once a disease is in the tank, there are 2 choices.
1. Keep on dumping and praying .
2. Quarantine.

If you quarantine, your tank will need to sit fallow or fishless for several weeks as the parasites die off with no hosts. Different temps and etc along with whatever diseases are in the tank dictate how long that fallow period is. I went 90 days when I first started.

After that your new fish need to be quarantined in some fashion or your just rolling the dice again. Some people choose observation only unless they see a reason to medicate, some choose copper or proactive meds, and I choose HTTM or hybrid tank transfer, which is essentially transferring fish every 3 days to 100% sterile set ups every 3 days to outrun the lifecycle of parasites.

Good luck!

 

[mrpontiac80]

@Jay Hemdal Hemdal is the resident qt or fish medic here on reef 2 reef.

Humblefish is a resource I follow.

@vetteguy53081 is a great help here also along with others I can’t think of right now.

 

[coolbreeze]

Thanks for the help man! I really appreciate it.

I currently do not have a quarantine tank set up. I have an empty 2.5 gallon tank for short term emergencies, this filled 15g with one fish and coral, and the empty cycling 20g.

Do you think I could transfer the coral to the new tank and essentially keep the 15g running as the quarantine? I’d have to put the clown in the 2.5 while I empty and sterilize the 15 I’m assuming. I’m just worried the coral can carry introduce the disease to my new tank too

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all - I could really use some help here. I have a 15g nano cube which had 2 small clowns and a royal gamma (soft and lps coral too) up until yesterday. Had the clowns for about 2 months, the gamma maybe one month.

I just got the water box 20 cube as a small upgrade and new home for them, it’s currently no fish cycling.

I noticed maybe 3 weeks ago the gamma kept rubbing himself against my Zoanthids. A bout a week later I noticed my clowns starting pooping long white strings. Figured it was some parasite so I gave medicated food but there was no noticeable improvemeant.

2 days ago the gamma died, yesterday one clown died. I’ve never experienced this type of fish death before. I’m almost certain the gamma introduced something to my tank since I got from LFS and noticed the rubbing almost immediately after. The clowns were perfectly fine prior to adding the gamma and came from a specialty clown seller online whom I trust much more.

My question is what the heck do I do now that I have this brand new tank setting up for the last living clown and all my coral? If my remaining clown even last long enough to get him in the new tank, can the ich or whatever other parasites live on the coral? Obviously I’ll be getting new fish for the new tank too and really don’t want this to happen again.

Thanks so much and sorry for the essay

This may be a new tank issue and associated with water quality. For the white feces, it can be dietary if you were feeeding mysis shrimp, brine shrimp or both exclusively. The gramma flashing and rubbing could have been flukes which they are susceptible to but with active video, will be hard to distinguish cause of death.
Assure you are getting good water quality reading and if uncertain, simply take a water sample to an LFS and have them test and verify your readings for you. Allow the tank to run 2-2 weeks without addition of fish in the event of any disease or foreign issues and add liquid bacteria such as Microbacter 7 or XLM to increase your denitrifying bacteria culture within tank

 

[coolbreeze]

This may be a new tank issue and associated with water quality. For the white feces, it can be dietary if you were feeeding mysis shrimp, brine shrimp or both exclusively. The gramma flashing and rubbing could have been flukes which they are susceptible to but with active video, will be hard to distinguish cause of death.
Assure you are getting good water quality reading and if uncertain, simply take a water sample to an LFS and have them test and verify your readings for you. Allow the tank to run 2-2 weeks without addition of fish in the event of any disease or foreign issues and add liquid bacteria such as Microbacter 7 or XLM to increase your denitrifying bacteria culture within tank

Thank you. According to my manual tests the water should be ok. 1.025 salinity, 8.1 ph, 0 ammonia and nitrite. Coral are good and growing too. That said I haven’t done a full test at lfs in while so will do that asap. Thanks again for all the help!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thank you. According to my manual tests the water should be ok. 1.025 salinity, 8.1 ph, 0 ammonia and nitrite. Coral are good and growing too. That said I haven’t done a full test at lfs in while so will do that asap. Thanks again for all the help!

Royal gramma frequently come in with gill flukes. The clownfish may have caught that, but the stringy feces is a symptom of other issues.

You can treat for flukes in your display tank with Prazipro. Most other disease issues require that you isolate the fish from invertebrates in order to treat them.

Jay