Help with diagnosing

[diablolx]

Hello, fellow reefers Regarding my recent tank crash, I wanted to get some suggestions. I added additional corals, which might have been the issue, but my display tank is roughly eighteen years old and has no new fish. My water parameters were salinity 34, dKH 9.4, nitrate 6.2, phosphorus 14.2, and pH 8.2. Suddenly, my fish began to perish. A royal gramma was my first fish to go; he had no obvious illnesses, but I did observe that he was hiding a lot among the rocks and rarely came out to feed. I believed that my purple dottyback tormented him until his demise. However, I lost the dotty, a yellow tang, a goby, and a drogonete in a day. My two clowns began swimming in front of the powerhead as they were feeding as usual. I choose to treat for velvet. I successfully placed my two clowns and a hippo tang in a hospital tank and began administering copper power to them. I believe my big female had something to do with the clown I lost in the hospital tank. She would constantly chase him. After six days in the hospital tank, my clown and hippo are doing well, and I was able to bring my copper level up to 2.5 in just three days. Would this be velvet, ick, or brook based on the pictures? Despite reading numerous posts and examining pictures, I'm not really certain if it's velvet or brook. Since the 30-day copper treatment is benefiting my final two fish, I'll keep doing it. However, I'm unsure if I ought to add another treatment. Thank you in advance, and I apologize for the lengthy post.

 

[diablolx]

Sorry for the double pics, trying to get use to posting.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Cant clearly see clown due to lighting (heavy in blue- need white) and distance of fish, but is either secondary bacterial lesions associated with brooklynella or Ich. Im leaning towards bacterial lesions. Can you post a pic again under bright white light intensity, no blue?

 

[diablolx]

Sorry about that, but this is the only pics I took before transferring them to the hospital tank. I’ve tried to attach a short video under just white and no blue lights. Hope this helps see it better. Thanks again

 

[MnFish1]

I would suggest - since it's better - and It looks better - keep up the copper. I do not see all of the pictures - and if vetteguy53081 sees them - then I would believe him. I would not necessarily change the copper out for another Brooklynella treatment at this point.

PS - I'm assuming in your pic that CP means Copper Power - as compared to Chloroquine Phosphate?

 

[diablolx]

Thanks, yes it’s copper power. Thanks for the advice, seems like the current treatment is working so I’ll continue it for a total of 30 days.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello, fellow reefers Regarding my recent tank crash, I wanted to get some suggestions. I added additional corals, which might have been the issue, but my display tank is roughly eighteen years old and has no new fish. My water parameters were salinity 34, dKH 9.4, nitrate 6.2, phosphorus 14.2, and pH 8.2. Suddenly, my fish began to perish. A royal gramma was my first fish to go; he had no obvious illnesses, but I did observe that he was hiding a lot among the rocks and rarely came out to feed. I believed that my purple dottyback tormented him until his demise. However, I lost the dotty, a yellow tang, a goby, and a drogonete in a day. My two clowns began swimming in front of the powerhead as they were feeding as usual. I choose to treat for velvet. I successfully placed my two clowns and a hippo tang in a hospital tank and began administering copper power to them. I believe my big female had something to do with the clown I lost in the hospital tank. She would constantly chase him. After six days in the hospital tank, my clown and hippo are doing well, and I was able to bring my copper level up to 2.5 in just three days. Would this be velvet, ick, or brook based on the pictures? Despite reading numerous posts and examining pictures, I'm not really certain if it's velvet or brook. Since the 30-day copper treatment is benefiting my final two fish, I'll keep doing it. However, I'm unsure if I ought to add another treatment. Thank you in advance, and I apologize for the lengthy post.

Given the fish’s positive response to copper, this is either velvet or ich. Brook would have hit the clowns first, and probably not even infected the tang at all.

Velvet causes very rapid breathing, not eating, hanging in water currents and death in a few days. In most cases you don’t see skin marks as the infection is focused on the gills.

Ich creates spots on the fish, sometimes dust like, other times larger. The spots come and go at first. The fish will act normal until the very end of the infection, then they stop eating and begin to breath hard.

I’d say this is ich. Not sure how it got into your tank though - any animals added recently?

 

[diablolx]

If memory serves me right I think the last fish to go into the tank was probably 3 months ago. I’ve only added a few Zoas or the past few weeks.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

If memory serves me right I think the last fish to go into the tank was probably 3 months ago. I’ve only added a few Zoas or the past few weeks.

It easily could have been in by either the new fish or the zoas, if they came from a tank that was harboring the parasite.