Help with quarantine tank - concern for uronemia

[Lilnoelle80]

I have a 75g quarantine tank that I’m concerned may have uronemia in it. I have an emperor angelfish (juvenile), a royal gramma, 3 diamond gobies, and a few black mollies in it. It did have a six line wrasse and a clownfish in it as well before they died. They were all added to this tank a week ago. It has established media and some mature live rock in it. It has previously had copper in the tank and I added a small amount of copper power about 3 days ago but then noted the six line had a wound and removed the copper and took the six line out. I added general cure at that time and have been feeding with general cure soaked food since they arrived a week ago. It died a day or so later. Then yesterday I noted my clownfish was swimming irregularly and today it also looked to have some redness deep within it. (internal hemorrhage?)

The rest of my fish look good and continue to eat. I’ve done another water change since removing the clownfish today.
I’m concerned about uronemia, but obviously other causes of disease as well. If they are eating food soaked with general cure and treat the water column with general cure, is that sufficient? Do I need to remove them from the 75g?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The wrasse has a pretty classic looking Uronema wound on it. The clownfish could go either way - Uronema or bacterial.

Mixing General Cure in food is typically not advisable. Both of its components are very bitter. The joke is; if you mix up those drugs into food and the fish eats it, your dose was way too low.

Medicated food needs to be fed out on a milligram of medication per kg of fish mass basis. This requires careful calculations. There are two files at the top of the fish disease section here that discuss it.

Since the wound on the wrasse isn't related to using copper, I think you should get back on track with that - get up to a full dose right away. Uronema can be a problem for certain species of fish (including wrasse and royal gramma) but copper stops the two main diseases - marine ich and velvet. Skipping the copper will leave the fish vulnerable to that.

Uronema is a common protozoan, and can be found in many tanks. It isn't known why it then infects certain fish.

Jay

 

[Lilnoelle80]

Do I need to remove them from the current tank and put them in a new one? I have a 40g I could put them in.

 

[Lilnoelle80]

Do I need to remove them from the current tank and put them in a new one? I have a 40g I could put them in.

I also have ruby reef pro and I have formalin but definitely no chloroquine.
Is one better than the other? Do I treat all of the fish empirically before moving them?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I also have ruby reef pro and I have formalin but definitely no chloroquine.
Is one better than the other? Do I treat all of the fish empirically before moving them?

My main concern is for the gramma and maybe the emperor - I've seen Uronema in both species.

If I had formalin, I would consider dosing 25 ppm daily for five days, but you can't use 10% neutral buffered formalin, you need the 37% formaldehyde gas in water product. I can help you figure out the dose if you have that available.

Ruby Reef would be a distant second choice.

Jay