ich, popey, fungus...? help.

davidwillis

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Hi,
I have just started my 300 gallon tank. I cycled it with my clown fish for several months, then added the rest, along with some extra bacteria. I never saw any spike in ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate.

Here are the fish added:
porcupine puffer
flame angel
coral beauty
3 schooling bannerfish
powder blue tang
yellow tang
Sunset Butterflyfish
Auriga Butterflyfish
humma trigger

I also have more fish in quarantine (going to keep them there until I figure out what is going on in this tank).

Here is what happened.
1- One of the schooling bannerfish was scratching like it had ick. (same day as added to tank)
2- The Sunset butterfly had a large red area on its side. I initially though it was injured by another fish. (same day as added to the tank, not sure if it was that way before adding it though, I didn't notice it in the bag)
3- The Sunset butterfly fish was dead the next morning
4- The second morning after adding the fish the flame angel was dead. I didn't really see much other than the trigger was trying to eat it.
5- After about 5 days the shooling bannerfish had large swollen areas on one side (morning). By night the areas were larger, and he was not moving. He was dead by the next morning, and had large holes where the swollen areas were.
6- white spots noticed on powder blue tang, flame angel, and coral beauty.
7- I think the spots are ich, and even though the deaths did not seam like ick, I start reducing the salinity to go into hypo salinity for a month (would rather not use copper due to the puffer).
8- Puffer had been extremely healthy, and eating great. But all of a sudden he gets lethargic around noon, and is dead by night. (salinity had only been reduced to 0.020 at this point).
9- continue reducing salinity
10- white spots on powder blue tang turn black, and he turns a lighter color blue (you can also see lots of bumps on him), coral beauty has a swollen mouth (still eating)
11-stop lowering salinity. Currently at 0.012
12- second bannerfish has popey (both eyes).

At this point I am not sure if I should keep going with the hyposalinity, or raise it back up and tread whatever is going on. I have never run into so many things going on.
Any idea on what I should do?


By the way, the ammonia and nitrite are still showing zero, and I am maintaining ph at 7.9-8.0 using sodium carbonate (cooked backing soda).
 

Reefing_addiction

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I’ll say this, never cycle a tank with fish. Bad idea.
Two what are your actual water parameters?
Do you have any pictures?
Are their any fish alive?
Velvet, brook maybe, but not ich.
Bacterial possible.
Ammonia burn more than likely?
 

Reefing_addiction

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Do you have nitrate?
What are you using for test kits
Bring water to LFS if possible and have them check it for you?
How long has your tank been up?
 
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davidwillis

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The tank was cycled for a long time with my clown fish, I am certain it is not a cycling problem. Also my water parameters have been perfect.
Amonia: 0 (api, sailfert + seachem alert)
Nitrite: 0 (api and sailfert)
Nitrate: 0 to 5... closer to zero than 5 (api and sailfert)
Phosphate 0 on the hanna checker

I moved my clownfish from there 29 gallon tank with all the filter material (several years old), then allowed them to live in the 300 gallon for a few months with much more filter media. I also added bacteria.

I am not concerned with the water parameters or the cycling. I tested daily for ammonia and nitrite, and have an ammonia alert. It never left zero.

I agree, it does not seem like ich, or it is ich plus something. I don't think hyposalinity will not help with velvet or brook. Ammonia burn does not seem likely. I don't see how it would make spots all over the fish, and bumps, and I would think they would be breathing hard...

I took some pictures, but they are not very good. This is the best one, you can see the black spots a little.

And yes I still have fish alive:
coral beauty (swollen mouth)
2 schooling bannerfish (one with popey)
powder blue tang (white spots, then black spots, and bumps)
yellow tang (had white spots, now seems fine)
Auriga Butterflyfish (no signs of any problems)
humma trigger (no signs of any problems)


So what kind of suggestions. should I raise the salinity back up, or leave it low, continue lowering it to 0.009?

Should I treat with antibiotics, prazi pro, something else?

IMG_20200929_160852678.jpg
 

vetteguy53081

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I am very leery about hyposalinty especially in a barely established/cycled tank. I prefer treatment than hypo. Banners are notorious, at least for me with popeye. Treat the fish with Erythromyacin for ten days, after doing a water change. there is a possibility with so much popeye that some of the fish have/had abdominal issues causing air and fluid to reach the eye sockets- weakest part of the body for fish.
Good news is this is a condition and not disease. I question current water quality and parameters and current readings. I also suspect bacteria and parasites may have become present especially if fish were not acclimated from old tank to the new tank having a bunch of zeros on your readings listed.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Hi,
I have just started my 300 gallon tank. I cycled it with my clown fish for several months, then added the rest, along with some extra bacteria. I never saw any spike in ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate.

Here are the fish added:
porcupine puffer
flame angel
coral beauty
3 schooling bannerfish
powder blue tang
yellow tang
Sunset Butterflyfish
Auriga Butterflyfish
humma trigger

I also have more fish in quarantine (going to keep them there until I figure out what is going on in this tank).

Here is what happened.
1- One of the schooling bannerfish was scratching like it had ick. (same day as added to tank)
2- The Sunset butterfly had a large red area on its side. I initially though it was injured by another fish. (same day as added to the tank, not sure if it was that way before adding it though, I didn't notice it in the bag)
3- The Sunset butterfly fish was dead the next morning
4- The second morning after adding the fish the flame angel was dead. I didn't really see much other than the trigger was trying to eat it.
5- After about 5 days the shooling bannerfish had large swollen areas on one side (morning). By night the areas were larger, and he was not moving. He was dead by the next morning, and had large holes where the swollen areas were.
6- white spots noticed on powder blue tang, flame angel, and coral beauty.
7- I think the spots are ich, and even though the deaths did not seam like ick, I start reducing the salinity to go into hypo salinity for a month (would rather not use copper due to the puffer).
8- Puffer had been extremely healthy, and eating great. But all of a sudden he gets lethargic around noon, and is dead by night. (salinity had only been reduced to 0.020 at this point).
9- continue reducing salinity
10- white spots on powder blue tang turn black, and he turns a lighter color blue (you can also see lots of bumps on him), coral beauty has a swollen mouth (still eating)
11-stop lowering salinity. Currently at 0.012
12- second bannerfish has popey (both eyes).

At this point I am not sure if I should keep going with the hyposalinity, or raise it back up and tread whatever is going on. I have never run into so many things going on.
Any idea on what I should do?


By the way, the ammonia and nitrite are still showing zero, and I am maintaining ph at 7.9-8.0 using sodium carbonate (cooked backing soda).

There is a HUGE amount to try and breakdown here - I think there are at least three disease processes involved here; Uronema (sunset butterfly) ich and bacterial infections. Uronema thrives at hyposalinity, but from what I can tell, it started before that on the butterfly. Puffers are fine in hypo, so its death was unrelated to that. I run porcupines under copper all the time with no issues as well.

How are the remaining fish's respiration rates? I'm worried that it could be velvet instead of ich...

Regarding the popeye, if there is supersaturation of gas in the tank water, that can cause it, or it can be a bacterial infection (and as vetteguy said, use Erythromycin for that). Supersaturation can be difficult to track down, look for any loose fittings on the suction side of the pump that could be injecting air.

For your other fish in quarantine - be sure to have good biosecurity, don't let anything from the infected tank get near your QT. Depending on the setup and what fish you have in there, and I would strongly urge you to start a 30 days copper treatment on those fish.

Jay
 
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davidwillis

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There is a HUGE amount to try and breakdown here - I think there are at least three disease processes involved here; Uronema (sunset butterfly) ich and bacterial infections. Uronema thrives at hyposalinity, but from what I can tell, it started before that on the butterfly. Puffers are fine in hypo, so its death was unrelated to that. I run porcupines under copper all the time with no issues as well.

How are the remaining fish's respiration rates? I'm worried that it could be velvet instead of ich...

Regarding the popeye, if there is supersaturation of gas in the tank water, that can cause it, or it can be a bacterial infection (and as vetteguy said, use Erythromycin for that). Supersaturation can be difficult to track down, look for any loose fittings on the suction side of the pump that could be injecting air.

For your other fish in quarantine - be sure to have good biosecurity, don't let anything from the infected tank get near your QT. Depending on the setup and what fish you have in there, and I would strongly urge you to start a 30 days copper treatment on those fish.

Jay

Thanks for the information.

I am also worried it could be velvet, or black ich? If it is velvet, then Hypo will not do any good, and I should raise the salinity back up and treat with copper..?

The other fish seem very good (other that the banner fish with popeye, which just showed up this morning). Even the coral beauty with a swollen mouth seems fine, other than she is not as aggressive when eating. The powder blue with spots seems fine too, other than the spots. It is really strange, because every fish seemed fine, and then went downhill very quickly (went from healthy to dead in 6-12 hours). This is one reason why I don't think it is ich. I have never seen ich kill so quickly.

Also yes, it looks like both the butterfly, and the bannerfish could have had Uronema. Should I worry about this spreading to other fish now? Both of those fish died shortly after arriving.

So my thoughts are to continue down to 0.009, and then treat with Erythromyacin, unless it would be better to raise up to regular levels and treat with Erythromyacin and copper.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Thanks for the information.

I am also worried it could be velvet, or black ich? If it is velvet, then Hypo will not do any good, and I should raise the salinity back up and treat with copper..?

The other fish seem very good (other that the banner fish with popeye, which just showed up this morning). Even the coral beauty with a swollen mouth seems fine, other than she is not as aggressive when eating. The powder blue with spots seems fine too, other than the spots. It is really strange, because every fish seemed fine, and then went downhill very quickly (went from healthy to dead in 6-12 hours). This is one reason why I don't think it is ich. I have never seen ich kill so quickly.

Also yes, it looks like both the butterfly, and the bannerfish could have had Uronema. Should I worry about this spreading to other fish now? Both of those fish died shortly after arriving.

So my thoughts are to continue down to 0.009, and then treat with Erythromyacin, unless it would be better to raise up to regular levels and treat with Erythromyacin and copper.

This could be velvet, doubt that it is black ich.

That's really a tough call. Trouble is, while you can drop the salinity of fish rapidly, you need to raise it very slowly (over 4+ days). If that means delaying the copper treatment, that would be bad, you would just lose more fish. You could use copper at say 1.012 SG. That way, you could get the copper started right away. You could also start the erythromycin right away as well. You know though, I always tell folks - once fish loss has begun, even an effective treatment may not work in time to save the remaining ones....a bummer, but I don't want to give you false hope.

jay
 
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davidwillis

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This could be velvet, doubt that it is black ich.

That's really a tough call. Trouble is, while you can drop the salinity of fish rapidly, you need to raise it very slowly (over 4+ days). If that means delaying the copper treatment, that would be bad, you would just lose more fish. You could use copper at say 1.012 SG. That way, you could get the copper started right away. You could also start the erythromycin right away as well. You know though, I always tell folks - once fish loss has begun, even an effective treatment may not work in time to save the remaining ones....a bummer, but I don't want to give you false hope.

jay

The other problem is there are no local fish stores where I am at, so I would need to order any treatment (copper, etc) online. I could probably find some place that could overnight it, which means I would get it by Thursday. I could have the salinity u to 1.020 by that time. Any ideas of a good place to overnight it?

Also I have never treated with copper before. Is coppersafe or cupramine better, or something else? I also guess I need a copper test to keep it at the correct level.
 
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davidwillis

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So doing a little research on Uronema (I have never seen this one before). It looks like it can be treated with metroplex (metronidazole). After looking at Metroplex, it also treats ich and velvet.
 
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davidwillis

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Also doing some reading on H202. It looks like most are using it as a bath, but since this is a Fish only tank at the moment. I should be able to do a 30 min bath in the Tank, then turn on the pumps to get rid of the h202? And I could get H202 right away.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Also doing some reading on H202. It looks like most are using it as a bath, but since this is a Fish only tank at the moment. I should be able to do a 30 min bath in the Tank, then turn on the pumps to get rid of the h202? And I could get H202 right away.
Cupramine is better than Coppersafe for advanced protozoan diseases, but as I said, any delay in treatment will likely mean further fish losses. H2O2 in a tank is tricky. You can measure residual peroxide using a simple pool chlorine test (red means peroxide, clear means its all gone). You can also remove residual peroxide using aquarium dechlorinator...but dosing is just a guess....

Jay
 
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davidwillis

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coral beauty died last night. I am not sure how much it had eaten in the last few days. It was going around looking for food, but I didn't actually see it eat anything.

I ordered the coppersafe last night. I didn't know the cupramine was better. I ordered it next day, so it should be here tomorrow.

They dip them for 30 minutes at 150ppm
I don't think it would be good to go that high in the tank. But what if I did 1/2 that, for 30 min, then added dechlorinator? I would shut off all pumps before, and not turn them on until it was dechlorinated. This way it should not effect my bacteria in the sump, and hopefully not cause a large spike in ammonia... Just thinking if I could give them some time before getting the copper.
 

Jay Hemdal

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That all sounds very risky to me, but at this point, the fish loss is unfortunately likely to continue, so it is going to be an issue either way. The big issue is I have NO way to estimate for you, the amount of dechlor you’ll need to use. Without a DPD chlorine test, there is no way to ensure you’ve added enough. You can’t replicate the dip process, just to buy yourself some time?
Jay
 
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davidwillis

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ok, then i guess it is just going to be waiting for the copper to get here.

Thanks!
 

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