Ich

[KevBodd]

Did the fish have nipped fins before death or is that post mortem?

Without any good pictures of the symptoms of fish, it’s hard to ID the disease.

Can you post more info on the tank info?

Age, inhabitants, equipments etc

This right here, list of tank members.

The fins were nipped by a file fish after it had got white spot. It seem to know that it was weak. Up until that point it had never seem to bother it.

 

[KevBodd]

Also I forgot to mention I was dosing with poly p lab medic as I was told it could clear up the white spot. Maybe this combination with high temperature could have starved the fish with oxygen ?.

77 is not a high temperature by reef standards. That alone shouldn’t delete oxygen.

Neither will polyp lab medic, which are just peroxide salts, largely ineffective in treating ich, and will not deplete oxygen.

What do you have in terms of water movement in your tank? Do you have a skimmer?

Also, a blue tang cannot do well long term in a 300L.

Needs at least 700L

Yeah it was a mistake getting it. I have a skimmer and a roller mat. Good water movement. It was all good up to that point with the powder blue.

 

[KevBodd]

Post pics of fish that are still alive if possible. The deaths will not show much in the realm of disease once dead and out of water for a time.

I’ll post some pictures when I get home. It maybe tomorrow. Thanks.

 

[KevBodd]

Post pics of fish that are still alive if possible. The deaths will not show much in the realm of disease once dead and out of water for a time.

I’ll post some photos when I get home. It might be tomorrow. Thanks

 

[m3xm3xm3x]

can you let us know how new is your tank? Less than 1 month? Or more?

Also, please list list all the fish you added originally? Was it gradual or you added all same time? And if it was from same vendor or different vendors ?

Looking at the long nose he does appear super thin. Do you have pic of the powder blue?

It’s possible the fish were not 100% healthy when you acquired them.

Unless you plan on quarantining new fish I would advise not to buy anymore fish until what killed your fishes. If some parasite is in your system you will just end up killing more fish.

Also I’ve learned some fish can be asymptomatic such as your few remaining fish. But that doesn’t mean your tank is parasite free.

 

[KevBodd]

can you let us know how new is your tank? Less than 1 month? Or more?

Also, please list list all the fish you added originally? Was it gradual or you added all same time? And if it was from same vendor or different vendors ?

Looking at the long nose he does appear super thin. Do you have pic of the powder blue?

It’s possible the fish were not 100% healthy when you acquired them.

Unless you plan on quarantining new fish I would advise not to buy anymore fish until what killed your fishes. If some parasite is in your system you will just end up killing more fish.

Also I’ve learned some fish can be asymptomatic such as your few remaining fish. But that doesn’t mean your tank is parasite free.

Hi I’ve had the tank for 5 months. I bought it off of someone who had had it approximately 15 months. All the fish that come with it have done really well up to now. The fox face I bought about 2 months ago from a local dealer. He looks fine. The fire fish looks good too he was an original fish. The cleaner shrimp is also doing well he’s also original. Three fish that died including the butterfly were bought from the same place 2 weeks ago. The others are from different shops.. It started soon after I got the powder blue. I had already pre ordered the yellow butterfly and three wrecking fish who all died including the same few days from the same shop. Unfortunately I have no photos of the powder blue. I wrapped it up and disposed of it unless I can still find it. Thanks.

 

[vetteguy53081]

This scenario points to disease and need more info on symptoms and please provide pics or video of fish under white light intensity. After assessment, proper treatment will be recommended and skip ich management which rarely works.

 

[vetteguy53081]

If several fish already died, UV and a micron filter will be of little help.

Ich management is only doable at very early stages

Ich management rarely works even at early stage and is often a shortcut that is an alternative and not a solution, a reason to leave this to fish medics before more fish die

 

[KevBodd]

This scenario points to disease and need more info on symptoms and please provide pics or video of fish under white light intensity. After assessment, proper treatment will be recommended and skip ich management which rarely works.

This is just before I lost my second clown fish.

 

[vetteguy53081]

This is just before I lost my second clown fish.

I dont see signs of ich or at least pronounced ich and can be brooklynella in which mucus slowly builds up and fish loses color, loses appetite, breathing increases, fish becomes lethargic and lesions appear which are confused with ich

 

[winxp_man]

I dont see signs of ich or at least pronounced ich and can be brooklynella in which mucus slowly builds up and fish loses color, loses appetite, breathing increases, fish becomes lethargic and lesions appear which are confused with ich

Does velvet cause color discoloration? I feel velvet can kill before it’s even seen at times.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Does velvet cause color discoloration? I feel velvet can kill before it’s even seen at times.

At times yes, and can move quickly but is mainly a gill disease and does stop fish from eating, but the fish breath really fast. . . . and reason to treat quickly

 

[mcarroll]

The fins were nipped by a file fish after it had got white spot. It seem to know that it was weak. Up until that point it had never seem to bother it.

Hm.

Hi I’ve had the tank for 5 months. I bought it off of someone who had had it approximately 15 months. All the fish that come with it have done really well up to now. The fox face I bought about 2 months ago from a local dealer. He looks fine. The fire fish looks good too he was an original fish. The cleaner shrimp is also doing well he’s also original. Three fish that died including the butterfly were bought from the same place 2 weeks ago. The others are from different shops.. It started soon after I got the powder blue. I had already pre ordered the yellow butterfly and three wrecking fish who all died including the same few days from the same shop. Unfortunately I have no photos of the powder blue. I wrapped it up and disposed of it unless I can still find it. Thanks.

In the timeline, when did the nipping file fish show up? (They're slightly known for this.)

Nipping
Harassment either ends in outright death from the attacks or lowered immunity (usually interferes with eating, sleeping and spikes stress levels), then disease. This guy probably isn't capable of violent attacks, so it's on the other end of the spectrum...still of concern.

Along with everything else you're considering/doing, can you re-home the file fish somewhere?

Interesting that "it" started with the Powder Blue....beautiful fish, but they have a reputation for lots of not-entirely-positive things like this.

It sounds like you added a lot of fish from a lot of sources in a fairly short time, almost maximizing risk that something would happen pathogen-wise. (Ordering some of them online is about all you could have done to maximize it further.)

If your setup was fully equipped for this level of acquisition with a properly sized/installed UV setup (eg. AquaUV 15- or 25-watt unit, depending on your flow) and maybe a micron filter as well (eg a. Magnum polishing filter or two) there would still be a small risk of something spreading in the tank. But your fish are capable of defending themselves under these conditions in many cases – perhaps almost all cases – because you've created some margin for their success!

In an uncontrolled situation like yours, if you bring in an infected fish, swarmer populations are uncontested and increase to MASSIVELY outnumber and overpower even the healthy fishes' immune systems – that is the margin for success they give themselves.

UV+micron+water treatment is very close to 100% effective for this – ie bringing swarmer numbers close to zero. It just does nothing for the velvet that is actually infecting your fish, so some kind of chemical intervention is sometimes also called for. (See below.)

You'd combine these filters with an overall approach for minimizing stress and eliminating the introduction of parasites to the extent possible....often including (among other things) a freshwater dip before the fish go into a system to remove most/all external parasites.

What do they mean when they say "Velvet (Amyloodinium) infections in fish can easily be avoided?" They mean with an overall approach – that article is another bit of excellent reading.

Sorry it was at 27.5 c now it’s at 25c .

27.5C is also well within range of "normal" reef temps, BTW.

The start of it was a powder blue which had white spot. Then my long nose yellow butterfly had white spots. All the other fish that have died over the last few days have no spots. The powder blue was rubbing himself against rocks. The others were not doing that. I just thought it must have been ich to begin with.

Noted. Did any of the fish at any point (especially ones that have succumbed but didn't have spots) have any breathing difficulties/hanging around the surface/loss of appetite? ...other symptoms?

Interestingly, this situation also suggests that your original fish may be demonstrating immunity to the parasites – firefish are often among the first to go during a typical outbreak, yet they are hanging in there through all this, even outlasting the clownfish.

Thank you for this. The first two fish that died had white spot but the others didn’t have anything on them. Can I put the uv in the sump? How long would I have to wait before I introduce new fish? The remaining fish in the display tank haven’t got any spots . I don’t really want to go down the road of medication in a separate tank as I’m new to this and not sure what to do.

Understood.

UV would either run directly in the display tank with the fish, or (only slightly less optimal) inline with your return pump filtering 100% of your return water – size the UV accordingly. Micron filters, same...ideal would be in-tank.

...and I hear you on your desire to avoid the "standard" chemical treatment.

Chemotherapies like copper are not perfect and they are not foolproof – just to name one downside, folks (especially newbs) kill their fish by medication (too much or too little) more often than we'd like to admit.

We aren't obligated to follow that plan, but that doesn't mean we do nothing! :) (It does mean we'll have some reading to do.)

A different option for ectoparasites and bacterial issues that doesn't seem to come up is freshwater baths with added peroxide (c.2001). Apparently, this can be up to 9x.x% effective (as good as other medications) but I'm not sure this has caught on as a hobby treatment yet...at least here.

Peroxide degrades into H2O and it's used for first aid so gotta be safer and easier to work with than other chemical treatments, right? The others chems obvious do not degrade into water....you have to consider toxic-waste disposal options for them after treatment.

IMO the peroxide option would be interesting for you. This article gives *a lot* more detail on velvet as well as the peroxide treatment.

In a nutshell, it indicates that either 100 or 200 ppm concentrations of peroxide in the bath, according to their regime, lead them from daily mortalities to zero mortalities. Zero mortalities is what we like to hear!

You can craft a custom routine that would work at home from this data. (Seems like this would have been translated into a sticky thread by now.) There's actually a ton of good info in there, but it's not really formatted for us. Most of it is squint-able though!

From googling about peroxide baths for fish, it appears that some hobby folks who are using it target 150 ppm peroxide concentration to split the difference, but I'm not sure that makes sense in all cases – you can still make use of the dosage rates they talk about for 3% peroxide. Keep in mind the data from the article. Read up on your fish so you know their tolerances. From reading the article, I suspect fish with relatively thin gill tissue, like the pleco's in the study, will be sensitive and could need the lower ppm or even a different treatment. (Some fish/meds are covered in this thread.)

It requires more judgement on your part because there are some "big IFs" involved, but you can also opt to leave all the fish in the display along with the reef-safe water treatment (not peroxide) + UV/micron filtration. If the newer guys are still eating well, this is acceptable, IMO. Fish that are still eating may recover on their own if you're able to improve other conditions – eg. adding UV/micron+water treatment to decimate and slow the swarmer population that is overwhelming them.

If any of the fish aren't eating or are showing other symptoms of heavy infection, then you'll want to medicate/treat them with one of the options above (eg peroxide bath or copper, etc).

Please realize that a QT tank is just a basic (but nice) fish-only setup to enable de-stressing and observation. It is not a sterile hospital/treatment tank. A sterile hospital tank is actually stressful for them to be in past the short term. (Would you want to line in a hospital operating room? Hospitals have better sense than that; so can we.)

Depending on your ultimate plan, you may need both a QT and a hospital tank. Some treatments can be done in QT, but not all should be. An ultra-simple hospital setup is good for the latter.

 

[mcarroll]

Does velvet cause color discoloration? I feel velvet can kill before it’s even seen at times.

I had not actually noticed or heard of this until reading the other day, but a brownish or greenish cast to the skin can apparently be noticed on infected fish, in particular if the light is right.

Check out the article above that has "a lot of detail' in it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I had not actually noticed or heard of this until reading the other day, but a brownish or greenish cast to the skin can apparently be noticed on infected fish, in particular if the light is right.

Check out the article above that has "a lot of detail' in it.

There is generally not a color which I have never heard of but when you get this velvet effect, often fish is on its way to death