Introducing fish after Brook outbreak

[toddb93]

Hi everyone. Just looking for some help again. I recently had a brooklynella outbreak which rapidly wiped out all fish in my mixed reef tank. My question is how long should I wait before re introducing a fish again? I have seen on other posts about 76 days but I am running a UV and plan on doing small water changes to the tank (which is 38 gallons). With a UV and small weekly water changes, is the fallow period still that long?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi everyone. Just looking for some help again. I recently had a brooklynella outbreak which rapidly wiped out all fish in my mixed reef tank. My question is how long should I wait before re introducing a fish again? I have seen on other posts about 76 days but I am running a UV and plan on doing small water changes to the tank (which is 38 gallons). With a UV and small weekly water changes, is the fallow period still that long?

Thanks in advance!

Brooklynella has direct development, so there is no "resting stage" like there is with ich or velvet. This means that the fallow period can be shorter. However, exactly how short is a matter of guessing. I would not go any shorter than 45 days.

That said, it is rare for Brooklynella to kill ALL fish in an aquarium - so I would worry that this could have been something else. To be safe then, 60 days would be a safer option.

 

[toddb93]

Brooklynella has direct development, so there is no "resting stage" like there is with ich or velvet. This means that the fallow period can be shorter. However, exactly how short is a matter of guessing. I would not go any shorter than 45 days.

That said, it is rare for Brooklynella to kill ALL fish in an aquarium - so I would worry that this could have been something else. To be safe then, 60 days would be a safer option.

Thanks for the reply Jay. It seemed to have started with my clowns, it definitely was not ich, I’ve had that before. Just comparing pictures of disease I narrowed it down to brook or velvet. Each fish seemed to develop some sort of skin lesion which looked white and in a couple cases fins rotted away. After each fish was affected they lasted maybe 5-7 days after that.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thanks for the reply Jay. It seemed to have started with my clowns, it definitely was not ich, I’ve had that before. Just comparing pictures of disease I narrowed it down to brook or velvet. Each fish seemed to develop some sort of skin lesion which looked white and in a couple cases fins rotted away. After each fish was affected they lasted maybe 5-7 days after that.

That does sound like Brooklynella - at least those symptoms are not consistent with flukes, ich or velvet....