Longnose Hawkfish not eating after one week of copper

cmoore806

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I have a longnose hawkfish in QT for prophylactic copper power treatment. Bought him from my LFS and he was eating fine as well as my other fish for over a week before I started copper treatment.

It’s been 7 days with copper at 2.5 ppm and I think he looks like he’s lost weight, probably not tolerating the copper. Breathing a little quick, not eating pellets or garlic and calanus.

I have two clowns a watchman goby and a lawnmower blenny all eating fine in the same tank with him. I have a second fish QT up and running with a couple tangs and a couple wrasse. I’m considering moving all my fish to one QT to continue copper treatment and isolating the hawkfish and dropping the copper level to see if his appetite returns.

what would you do?
 

Brymac1

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I would do exactly as you described. Once you get the hawk eating again, raise the copper level slowly back to 2.5 ppm. If he still does not eat, I would try treating him at 2.0 ppm.
 
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cmoore806

cmoore806

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Moved the other fish to my second tank to continue copper. Did a high waterchange in the 10g to isolate the hawk. Running cuprisorb to pull out remaining Cu.

Hopefully will get him eating again!
 

Jay Hemdal

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I have a longnose hawkfish in QT for prophylactic copper power treatment. Bought him from my LFS and he was eating fine as well as my other fish for over a week before I started copper treatment.

It’s been 7 days with copper at 2.5 ppm and I think he looks like he’s lost weight, probably not tolerating the copper. Breathing a little quick, not eating pellets or garlic and calanus.

I have two clowns a watchman goby and a lawnmower blenny all eating fine in the same tank with him. I have a second fish QT up and running with a couple tangs and a couple wrasse. I’m considering moving all my fish to one QT to continue copper treatment and isolating the hawkfish and dropping the copper level to see if his appetite returns.

what would you do?
What copper product are you using and what are you testing with?
Hawk fish aren’t sensitive to proper copper treatments, have you considered it might be gill flukes? Can you post a short video of the fish?
Jay
 
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cmoore806

cmoore806

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He might be looking a little better with the copper removed for now.

I don’t think I see any flukes.

I’ll try a FW dip in case there’s something parasitic I’m missing

 
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cmoore806

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Tried a freshwater dip. Tolerated it fine. Didn’t see anything floating in the water left behind.

started a batch of brine eggs hopefully they’ll hatch and I can have some live food to try
 

vetteguy53081

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What test kit are you testing copper with ?
 

Jay Hemdal

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Tried a freshwater dip. Tolerated it fine. Didn’t see anything floating in the water left behind.

started a batch of brine eggs hopefully they’ll hatch and I can have some live food to try
Flukes dislodged during a FW dip will sink. Only one species, Neobenedenia, can be seen without a microscope. What you want to see is some improvement a few days after the dip.
Jay
 
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cmoore806

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Tonight after work he’s looking alright. After the FW dip 24 hrs ago I started prazipro in the event there is parasitic involvement. Im at work all day and can’t feed multiple times or sit and spend a day watching him. As Jay educated me there may only be microscopic evidence post dip of flukes if they were ever there so I figured make use of this prazipro on my shelf


I didn’t witness him taking pellet food, but my first ever hatch of brine shrimp is alive so I put some in the QT and I did witness him chasing and chomping the baby brine.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Tonight after work he’s looking alright. After the FW dip 24 hrs ago I started prazipro in the event there is parasitic involvement. Im at work all day and can’t feed multiple times or sit and spend a day watching him. As Jay educated me there may only be microscopic evidence post dip of flukes if they were ever there so I figured make use of this prazipro on my shelf


I didn’t witness him taking pellet food, but my first ever hatch of brine shrimp is alive so I put some in the QT and I did witness him chasing and chomping the baby brine.
That's a good sign. Next thing to try would be some frozen mysid shrimp, diced into small pieces with a razor blade.

Jay
 
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cmoore806

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He ate mysis fine, I also gave some calanus. Even sucked down a whole mysis that made it in the feeding cup. Will make sure he’s eating fine then maybe after a week or two consider restarting copper treatment.
 

Jay Hemdal

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He ate mysis fine, I also gave some calanus. Even sucked down a whole mysis that made it in the feeding cup. Will make sure he’s eating fine then maybe after a week or two consider restarting copper treatment.
It sure sounds like copper was the culprit, but like I said, Hawkfish are not known to be sensitive to copper at all. Were there any other fish in with it during the copper? Did you use any ammonia removers or other chemicals during the copper treatment? If you dose with copper again, you might try coppersafe instead.

Jay Hemdal
 
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cmoore806

cmoore806

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He may be a picky eater? I had him in a QT with two clowns, helfrichi firefish, watchman goby, and a lawnmower Blenny. One clown and the watchman and the firefish were my existing fish that were quarantined and treated with copper 1.5 years ago before going in my display at that time. Since then I never quarantined my corals and inverts so as I transition to a larger display I am requarantining my original stock and started a separate coral and invert QT to do things the “right way”
 

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