Lost 37 of 40 new chromis in QT. Possible causes?

Jorda320

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Hi,

I ordered 40 blue green chromis (I love their movement in numbers) about 2 months ago. I got them into a QT tank and acclimated them. Over the first night I lost 8. I've been treating the surviving 32 with meds a friend at my LFS recommended ( prazipro and general cure). I follow the instructions and dosed as recommended, I added increased circulation and surface agitation, and did water changes prior to dosing as per the instructions. by the time I was done with the initial round of medication I had 3 of the initial 40 left.

I've quarantined many fish before and I have done nothing different this time compared two prior attempts. This is my usual QT tank which is sterilized after every use. I mix New saltwater for every QT process and make sure not to use nets or any equipment that I would use on my DT. I made sure that the salinity matched the water that the fish were shipped in, which was 1.026. I had no issues with nitrates or phosphates and I used a sponge filter with some of the purple bottle instant ocean nitrifying bacteria. I was at a loss as to why this happened and attributed it to the cold weather possibly stressing the fish during shipping. It is below freezing where I live and I made sure to let the company know that when I bought them. Anyway, the remaining three did well in the QT and I ended up moving them to my DT as they showed no signs of stress or illness. Within the past two or three days I've noticed that they appear to be breathing heavily with their mouths puffing in and out. I have other fish in the tank who appear fine and I'm wondering if I moved these into the DT too soon. I'm very concerned with my original fish catching whatever is killing these chromis. I've included a brief video of this behavior and was wondering if anyone has any idea what's causing this? Water parameters have been stable in the DT with no issues. Nitrate and phosphate is well within recommended levels and maintain with a zeovit system. this tank has been up and running for about 16 months with no issues prior to this.

At this point I'm assuming that the fish were either stressed in shipping or arrived with some sort of illness I was not able to get rid of. I feel terrible that I wasn't able to save these fish and I'm looking to improve my knowledge in regards to situations like this. Any advice for criticism is greatly appreciated.
 

pdxmonkeyboy

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Where did you order them from and how long did it take for them to die?

If they were anthias I would immediately point at cyanide but I dont know how difficult chromis are to catch in the wild.
 

Old Fritz

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So from my time working at pet stores I always had issues with these guys. Typically they would die within a week. I think part of it is they don't adjust well to new tanks.

Anyways I found that when I used paraguard on new chromis most if not all would survive. I think it had to do with the fact that paraguard helps treat uronema which is the parasite chromis are most known for.

It could also be a water quality issue but since this isn't your first qt I doubt you weren't monitoring ammonia levels
 

Albertan22

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How big is the QT and how were you oxygenating the water? 40 fish is a lot of fish to qt in one go. I’m no pro when it comes to fish meds but doesn’t praziquantel strip oxygen from the water? Or is that another one? It’s possible they suffocated. Ammonia is another possibility since most qt tanks aren’t well cycled but I assume you were monitoring that. If it was ammonia, the 3 still alive could have burnt their gills henceforth the heavy breathing.
 

cjpitt80

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Unfortunately, you're not the first to go thru this. I am right now too
 

EakTheFreak

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@Jorda320 I have tried QT’ing 2 batches of Blue Green Reef Chromis. The first batch of 17 all died over a 2 week window. Uronema was the killer so I did way more research before next batch.

I ended up doing a formulin dip (35 minutes) on 12 Blue Green Chromis before adding them to 1.0 ppm Copper QT tank. Brought the copper up to 2.0 ppm over the next 4 days and kept in QT for 30 days.

The smartest move I made was including a Melanurus Wrasse with this group of 12. It kept them from killing one another which these are known for after researching at length.

The idea behind the Melanurus Wrasse is that the blue green chromis we’re afraid to pick on each other and schooled better together out of fear of the large wrasse.

Even with all of these moves I made I still only
Got 6 of the 12 through QT into my DT.
 
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Jorda320

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I'll try to provide as much information as I can. I should point out that I ordered these from blue zoo aquatics. I did have a few other fish in the order including a royal gamma basslet, a lawn mower blending, a goby, and about 100 cerith snails. I have an old 40 gallon breeder that I use for my QT. I'm aware that a lot of the meds complicate things with oxygen. I use two separate sponge filters that I only use with this QT. I've heard that bleach will dissolve some of the sponge filters so I typically microwave these for about 10 seconds and let them dry for a few months before using them again. I've done this for a while and I've had no issues so far. The two filters agitate the surface with bubbles, and I also have a cheaper hydor powerhead which I do point out the surface of the water. I use a cheap aqueon heater to keep the temperature at 78 and I have a small digital thermometer. I use the salifert test kits for everything related to reefing and so far I don't believe I've had any inconsistency in readings. if these were full-size fish I would definitely have used more than one tank to quarantine them however most of them were about 3/4 of an inch to 1 in in length. Overall they just seemed tiny and I thought that many fish in a aquarium that size would be okay.

I'm upset that this happens, but if others are having similar issues it's sort of gives me peace of mind that maybe I did not do something that caused this die off. I do hope I will try again in the future, but right now I'm not too sure about that
 
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Jorda320

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@Jorda320 I have tried QT’ing 2 batches of Blue Green Reef Chromis. The first batch of 17 all died over a 2 week window. Uronema was the killer so I did way more research before next batch.

I ended up doing a formulin dip (35 minutes) on 12 Blue Green Chromis before adding them to 1.0 ppm Copper QT tank. Brought the copper up to 2.0 ppm over the next 4 days and kept in QT for 30 days.

The smartest move I made was including a Melanurus Wrasse with this group of 12. It kept them from killing one another which these are known for after researching at length.

The idea behind the Melanurus Wrasse is that the blue green chromis we’re afraid to pick on each other and schooled better together out of fear of the large wrasse.

Even with all of these moves I made I still only
Got 6 of the 12 through QT into my DT.

Prior to this Ive never even heard of Uronema. Looks like I'll be doing some research before trying this again. I'm sorry to hear that only six of the 12 made it into your DT. I do think that they are amazing fish however I always feel bad when I lose new fish
 

Tamberav

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So you treated with prazipro and general cure at the same time?

General cure contains prazi....so you dosed the same med twice.

Not sure how sensative chromis are to prazi or if that's the cause but just pointing out they got overdosed and it could effect oxygen too.
 
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Jorda320

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So you treated with prazipro and general cure at the same time?

General cure contains prazi....so you dosed the same med twice.

Not sure how sensative chromis are to prazi or if that's the cause but just pointing out they got overdosed and it could effect oxygen too.

I do my best to follow the directions on the bottle. So far I've never had any meds that stated it would be okay to dose with other medicine. I always do one at a time, carbon in the tank following compltion of the med routine (7days for prazipro I think) then water change. Then repeat or move onto the next med.
 

GoldeneyeRet

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Chromis are very susceptable to uronema and uronema is widespread these days. That's what I would bet on.

Metronidazole and/or chloroquine phosphate are the best choices for treatment.
 

cjpitt80

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Man. This sucks. I'm down to 4 left on my batch of 12. This is they will look completely FINE then the next morning however many are dead on the bottom of the tank. I have them in with a Foxface Lo who seems to be okay. Just bored in the smaller tank. I'd like a minimum of 5 in my DT, but looks like that probably won't happen. This will probably be the last time I try with them
 

EakTheFreak

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@cjpitt80 Yeah it’s rough, almost have to expect 50-65% die off when buying them. I’m yet to have found anyone that gets over 75% through QT.
 

cjpitt80

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Yeah, I felt terrible with the 1st batch from the LFS, thought I was just bad at it. Less bad with the 2nd batch. Honestly, was kinda expecting it with this current one and really only got because they were dirt cheap
 

dvp95

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I recently purchased eight of these for my large tank and four of these have died. I did not know of this disease until after I got these fish. The first one had a clear red spot on the side of the body. I thought they were just attacking each other. A couple days later three more died. They did not have a clear fleshy spot but definitely discoloration. The other four have looked good for the past week. I have them in a quarantine tank with my kole tang and powder brown tang. All these fish look good so far. I do not plan on getting any more fish of these chromis but my goal is to now prevent this from getting into my display tank. What is the best way to eradicate this during the QT process? I have read humble's post about treating them while they are sick as well as metroplex for 2 weeks. Is that all I should do is metroplex for 2 weeks since no one looks like they actively have it? After that I would then treat them with copper for ich and keeping them in the QT for 76+ days prior to bringing them into my DT. Here's the picture of the three that died. The first one I do not have a picture. Again the first one had a clear red area that looked more fleshy

IMG_20200111_165439.jpg
 

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