Need help with sick fish.

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ritter6788

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There is not much research outside salmon but viruses like IPN and ISKN have these symptoms:
Disease signs at the farm, tank or pond level are: ·*mortality between 50% and 100% ·*fish remaining on bottom of tank and not feeding well ·*lethargy ·*respiratory distress (rapid movement of opercula).

That describes it perfectly.
 

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As far as I know there is nothing to be done but wait it out and keep any survivors isolated from new fish because without a positive id on the virus there is no way of telling if it is the type of virus that will stay with the host permanently.
 
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I appreciate everyone's replies and thanks for the help. Please keep them coming if you think it will help.
 
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Thanks for checking back in.

The female anthia died overnight. The female clown is still in the corner. The male is in the back of the tank and looks more active (ate well when I fed today). The yellow wrasse is still sticking out of the sand breathing heavily. I think the solar wrasse is gone.

I still don't see any visible signs of parasites.

I pulled my heater out (Ehiem Jager) and there was some condensation in the top of the heater above the light. I Googled it and found some older posts that said Eheim says it's oil inside the tube and not a problem. My other Jagers don't have the same condensation though. I replaced it with another just in case.
 

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Maybe adding an air stone just to help make it easier on the fish by increasing O2 lvls. Sounds like you have some fighters in there
 

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After reading all posts and responses my best educated guess is the it's Gill Flukes or a strain of MI that mainly attacks the gills. Death by MI is primarily caused by asphixiation (bad spelling) or lack of oxygen from having their gills rendered useless by the parasite. The external parasites we see are only a tiny part of the problem. If you can capture and treat with Prazi-Pro would be beneficial.

Cheers, Todd


P.S. the parasites I've seen on Salmon and Trout gills are quite large and easy to see.
 
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Maybe adding an air stone just to help make it easier on the fish by increasing O2 lvls. Sounds like you have some fighters in there

I have one laying around. I'll see if I can find it.

After reading all posts and responses my best educated guess is the it's Gill Flukes or a strain of MI that mainly attacks the gills. Death by MI is primarily caused by asphixiation (bad spelling) or lack of oxygen from having their gills rendered useless by the parasite. The external parasites we see are only a tiny part of the problem. If you can capture and treat with Prazi-Pro would be beneficial.

Cheers, Todd


P.S. the parasites I've seen on Salmon and Trout gills are quite large and easy to see.

Agreed, I've about narrowed it down to a parasite or disease. I made some changes and I'll work on getting my QT set back up tomorrow if the fish are still alive. I've never transferred any illness or parasites to my tanks by adding corals, inverts or anything else except sick fish (done that a few times in the past) I was shocked to see the fish behaving so poorly out of the blue.

Made a few changes tonight. Fired up the carbon, cleaned out almost all the macroalgae in the tank (over 1/2 5gal. bucket full). I've read some about macro being toxic but I'm not sure, just eliminating some unknowns. If you haven't seen my tank it has a bit of macro in it....

IMG_5920_zpsf9d72110.jpg


There was some gunk behind the rocks in the macro similar to what would build up in an old sandbed, (maybe my problem???). Did a 10 gallon water change after removing all the macro.
 

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Macros have alleopathic chemical similar to soft corals so if it was the macro I think the coral would have been first on the hit list. Prazi-pro is reef safe so you don't need a qt to try it. I have personally used it in a reef tank with no casualties. Some inverts seemed a little bothered by it at first but got over it.
 
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The yellow wrasse died over night


But....

Only the 2 clowns are left and are acting perfectly normal. I just got home and fed and both came up and ate out of my hand like nothing was ever wrong with them. No heavy breathing, no laying in the corner.

????!!!! :confused:
 

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Sorry to hear man, hopefully if a toxin was the issue whether from Macro or ??? the carbon has removed much of it and all remaining livestock will recover. Wish you were closer as would definitely be interested in helping you get to the bottom of it. This kind of stuff really grabs my interest in a goo/bad way hate to let the unknown stay just that. Good thing I'm not a cat or my 9 lives would have been up many years ago.

Cheers, Todd
 

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I'd heck my O2 levels. Dont know how a baceria or virus would have come from.
 
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So that eliminates the disease or parasite theory.

I comes down to; the heater, the macro or some contaminant that was removed by carbon. I wish I had the opportunity to change things one at a time to solve the problem but I didn't want to risk any more fish loss so I changed everything I could think of at once.

The tank has 2 koralia 1050s, 700 gph overflow, skimmer with an exit pipe that has about 6 inch waterfall back into the sump so I don't think oxygenation is the problem.
 

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So that eliminates the disease or parasite theory.



The tank has 2 koralia 1050s, 700 gph overflow, skimmer with an exit pipe that has about 6 inch waterfall back into the sump so I don't think oxygenation is the problem.
Melev thought that once to, then it was the Redux.
 
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Melev thought that once to, then it was the Redux.

You may be right but now whatever was causing it has suddenly been fixed. Could have been some imbalance caused by all that macro? All that redox and ORP is over my head.
 

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Seems I can't edit my post, so what I should have this is:

IMO, the implementation of ozone to control ORP should only be tried by advanced aquarists.
 
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ritter,

if you really want to understand ORP, read this article at least 2-3 times (IMO, ORP should only be tried by advanced aquarists):

ORP and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

Thank you. I'll admit, I've read that page (well parts of it) more than once. It's still maybe the one part of reef keeping I don't understand and I haven't made any effort to better understand it.

The clowns are doing great and appear to be back to normal behaviour. Just to be safe I'm going to trash the heater and do a better job of keeping the macro groomed down to small portions.
 
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