ORA picasso's and fungus

[sdietz2469]

ok, so about 4 months ago i ordered me an pair of the ORA picasso clowns. i quaranined them for two weeks until i was sure they were eating and doing good.

as soon as i added them to my tank the instantly took to my elegance coral.within 72 hours of entering my tank they came down with a fungus where their side fin meets there body. i instantly removed them and put them abck ito quarantine, ut lost the lottle boy(smaller one). the female(larger one) pulled threw and i ordered another one to give her company. he came in and they instantly took to each other in the quarantine tank.

3 weeks later i carefully looked them over and they were perfectly halthy and fat. i placed them back into the display that night. in the morning the female(one from the original pair) showed a small dot of fungus and i removed them again.

this has went on for 4 months now and this time they have been in quarantine for 5 weeks, and i am a little frustrated...

i called ORA about 2 weeks ago just ot get the run around with sorry the person you need to talk to isnt here right now, i will have them call you.... and i still havent heard frm them...

i am beginning to think i will never buy another ORA fish, cuz i think this is a genetic defect, and they just dont want to hear about it, cuz they already know about it...


does anyone have any ideas for me??????
shane

 

[Chelsey]

I'm not positive, but I don't think that a fungus can be a genetic defect. Usually defects are something anatomically wrong with the fish, not a fungus. There's a possibility that they are having a reaction to the elegance coral or maybe you have a strain of fungus in your tank that the rest of your fish have become immune to but these new guys have not. Generally speaking, farms, fish tanks, and other places that have more than one animal in a given location have an inherent pathogen load: bugs that those particular animals have built up a resistance to. When new animals are brought onto the facility (or in this case your tank) they have to build up resistance to the pathogens already on the farm. In swine operations they use isolation and acclimation barns and with reef tanks QT tanks frequently contain a small % of water from the tank they'll be going in to.

When you put them back into QT did you treat them with anything or just have them in the other tank?

 

[reefboy]

If it goes away in QT can't see how its a defect sounds like your system has a pathogen thats causing this if it goes away in QT once removed from display.

 

[Reef Monkey]

What's interesting is in a similar thread on another forum he mentioned

"the thing that gets me is the water i use for my quarantine come from my display! i do a 100% waterchange every other day into my q-tank from my display. i would think that would make them react the same way? i have neverheard of a clown being "allergic" to an elagence coral, as their sting is nothing comparedm to that of an anenome.... but what gets me is that only the female and male from the first pair seem to get the fungus, the newest male doesnt!"

 

[Russellaqua]

I once got fish directly from ORA that came with a case of marine ick. Their quality control seems to have dropped off. Maybe the hurricanes a couple years ago are to blame.

 

[reefboy]

Nothing to gain here from saying this but I doubt ORA is to blame here let's not witch hunt I've recieved many fish from ORA never a problem and yes I'm a vendor but if they were slacking I would know.

 

[sdietz2469]

not saying that there is a genetic defect of fungus, but a genetic defect such as low imunity to diseases due to a recessive gene that makes them more white, maybe this is part of the fact they are so suceptable(sp?) to fungus. like i said it just gets me that the new fish that has been introduced(the male) hasnt show any signs of fungus, but both of the others contracted it rather fast... an i would think that since they were bought about the same time they would have came from the same batch, and maybe this was a bad batch....
shane

 

[Pitcom]

I've posted my story about my original ORA picasso's so I don't need to go into it again. But pair 1 were just flat out a sickly pair of fish, shipped out at too young of an age. Pair 2 were 10x healthier looking and showed no signs of stress. I'm just curious but how young were the original pair you got?

I forgot too add. You say you got your fish 4 months ago. I got my original pair early august so about the same time. I spoke to several people on rc who had their picasso's they got at the same time frame, simply perish, or come sick. I'm not speaking here with any authority on the subject since obviously I don't work there, but, we were told by someone at ORA that they believe when they moved their fish between systems they forgot to acclimate the clownfish causing damage from the ph swing. Myself and the LFS kinda scratched our heads at that, but it's what we were told. Hopefully your new guy makes it fine, like i said my second pair are really nice.

 

[sdietz2469]

they were pretty you, less than 1" head to tail....
shane

 

[reefermadness]

The elegance would burn the clown, but not cause fungus.....I have seen clowns burned from an elegance before.

 

[cl2ysta1]

i had a similar problem happen with my true perc pair. We had them for over four years. flew them out here to utah from ohio. Put them directly in the display. They took to our torch colony. Less than a week later in teh same spot you mentioned.. where their side fins hit the body was an open looking wound with a white fungus. It was quite easily treatable. I removed the fish. Formalin dipped and than treated for 24 hours to get rid of the fungus. I than treated for two weeks in maracyn two. They were than put in a different display devoid of a torch coral. Never had the issue again.

My theory is the torch removed their slime coat in that area and left them open to secondary infections.