Paying the price for no carantine

Koty

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Woke up yesterday and strangely the fish were not waiting for food and even did not come to nibble on masstick which is an iresistable food IME. Then i found two dead Swallowtail angels. They looked intact nothing on them. Next day it was the coral beauty. And now my mandrin and fairy wrasse are breathing heavily. The rest of the fish look ok only they are not eating so they are not. These are blue face trigger, copperband, cardinals and clowns. Melanorus and cleaner wrasse are fine and eating for now. Although i have no idea it seem like a bacterial infection.However, as its a reef tank i guess all i can do is wait and see who will survive it. This infestation came of course with a new femail melanorus i tried to introduce to my mature male...also a mistake as he had a change of mind in an hour from courting her to deciding to kill her. She is in the sump perfectly healthy in amphipode heaven.
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Jay Hemdal

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Sorry to see that.
Are there any invertebrates in the tank? Are they all good? If so, then that tends to rule out most water quality issues. If it is a fish only tank, then you do need to consider an acute toxic event of some sort.
If just fish are affected, then it could be velvet, Amyloodinium. This gill parasite kills rapidly. Copper in a treatment tank is the way to go, but it can take 3 days to start to work and your fish may not have that much time - sorry!
Jay
 
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Koty

Koty

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Its a reef tank corals are ok. I have a new carbon/resin bag and hsppen to hang the TLF Heavy metal adsorber. Parameters are very good corals are doing fine. They consume about 1 KH/3 Days. Only glich was an increase in nitrate from 12 to 25 probbably the decay of the dead fish. I have quite a few fish and mainly LPS and soft corals. Not all seem to be effected equally so my question is can they survive it and become immune?
Thanks for the rspid reply
 

Jay Hemdal

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Its a reef tank corals are ok. I have a new carbon/resin bag and hsppen to hang the TLF Heavy metal adsorber. Parameters are very good corals are doing fine. They consume about 1 KH/3 Days. Only glich was an increase in nitrate from 12 to 25 probbably the decay of the dead fish. I have quite a few fish and mainly LPS and soft corals. Not all seem to be effected equally so my question is can they survive it and become immune?
Thanks for the rspid reply
I can't say if the fish will survive. Some immunity is conferred, but it doesn't last forever, depends on the disease organism.
Can you post a short video taken under white lights?

Jay
 
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Koty

Koty

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about 150/min :(
BTW the young female melanorus that brought it to my tank is perfectly healthy
 
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Jay Hemdal

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about 150/min :(
BTW the young female melanorus that brought it to my tank is perfectly healthy
Very strange - typically, the fish that brings a disease into a system is one of the first to show symptoms. The open mouth of the dead genicanthus and the rapid breathing in the cardinal and wrasse all point to an acute gill issue. Sometimes, you can have low dissolved oxygen/high carbon dioxide that doesn't harm the inverts, but kills the fish. If your tank has good aeration (not just circulation) you can rule that out - an air stone, or strong skimmer will resolve that issue. The next thing would be velvet, and one additional thing - when moving the fish to a tank for copper treatment, giving them a five minute FW dip will often buy you some extra time.

Jay
 
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Koty

Koty

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O2 is probably not an issue. skeemer is on 100% and return flow and wave maker are intense and are close to the surface.
 
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Koty

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O2 is probably not an issue. skeemer is on 100% and return flow and wave maker are intense and are close to the surface
 
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Koty

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Jay thanks for your help. Can you direct me please to How do i bring my system back to be Velvet free. I guess it involves taking out the corals to another tank and treating everything with copper?
 

Jay Hemdal

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Jay thanks for your help. Can you direct me please to How do i bring my system back to be Velvet free. I guess it involves taking out the corals to another tank and treating everything with copper?
If you can remove ALL fish from the tank, leaving it fallow for a period of time will remove the parasites, as they die out due to lack of a host. Moving the corals to another tank can just carry tomonts with them, so you would then need to leave that tank fallow anyway.

The absolute safest thing to do would be to leave the tank fishless for 76 days. This is the longest period noted in the literature. Noga indicates that the time could be as short at 20 days for velvet, but he hedges his bet on that. I've been extrapolating the data and it seems to show that 45 days at 81 degrees may work, but I've heard some reports of breakthrough cases, so longer is better.

Jay
 
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Koty

Koty

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I am doing just that. I had to take out a few rocks and corals in order to catch the fish. That was a 3hrs ordeal. Still have the Melanorous to catch. All surviving fish are in 0.5 ppm copper from seachem (payed a lot of $ to find out that its a CuSO4 solution that i could make in the lab unless its with a chelator).
Jay, I want to thank you for your informative and quick replies. Its not trivial to have such quick access to world experts that go out of their way to share their knowledge and expirience.
Koty
 

Jay Hemdal

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Cupramine is copper sulfate bond to an amine. I’m not sure of the exact chemistry, old school chelated copper was just copper sulfate penthydrate and citric acid. It was more toxic though.
Jay
 

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I've been extrapolating the data and it seems to show that 45 days at 81 degrees may work, but I've heard some reports of breakthrough cases, so longer is better.

Jay
That’s very good to know. I’ll modify my recommendations from now on.

Do you think temp fluctuations with dips below 81 would cause the lifecycle to extend? Usually night time is coldest, and that’s the time we aren’t awake. Inaccurate thermometers might play a role too. Also, since cold air sinks, and thermometers are near the surface, it might not actually be as hot as we think it is, especially since tomonts hang out on the bottom.
 

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I don’t know for certain, but my expectation would be that it isn’t a make or break thing - like if it falls below 81 degrees, it automatically kicks you back to 76 days. It is probably more like - the time spent below 81 degrees will proportionally extend the fallow period.
Back 40 years ago, I would just do 30 days at 85 degrees, but today’s reef aquarists frown on that (grin).
Jay
 

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I don’t know for certain, but my expectation would be that it isn’t a make or break thing - like if it falls below 81 degrees, it automatically kicks you back to 76 days. It is probably more like - the time spent below 81 degrees will proportionally extend the fallow period.
Back 40 years ago, I would just do 30 days at 85 degrees, but today’s reef aquarists frown on that (grin).
Jay
I read 86F can shorten a fallow to 2 weeks! But corals and inverts won’t survive that.

About the 1 month fallow at 85F, did any corals die?
 

davidcalgary29

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So sorry to hear this. I had a tank wipeout at the beginning of August, and the first fish to go was my female swallowtail angel...quickly followed by the rest of the fish in the tank. I didn't notice any symptoms at all, and only managed to save a lethargic goby by immediately putting it into copper quarantine. I'll have to assume it was an ectoparasite based on the fact that that seems to have worked.

@Jay Hemdal, would lowering the water temperature to 21-22C help an ich-infected fish absorb more oxygen from the water column? I know that this would likely slow down the parasites' reproductive cycle, but I'm wondering if it would be worth it if it aided a fish's respiration.
 

Jay Hemdal

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I read 86F can shorten a fallow to 2 weeks! But corals and inverts won’t survive that.

About the 1 month fallow at 85F, did any corals die?
40 years ago, we typically didn't keep corals and fish together (grin).

Jay
 

Jay Hemdal

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So sorry to hear this. I had a tank wipeout at the beginning of August, and the first fish to go was my female swallowtail angel...quickly followed by the rest of the fish in the tank. I didn't notice any symptoms at all, and only managed to save a lethargic goby by immediately putting it into copper quarantine. I'll have to assume it was an ectoparasite based on the fact that that seems to have worked.

@Jay Hemdal, would lowering the water temperature to 21-22C help an ich-infected fish absorb more oxygen from the water column? I know that this would likely slow down the parasites' reproductive cycle, but I'm wondering if it would be worth it if it aided a fish's respiration.
That has long been a subject of debate. Cryptocaryon reproduction stops below 68 F., but continues right up to that level, and most reef fish don't appreciate temperatures that low. Increased oxygen capacity at lower temperatures is a sliding scale. Cryptocaryon, while it does infect gills, isn't as much of an impact on respiration as Amyloodinium is. That all said, my recommendation has been to hold a proper temperature and treat. For reef fish, that is usually 78 or 79 F.

Jay
 

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