Possible Brookynella Outbreak

[towniereefer]

Hello

I added a 3 year old purple tang that someone had returned to our local reef store. He looked extremely healthy. I brought him home and placed with Blue tang, target mandarin. coral beuty, wrasse, and pair of clown fish. clown fish i have had over a year. this was 3 weeks ago. did a water change 2 days ago with salt water purchased from my local reef store. yesterday both clownfish died. they looked very mucousy and had some tattered fins cloudy eyes. looked like every picture of brookynella i could find. and it looks very similar. today target mandarin was dead. i assume because i can’t find him. lots of rock work. only thing i added in 3 weeks was purple tang who looks perfectly fine and that purchased water. water parameters are all normal and consistent with historical levels. could the water have been contaminated? i used my buckets i have used in the past and have gotten water from this store in the past.

 

[Nano_Man]

#fishmedic

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello

I added a 3 year old purple tang that someone had returned to our local reef store. He looked extremely healthy. I brought him home and placed with Blue tang, target mandarin. coral beuty, wrasse, and pair of clown fish. clown fish i have had over a year. this was 3 weeks ago. did a water change 2 days ago with salt water purchased from my local reef store. yesterday both clownfish died. they looked very mucousy and had some tattered fins cloudy eyes. looked like every picture of brookynella i could find. and it looks very similar. today target mandarin was dead. i assume because i can’t find him. lots of rock work. only thing i added in 3 weeks was purple tang who looks perfectly fine and that purchased water. water parameters are all normal and consistent with historical levels. could the water have been contaminated? i used my buckets i have used in the past and have gotten water from this store in the past.

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

From your description, it sounds to me that the purple tang brought brooklynella into your tank: the timeline, your description and the two species that died all match up. I think the water source is to recent to have caused fish to die from Brook.

If you want some additional confirmation you can post videos of the remaining fish (under white lights) and we can take a look to see if something else might be going on.

 

[JoeReefz]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

From your description, it sounds to me that the purple tang brought brooklynella into your tank: the timeline, your description and the two species that died all match up. I think the water source is to recent to have caused fish to die from Brook.

If you want some additional confirmation you can post videos of the remaining fish (under white lights) and we can take a look to see if something else might be going on.

The tank belongs to me as well. More recently the blue tang has died too.

 

[towniereefer]

The purple tang had been at the local reef store for over a month and was with a large mimic tang. we were at the store 3 days ago and the mimic tang is still there and looks fine. can a purple tang carry the disease and not be effected. 4 fish down and the purple tang seems fine,

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

The purple tang had been at the local reef store for over a month and was with a large mimic tang. we were at the store 3 days ago and the mimic tang is still there and looks fine. can a purple tang carry the disease and not be effected. 4 fish down and the purple tang seems fine,

Sorry - I can't diagnose fish out of the water very well, but that looks like either Brooklynella or marine ich.

Both Brooklynella and Ich can infect some fish in an tank sooner than others. In rare cases, some fish can survive an infection altogether. What can happen is that the purple tang could have had acquired immunity to ich, and then acted as a carrier. If the disease really ramps up, that immunity can be overwhelmed though.