Pre-Quarantined fish now gasping for air

[Pisanoal]

Hello all.

Looking for some help on a pre-quarantined fish, I ordered a quarantined CBB and he came in last week.

He's been in my 300 display tank for 4-5 days now and has been eating live black worms. Now all of a sudden he is gasping for air. All other fish are fine. Are there any emergency treatments I can do assuming it may be a parasite that broke through qt or bacterial infection? I guess ammonia burn is also a possibility being that he was shipped, but see below on my procedure when he arrived. A few options would be good as I don't have a ton of meds on hand.


Upon arrival, the salinity in the bag was 1.018. He was supposed to arrive at 1.022-1.023. I setup a quarantine tank with cycled rock from my tank and matched bag salinity for him so I could raise the salinity slowly to get him in the display. I raised it to 1.025 over a few days and got him into a large acclimation box where he currently is now.

Thanks


EDIT: This post and others in this thread related to the original topic have been edited. There is still some information about a specific vendor, but incomplete information about the situation cause me to jump to conclusions and I have edited out as much incorrect/incomplete information that may have led people to the wrong conclusions about the vendor. The vendor that was referenced, has been excellent through this process.

Also, should you happen to be looking for aeration information, the thread got off topic and there is actually some great discussion on it around pages 3 and 4 .

 

[dank reefer]

Does this store have a website?

 

[dwair]

Hello all.

Looking for some help in a supposedly pre-quarantined fish . I ordered a quarantined CBB and he came in last week.

He's been in my 300 display tank for 4-5 days now and has been eating live black worms. Now all of a sudden he is gasping for air. All other fish are fine. Are there any emergency treatments I can do assuming it may be a parasite or bacterial infection? I guess ammonia burn is also a possibility being that he was shipped, but see below on my procedure when he arrived. A few options would be good as I don't have a ton of meds on hand. See below for background and why I question whether this fish was actually quarantined.




Upon arrival, the salinity in the bag was 1.018. on his website, it clearly says they are supposed to come in at 1.022-1.023 if they are pre-quarantined, so I was already wondering if he actually quarantined the fish. I tried to call and of course no response. So I sent a text and no response at all yet. I setup a quarantine tank with cycled rock from my tank and matched bag salinity for him so I could raise the salinity slowly to get him in the display. I raised it to 1.025 over a few days and got him into a large acclimation box.

Thanks

Can you show a video of him "gasping" for air? Any other issues? You say he's eating live black worms, so no loss of appetite.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hello all.

Looking for some help in a supposedly pre-quarantined fish I ordered a quarantined CBB and he came in last week.

He's been in my 300 display tank for 4-5 days now and has been eating live black worms. Now all of a sudden he is gasping for air. All other fish are fine. Are there any emergency treatments I can do assuming it may be a parasite or bacterial infection? I guess ammonia burn is also a possibility being that he was shipped, but see below on my procedure when he arrived. A few options would be good as I don't have a ton of meds on hand. See below for background and why I question whether this fish was actually quarantined.




Upon arrival, the salinity in the bag was 1.018. on his website, it clearly says they are supposed to come in at 1.022-1.023 if they are pre-quarantined, so I was already wondering if he actually quarantined the fish. I tried to call and of course no response. So I sent a text and no response at all yet. I setup a quarantine tank with cycled rock from my tank and matched bag salinity for him so I could raise the salinity slowly to get him in the display. I raised it to 1.025 over a few days and got him into a large acclimation box.

Thanks

It is unlikely that acclimation stress would show up after a fish has been in a tank and eating for 4+ days. Same with ammonia issues during shipping.

Although the other fish may seem fine, respiration rates can be tough to judge unless you make actual counts. Therefore, you want to ensure there isn't some underlying aeration issue - tanks need aeration to de-gas CO2, not just circulation. Does the tank have a protein slimmer on it? If so, that is probably enough. A simple test though is to add an air stone to the tank and see of the fish's breathing slows.

Is the CBB still feeding?
Can you post a short video of it?

IMO - pre-quarantined fish are a great idea, especially with delicate fish like CBB. However, no quarantine process is 100% effective, and shipping stress can often bring out latent disease issues. I always re-quarantine all new fish, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the circumstances.

Jay

 

[Pisanoal]

 

[Pisanoal]

Can you show a video of him "gasping" for air? Any other issues? You say he's eating live black worms, so no loss of appetite.

He showed no interest today. Today is the first day I've noticed gasping.

 

[dwair]

Yea he's definitely breathing super hard. Do you have an airstone you can stick in there to help oxygenate the water?

 

[Pisanoal]

Video shows a little bit of surface scum because of the way the acclimation box is built. It creates a still zone on the surface. 4 sides are built out of egg crate so plenty of flow in the box itself.

 

[Pisanoal]

It is unlikely that acclimation stress would show up after a fish has been in a tank and eating for 4+ days. Same with ammonia issues during shipping.

Although the other fish may seem fine, respiration rates can be tough to judge unless you make actual counts. Therefore, you want to ensure there isn't some underlying aeration issue - tanks need aeration to de-gas CO2, not just circulation. Does the tank have a protein slimmer on it? If so, that is probably enough. A simple test though is to add an air stone to the tank and see of the fish's breathing slows.

Is the CBB still feeding?
Can you post a short video of it?

IMO - pre-quarantined fish are a great idea, especially with delicate fish like CBB. However, no quarantine process is 100% effective, and shipping stress can often bring out latent disease issues. I always re-quarantine all new fish, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the circumstances.

Jay

There is a large skimmer and 100 gallon open top sump in the garage (no cars in there).

This is also a 300 gallon sps reef with lots of surface agitation. So I'm fairly certain it's not a degassing issue. I can increase me sump turn over and get some more agitation in their short term to try though.

I looked for an air stone but couldn't find one amazingly. Im not sure how much a little air stone would do in a tank this size though.

Thanks for all the responses so far, especially this detailed one.

On the pre-quarantined, this is my first rodeo and I was willing to take a chance on something breaking through, especially with a sensitive fish, I was just wanting to get him in the main/stable tank.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The fish has a couple of spots of Lymphocystis, but those are of no real consequence. It has good body mass, but as you said, it is breathing very fast.

I'm not sure I understand the use of the egg crate. I never use egg crate with CBB, they can injure themselves if they get spooked and run into it....their long snouts just don't mesh well with egg crate.

Have you tried adding aeration yet?

Jay

 

[BZOFIQ]

I looked for an air stone but couldn't find one amazingly. Im not sure how much a little air stone would do in a tank this size though

Contrary to popular belief air stones don't provide much aeration.

Aim one of your powerheads at the surface, it will give you a ton of aeration.

 

[dwair]

Contrary to popular belief air stones don't provide much aeration.

Aim one of your powerheads at the surface, it will give you a ton of aeration.

You are going to have to back that up with some science bud. To Simply state air stones don't provide air...

 

[Pisanoal]

Yea he's definitely breathing super hard. Do you have an airstone you can stick in there to help oxygenate the water?

Thanks. See above post

 

[dwair]

Thanks. See above post

Well you got @Jay Hemdal on the case, so I'm gonna bow out of this. Hope he makes it, he's beautful!

 

[Pisanoal]

Contrary to popular belief air stones don't provide much aeration.

Aim one of your powerheads at the surface, it will give you a ton of aeration.

Thanks. I have lots of surface agitation. Two gyre 350s in sps mode and two 6105s.

I have several large tangs in there and no one else is showing any breathing issues. No changes to the tank, and never had any oxygenation issues so I'm doubting it's an aeration issue although I'm definitely willing to try boosting it as much as possible.

 

[BZOFIQ]

You are going to have to back that up with some science bud. To Simply state air stones don't provide air...

Air stones don't provide oxygen there I said it.

Air bubbles simply carry water up to the surface where the oxygen exchange happens. It's just a cheap mechanism for circulating water, something that's done much more effectively by mechanical means, ie powerheads in the 21 century.

You of course can believe anything you want and should not take my word for it.

 

[brandon429]

air stones beat powerheads always. laminar flow and surface boil vs directed currents and eddies. airstones have salt creep and laminar flow isn't ideal in all cases but for gas exchange/why we use airstones it wins in efficiency. wastewater studies w show it.

based on post #1 I can't rule out the op's tank infecting Dr. Reef's fish. you're saying all post history will show strict control fallow of imports, hardscapes and coral or are we talking mighty loose fallow/only starts with clean fish

 

[BZOFIQ]

Thanks. I have lots of surface agitation. Two gyre 350s in sps mode and two 6105s.

I have several large tangs in there and no one else is showing any breathing issues. No changes to the tank, and never had any oxygenation issues so I'm doubting it's an aeration issue although I'm definitely willing to try boosting it as much as possible.

Well if you have a ton of surface agitation and other fish show no sign breathing issues it rules our low oxygen scenario.

 

[BZOFIQ]

air stones beat powerheads always. laminar flow and surface boil vs directed currents and eddies. airstones have salt creep and laminar flow isn't ideal in all cases but for gas exchange/why we use airstones it wins in efficiency.

Powerheads pointing at the surface provide plenty of surface boil. My tunzes will "spit" water out of the tank if allowed.

Either way, air stones don't inject oxygen from the air into the water. As stated previously they just move the water to the surface.

 

[mjh712]

You said you have lots of surface agitation, but there seems to be a lot of debris floating on top of the water in the video. Also, not much water movement.

What's the background on the tank? Is this the only new fish? Just trying to eliminate possibilities.