Quarantining Lyretail Anthias

[czoolander]

I picked up 5 - lyretail anthias and put them in my 10 gallon quarantine tank. I was just observing them not treating anything prazi or copper. 5 days into quarantine 1 fish was on the bottom dead. 10 days after that i lost a second anthias same thing on the bottom dead.

I am not sure why they were dying as they looked fine in the tank. The only thing i noticed is they were on the smaller side and some fin damage to the back fins ripped a little bit.

Well i wanted to do a full 40 day quarantine but with me losing fish slowly i decided to roll the dice and put in the remaining 3 anthias into my display tank this weekend. My logic is if it was a fish disease they would all be dead or showing symptoms?

so far after 3 days in the display tank the 3 anthias are eating and look healthy to my eyes. but all 3 have some rear fin damage ..... slight tears or rips.

Not sure what is going on.....

 

[Squidward]

10g seems a bit small for 5 anthias. You sure you wanted to risk the rest of your fish in the display with whatever disease they may have?

 

[Natural_Reefer]

Seems like aggressions especially with damaged fins!
Anthias don't seem to be disease prone so maybe safe to add to the tank. I have 3 in my S400 (over a year and a half now) and they seem to do well with one turn Male after about 3 months.

 

[punchy7080]

Uronema... my experience is that a good (or bad I guess) percentage of these fish will not survive QT due to uronema. It is likely present on nearly all of these fish coming in from wholesalers at least. Putting them in a sterile QT setup allows the uronema to attack the fish as there are not enough other bacteria for them to feed upon. As you said, your best bet is tossing them in the DT. This is somewhat risky, but in my "research" all of our tanks likely have uronema present anyway. The existing fish are healthy or immune enough to fight it off and there are sufficient bacteria present for the uronema to feed on. I'm not pretending to be a biologist here, just speaking from my own personal experience. These fish are tricky to get in healthy and have survive in our tanks. Your BEST bet is getting some from an established, disease free tank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

45 minute formalin bath then quarantine with quick cure will work
Ruby rally pro should also work but take a little longer to take effect

 

[Bucs20fan]

Lyretails are notoriously bad shippers. Most LFS have about 50% mortality rate on them once received. I dont think you are doing anything wrong and euronema is very common in anthias. It is pretty rare to purchase a group that size from your average LFS and not have some losses. I agree about the euronema not having anything else to feed on so it prioritizes your anthias.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I picked up 5 - lyretail anthias and put them in my 10 gallon quarantine tank. I was just observing them not treating anything prazi or copper. 5 days into quarantine 1 fish was on the bottom dead. 10 days after that i lost a second anthias same thing on the bottom dead.

I am not sure why they were dying as they looked fine in the tank. The only thing i noticed is they were on the smaller side and some fin damage to the back fins ripped a little bit.

Well i wanted to do a full 40 day quarantine but with me losing fish slowly i decided to roll the dice and put in the remaining 3 anthias into my display tank this weekend. My logic is if it was a fish disease they would all be dead or showing symptoms?

so far after 3 days in the display tank the 3 anthias are eating and look healthy to my eyes. but all 3 have some rear fin damage ..... slight tears or rips.

Not sure what is going on.....

Observation only quarantine is not recommended. When/if a disease starts, it puts you behind in terms treating it.
While the ripped fins indicates fighting, these three are the winners? Did the dead ones have ripped fins a well?
Ten gallons is really small for anthias, what was the ammonia level?
Jay

 

[czoolander]

Observation only quarantine is not recommended. When/if a disease starts, it puts you behind in terms treating it.
While the ripped fins indicates fighting, these three are the winners? Did the dead ones have ripped fins a well?
Ten gallons is really small for anthias, what was the ammonia level?
Jay

Hello Jay

I know observation only is not recommended but they have banned fish medication in Canada .

I have witnessed chasing and some nipping one of them is bigger then the rest and more flared larger fins i am assuming this is the dominant female transistioning to male and chasing off the smaller females?

The dead ones were smaller and did also have not perfect fins .

I am planning on setting up a 20-30 g quarantine tank in the future.

on my ammonia badge its reading safe . this tank has been up and running copper free for almost 2 years i would assume its fully cycled and zero ammonia however i have not confirmed on a test

Its pretty much bare bottom but there is some sand in it and there is algea on the pvc pipe and glass . I did do a 50% water change before the anthias went in as well so should be zero or near zero ammonia but again i am just assuming i dont test for ammonia in over 2 years besides the badge on the side of the tank that is in the " safe " zone but maybe those expire? that badge is over 2 years old as well haha

 

[czoolander]

Lyretails are notoriously bad shippers. Most LFS have about 50% mortality rate on them once received. I dont think you are doing anything wrong and euronema is very common in anthias. It is pretty rare to purchase a group that size from your average LFS and not have some losses. I agree about the euronema not having anything else to feed on so it prioritizes your anthias.

I guess i am doing better than the LFS then with my 40% mortality rate? really sucks i was looking forward to seeing a small school of 5 anthias in my tank. I guess if these 3 survive long term i can always add 2-3 more to the group ?

 

[czoolander]

45 minute formalin bath then quarantine with quick cure will work
Ruby rally pro should also work but take a little longer to take effect

They banned fish medication in Canada. Makes quarantine pretty much observation only .

Thinking about doing some shopping in the USA haha

 

[czoolander]

Seems like aggressions especially with damaged fins!
Anthias don't seem to be disease prone so maybe safe to add to the tank. I have 3 in my S400 (over a year and a half now) and they seem to do well with one turn Male after about 3 months.

The aggression seems less in the display with the other big fish swimming around them all the time they are much more timid now hahah

Small fish big pond kinda thing lol

 

[czoolander]

10g seems a bit small for 5 anthias. You sure you wanted to risk the rest of your fish in the display with whatever disease they may have?

I didnt want to risk it but i figured it probably wasnt a disease and i didnt want to lose the other 3 this would be there best shot at survival i think

I dont know any disease that picks off 1 fish at a time days apart and leaving the other fish displaying no symptoms unless its internal parasites

I knew it wasnt velvet which is mostly why i quarantine. velvet is the worst by far

 

[czoolander]

Uronema... my experience is that a good (or bad I guess) percentage of these fish will not survive QT due to uronema. It is likely present on nearly all of these fish coming in from wholesalers at least. Putting them in a sterile QT setup allows the uronema to attack the fish as there are not enough other bacteria for them to feed upon. As you said, your best bet is tossing them in the DT. This is somewhat risky, but in my "research" all of our tanks likely have uronema present anyway. The existing fish are healthy or immune enough to fight it off and there are sufficient bacteria present for the uronema to feed on. I'm not pretending to be a biologist here, just speaking from my own personal experience. These fish are tricky to get in healthy and have survive in our tanks. Your BEST bet is getting some from an established, disease free tank.

Yeah i kinda had the same line of thinking as you do . Display tank is there best chance at survival. Am i rolling the dice? yeah . but i think its a calculated risk as i really do not think its velvet

This LFS i have bought many fish from and they are always in good health

The fish were not dying from velvet symptoms . I think they were either murdered or stressed to death from the other anthias . I got the tang police looking into it

 

[Bucs20fan]

So, my mortality rate came from each other. I bought 3 at once and once I added them to the DT 2 of them killed the third one. They can be nasty little buggars until they get their pecking order established. And their little mouths can do damage, believe it or not they do have small teeth. Anthias are prone to all sorts of diseases. Most notably flukes and euronema. Euronema bacteria are already in your DT anyway so that is just going to be what its going to be. Flukes, whether its skin/eye flukes or gill flukes are rather nasty. But are treatable in a DT if you have to.

 

[czoolander]

So, my mortality rate came from each other. I bought 3 at once and once I added them to the DT 2 of them killed the third one. They can be nasty little buggars until they get their pecking order established. And their little mouths can do damage, believe it or not they do have small teeth. Anthias are prone to all sorts of diseases. Most notably flukes and euronema. Euronema bacteria are already in your DT anyway so that is just going to be what its going to be. Flukes, whether its skin/eye flukes or gill flukes are rather nasty. But are treatable in a DT if you have to.

YEah i know anthias . The lyretail is a fake anthias they are actually part of the grouper family which might explain the large mouth .

I am going to go do a 15-30 minute observation on the tank tonight .

Maintain a reef tank for 15-30 minutes of enjoyment in the day............. Totally worth it hey? hahaha

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hello Jay

I know observation only is not recommended but they have banned fish medication in Canada .

I have witnessed chasing and some nipping one of them is bigger then the rest and more flared larger fins i am assuming this is the dominant female transistioning to male and chasing off the smaller females?

The dead ones were smaller and did also have not perfect fins .

I am planning on setting up a 20-30 g quarantine tank in the future.

on my ammonia badge its reading safe . this tank has been up and running copper free for almost 2 years i would assume its fully cycled and zero ammonia however i have not confirmed on a test

Its pretty much bare bottom but there is some sand in it and there is algea on the pvc pipe and glass . I did do a 50% water change before the anthias went in as well so should be zero or near zero ammonia but again i am just assuming i dont test for ammonia in over 2 years besides the badge on the side of the tank that is in the " safe " zone but maybe those expire? that badge is over 2 years old as well haha

Yes, Canada and the EU have really restrict fish medications.

I think that ammonia badges definately don't work as well over time....not sure what their shelf life is though.

Just for future reference - you can run a hyposalinity quarantine that will take care of ich and most flukes. It won't help with velvet, but that is a rarer disease anyways.

Here is a thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/hyposalinity.880546/

Jay

 

[czoolander]

Yes, Canada and the EU have really restrict fish medications.

I think that ammonia badges definately don't work as well over time....not sure what their shelf life is though.

Just for future reference - you can run a hyposalinity quarantine that will take care of ich and most flukes. It won't help with velvet, but that is a rarer disease anyways.

Here is a thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/hyposalinity.880546/

Jay

I had velvet my first year reefing. Came in on a powder brown tang I lost all my fish. I saved some but managed to finnish them off myself by accident i mixed copper treatment and a ammonia reducer at the same time in quarantine . I didnt know this is a fatal mixture. assumed it would be safe i was wrong.

I will look into hyposalinity.

Would you recommend this for newish 3 years experience reefers? i guess i dont have much choice if i cant get fish medicine

Side question............ If you observe quarantine for 40 days and velvet does not make an appearance safe to say that it will not show up in the display?

Can you copper treat for 40 days and have velvet make an app;earance ?

if you add nothing to a display tank for 5 years and a fish gets stress can ich or velvet appear out of nowhere or must they be introduced to a tank somehow?

As you can tell i am now terrified of velvet ........... i look for it everyday in my tank

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I had velvet my first year reefing. Came in on a powder brown tang I lost all my fish. I saved some but managed to finnish them off myself by accident i mixed copper treatment and a ammonia reducer at the same time in quarantine . I didnt know this is a fatal mixture. assumed it would be safe i was wrong.

I will look into hyposalinity.

Would you recommend this for newish 3 years experience reefers? i guess i dont have much choice if i cant get fish medicine

Side question............ If you observe quarantine for 40 days and velvet does not make an appearance safe to say that it will not show up in the display?

Can you copper treat for 40 days and have velvet make an app;earance ?

if you add nothing to a display tank for 5 years and a fish gets stress can ich or velvet appear out of nowhere or must they be introduced to a tank somehow?

As you can tell i am now terrified of velvet ........... i look for it everyday in my tank

Would you recommend this for newish 3 years experience reefers? i guess i dont have much choice if i cant get fish medicine. Yes, or see if you can buy pre quarantined fish in Canada like you can in the US.

Side question............ If you observe quarantine for 40 days and velvet does not make an appearance safe to say that it will not show up in the display? No - not always. Most people say the life cycle is around 28 days, but the thought is that it can linger as a chronic infection, and that extends the time.

Can you copper treat for 40 days and have velvet make an app;earance ? I've never had that happen, except in cases where something else brought it into the tank.

if you add nothing to a display tank for 5 years and a fish gets stress can ich or velvet appear out of nowhere or must they be introduced to a tank somehow? I've never had ich or velvet go that long without symptoms and then just show up. I have had issues up to around 8 months though.

Jay

 

[czoolander]

Update on the Anthias .

There are now only 2 of the original 5 left surviving . They have been in the display tank for 10 days now and i see no signs of disease. The last one to die not slure what happened but he was in the sand and not much left on him when i got home from work.

The two survivors look good and are eating

No idea why or how i lost the other 3 anthias...... maybe they were just unhealthy fish or had that uronema like someone suggested earlier.

But im not too happy with onlly a 40% survival rate ......... the question is do i purchase 5 more anthias ??? My initial plan was to have a small school of 5 in my display tank

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Update on the Anthias .

There are now only 2 of the original 5 left surviving . They have been in the display tank for 10 days now and i see no signs of disease. The last one to die not slure what happened but he was in the sand and not much left on him when i got home from work.

The two survivors look good and are eating

No idea why or how i lost the other 3 anthias...... maybe they were just unhealthy fish or had that uronema like someone suggested earlier.

But im not too happy with onlly a 40% survival rate ......... the question is do i purchase 5 more anthias ??? My initial plan was to have a small school of 5 in my display tank

Your experience isn’t too far off for SE Asian squampinnis anthias - they commonly show a 40% mortality rate over the first 40 days. If you can get them from East Africa or Sri Lanka, that rate is lower.
Jay