Redfin fairy wrasse breathing heavy in QT after heater issue

[mochaclownlover]

So this is going to be a bit of a rant, but this is everything leading up to my current issue. I picked up two fish yesterday, a midas blenny and a redfin fairy wrasse and placed both in a QT thats been up for over a month(No meds added, no ill signs from the fish, 0 ammonia). I had a heater malfunction that raised the temp from 78~ to 86 before I noticed and got it back down to 79 over a period of about an hour. During that time i also added about 2 tbsp of carbon to the HOB. About two hours after this, the midas blenny started swimming on his side and died within 10 mins. Both fish had been breathing very heavy since the temp issue. I then did a 50% WC (probably 1:00am) and added an air stone, wrasse still breathing heavy. Come this morning(8:30am), the wrasse is still alive but also still breathing heavy. Did another WC,~70% (water temp same as QT at 79). As of now the wrasse is still sitting on the bottom and breathing heavy mouth open most of the time. I've tried everything I know at this point and I'm hoping someone may be able to point me in the right direction.
(I will note that i had an issue with a flasher wrasse and the addition of carbon so I thought that might have been it, but between all the WCs, I would have thought it would have been solved if it really was that)

 

[mochaclownlover]

 

[mochaclownlover]

Still no change.
@Jay Hemdal , any thoughts?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Still no change.
@Jay Hemdal , any thoughts?

Tough to say if the temperature rise is the primary issue or not. If the dissolved oxygen dropped really low, the fish may have suffered acute damage. On the other hand, the fish were brand new to the tank….
Were there any other fish in the QT before you added the blenny and wrasse?
Do you know the salinity the new fish arrived at compared to that of your QT?
Did the blenny die with its mouth open?
Jay

 

[mochaclownlover]

Yeah, the issue with the heater started everything and then things just snowballed from there, still kicking myself for not double checking it before i left the room for a bit. I know 86 is higher than most tanks run, but is that high enough to cause internal damage(Just me curious)? And if it is internal damage is there anything I can do for her? or is it pretty much a death sentence.... The tank hasn't had any fish aside from the blenny and wrasse. I did not test the store water, but I believe they said it was at 1.024ppm and QT was at 1.025ppm. I acclimated for about 45mins, scooping water from the QT to the bucket. The blenny's mouth was open but not like as though it was gasping for one last breath, just not held shut.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yeah, the issue with the heater started everything and then things just snowballed from there, still kicking myself for not double checking it before i left the room for a bit. I know 86 is higher than most tanks run, but is that high enough to cause internal damage(Just me curious)? The tank hasn't had any fish aside from the blenny and wrasse. I did not test the store water, but I believe they said it was at 1.024ppm and QT was at 1.025ppm. I acclimated for about 45mins, scooping water from the QT to the bucket. The blenny's mouth was open but not like as though it was gasping for one last breath, just not held shut.

Sounds like it wasn’t an acclimation issue then.
Was the QT water aerated (not just circulated)? It may have gotten warm enough that the oxygen level dropped low enough to cause damage to the fish. Usually, low oxygen causes acute death, but perhaps this case wasn’t quite that severe? Gill disease can also show these same symptoms, but they couldn’t have come on so fast….3 days minimum unless they were showing symptoms when you bought them.
Jay

 

[mochaclownlover]

Up until the issue I just had a HOB and a small PH running, then add an air stone. That's the weird thing, they were perfectly fine at the store (they've had them since Oct.12), eating and swimming around, did the same thing after i put them in the tank. Then the heater issue and they went from fine to hiding and rapid breathing. If the low O2 caused some sort of internal/respiratory damage is there anything I can do?

 

[mochaclownlover]

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Up until the issue I just had a HOB and a small PH running, then add an air stone. That's the weird thing, they were perfectly fine at the store (they've had them since Oct.12), eating and swimming around, did the same thing after i put them in the tank. Then the heater issue and they went from fine to hiding and rapid breathing. If the low O2 caused some sort of internal/respiratory damage is there anything I can do?

Sorry, I don’t know of anyway to overcome exposure to heat that may have damaged the gills. 78 degrees, aerate well is the best I can offer. Two other things you could try; lower the specific gravity to 1.020 and consider adding a low dose of methylene blue to help with oxygen transport.
Jay

 

[mochaclownlover]

Thank you for your help. I'll probably try the lower salinity and drop in another airstone. She's looking worse this morning so hopes aren't too high she'll make it through today, but it's worth a shot

 

[mochaclownlover]

She sadly passed a couple hours ago, mouth wide open so definitely appeared to be an O2 issue(like you had said earlier), whether due to internal injury or environment. Last time I use anything but a jager heater....

 

[tgrick]

When I hear of a fish gasping for air I think of flukes. I did not see this sooner. My advice would have been a freshwater dip. In seconds flukes (Usually translucent) start to jump off. If you still have the fish you could drop it into fresh water and see if anything jumps off. Sorry for your loss.

 

[mochaclownlover]

Thank you, aside from loosing both fish the worse thing was seeing them suffer. I actually do still have it. I'll give it a try and post an update, but with how quickly things set in seems like it was probably some sort of internal damage from the hot water like jay said

 

[tgrick]

86 degrees is not lethal. I know...I'm in Florida. My original tanks when I was a kid in the 80s would average in the 80s. My fish were old. I had one fish for 15 years and put him back in the ocean when I moved and got married! This was something else. A chemical, flukes or Velvet is my vote.

 

[mochaclownlover]

Nothing in the fresh water dip, can cross those of the list.

I do agree, I didn't think it seemed high enough to cause that kind of damage, but I'm by far an expert in this area so I don't always trust my thoughts on these matters especially when there are others more qualified and knowledgeable than myself. If not the heat/lack of O2, I would probably opt for some chemical exposure/leaching that lowered O2 levels or made respiration difficult(hence the gaping mouth&rapid breathing in the wrasse). The store had had the fish for weeks(arrived OCT 12) and were acting fine in store and then did a complete 180 in less than a day, so I feel that gets rid of possible flukes or velvet, especially considering no external signs(flashing, spots, lack of appetite). I'm in FL as well so definitely get the heat thing, not fun during summers, lol. I run my reef at 80-81 and have had it get higher before, and still have my original clowns going on 9 and 7.

 

[Tamberav]

When my central AC broke my tank got to 92-93 with no fish loses or even odd behaviors. It’s a display though so lots of flow.

You cannot really trust any heater. Most any of them fail. Actually Jagers are one of the better ones. Pinpoint controllers are cheap for redundancy.

 

[mochaclownlover]

That's great to hear! Guess fish are tougher than we make them out to be(or i'm just overly paranoid..)! Yeah this was just one from walmart(used similar ones in the past with no issues), I have jagers in both my other tanks and have since day one, usually replacing once a year or so. I'll definitely be getting another one with my next BRS order for the QT. Planning on getting ink birds for each tank after all this.

 

[tgrick]

So I'm going to say that the culprit here was velvet. I have seen fish in the AM looking great and dead by sunset. Velvet when in the gills kills with lightning speed. Most of the fish in my tank today had velvet brought in from a 'clean' source. I noticed labored breathing within hours of arrival. I acted very quickly and saved all but one fish, the source which was a blue hippo tang. It's a production to save fish from velvet, so do not be harsh on yourself. I would let the fish store know that they have velvet in their system. Why did they look normal at the store? They were running copper and keeping levels within control but not enough to eradicate it. When the fish were placed in a copper free environment the velvet came to life. Again, sorry for your loss and disappointment. I have kept marine fish since I was 10 years old and I'm in my 50s. A loss hurts. I will only say that I will NOT add a single fish to the display unless it has passed my treatment. I use copper or CP to treat for parasites and the treatment is a minimum of 10 days or better yet 30 days in copper at proper levels. Then, I treat fish for worms using metronidazole.

If you plan on being in the hobby, you must invest in a treatment/quarantine tank. It does not need to be expensive but it needs to be done!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Nothing in the fresh water dip, can cross those of the list.

I do agree, I didn't think it seemed high enough to cause that kind of damage, but I'm by far an expert in this area so I don't always trust my thoughts on these matters especially when there are others more qualified and knowledgeable than myself. If not the heat/lack of O2, I would probably opt for some chemical exposure/leaching that lowered O2 levels or made respiration difficult(hence the gaping mouth&rapid breathing in the wrasse). The store had had the fish for weeks(arrived OCT 12) and were acting fine in store and then did a complete 180 in less than a day, so I feel that gets rid of possible flukes or velvet, especially considering no external signs(flashing, spots, lack of appetite). I'm in FL as well so definitely get the heat thing, not fun during summers, lol. I run my reef at 80-81 and have had it get higher before, and still have my original clowns going on 9 and 7.

Don't forget - it isn't the 86 degrees itself that might be lethal, but rather if there was a lack of aeration at the same time, and in combination, that could have been the lethal mixture. I've also had cases where a heater malfunctioned and the temperature I read was not always the highest it had been......

Jay

 

[mochaclownlover]

So I'm going to say that the culprit here was velvet. I have seen fish in the AM looking great and dead by sunset. Velvet when in the gills kills with lightning speed. Most of the fish in my tank today had velvet brought in from a 'clean' source. I noticed labored breathing within hours of arrival. I acted very quickly and saved all but one fish, the source which was a blue hippo tang. It's a production to save fish from velvet, so do not be harsh on yourself. I would let the fish store know that they have velvet in their system. Why did they look normal at the store? They were running copper and keeping levels within control but not enough to eradicate it. When the fish were placed in a copper free environment the velvet came to life. Again, sorry for your loss and disappointment. I have kept marine fish since I was 10 years old and I'm in my 50s. A loss hurts. I will only say that I will NOT add a single fish to the display unless it has passed my treatment. I use copper or CP to treat for parasites and the treatment is a minimum of 10 days or better yet 30 days in copper at proper levels. Then, I treat fish for worms using metronidazole.

If you plan on being in the hobby, you must invest in a treatment/quarantine tank. It does not need to be expensive but it needs to be done!

They do treat with some copper at that store (assuming it's not tested often so likely lower levels), so that very well could have been it. I prefer to start copper a couple days after getting the new fish just to reduce stress, but should I have a low dose of copper in the system before adding new fish in the future? My QT isn't anything crazy just a standard 10gal, hob, ph, heater, pvc, air pump when needed, and testing badges and such. I usually only QT one fish at a time just so I can focus on that one animal. I'm the same way, all my additions have gone through ~90 days of treatment(copper, prazi, metro) before they touch my DT.

Don't forget - it isn't the 86 degrees itself that might be lethal, but rather if there was a lack of aeration at the same time, and in combination, that could have been the lethal mixture. I've also had cases where a heater malfunctioned and the temperature I read was not always the highest it had been......

Jay

that's usually why I stick to heaters with good ratings(jager, titanium heaters, etc), but thought this one would be fine... If I had had more aeration in the tank prior to the high temp would that possibly have saved them? Should I make multiple air stones a permanent piece in my QT system running 24/7 to combat any possible low o2 levels to have those bases covered prior?