Tang & Anthias killer?

[joey123]

So, I first noticed what I thought was ich on my purple tang several weeks ago. All fish seemed healthy, treated with Polyp lab medic, fed well, seemed to be fine. Fast forward a weeks, and my powder brown gets what I thought was velvet, but he survived nearly 2 weeks, looking bad and moving slow, but survived. Kole tang died, with similar symptoms, but appetite high the whole time. Powder blue died, same thing, eating well the whole way out. Then my 4 lyretail anthias died, one by one, all eating well until they were dead.

I've been told it isnt velvet because fish would die instantly and be gasping, which they are not. Not sure what it may be though. See below pics of yellow tang, desjardinii, purple, and naso. Foxface showing some signs of problem but not as bad as tangs.

Fish seeming to do well: tomini tang, leopard wrasse, flasher wrasse, longnose hawk, diamond goby.

If theres any more info I could provide, please let me know, but salinity, temp, etc all are right in line.

Thanks for any help. Thought it was velvet and was going to move forward with extraction and fallow period, but now unsure. Thanks to all.

 

[Big G]

That looks like velvet. Velvet doesn't always instantly wipe out a tank full of fish. It depends a lot on the fish's immune systems, how successful the velvet is in reproducing, etc. The Polyp Lab dose probably suppressed the velvet but did not eliminate the parasite. And in the interim, your fish have built up a small measure of resistance to the parasites.

 

[jerrod]

It's likely velvet. Mine recently did the same thing. Some of them lasted almost a week before finally passing. My hippo tang was sluggish at the bottom of the tank for three days and I thought he was finally getting better cause he was active and eating then the next morning he was dead. others never even showed symptoms before passing all my tangs and anthers passed. I am 5 weeks into my tank going fallow and 9 fish hanging out in quarantine just waiting to go back.

 

[joey123]

Thanks for your response. On my previous tanks I've just done "dump and pray", but getting hammered right here.

So the game plan would be to remove all fish, treat with copper, and go fallow for 76 days minimum? For that stock list, what kind of hospital tank setup would be necessary?

Also, an LFS owner(who told me it couldn't be velvet...) told me that if it was, some snails and shrimp could house it and render the fallow period worthless. I've never heard this before...anyone else heard anything like that?

@humblefwhat do you think of a necessary qt setup?

 

[jerrod]

@Big G helped walk me through how to make my situation work. Not sure if this will help in your situation or not But it saved most my fish and only lost the tangs and anthias as I had to break down the tank to catch them so it took a two days to catch them all.

Fish Quarantine

I got cocky after 2 years now kicking my own butt for knowing better and being lazy. Thought a fish I bought was ok to put in my tank as my LFS had had him for almost 2 months watched him eat seen multiple times etc. and regrettably I didn't quarantine. I think the stress of the new tank got...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[joey123]

@jerrod

A good read, thanks. How is it going? Your fish looking better? FW then rally and into QT? Fish looking healthy and you're just waiting on fallow time now? Any thoughts on pointers or if it's working?

 

[jerrod]

All the fish are fine with no signs of infection. With them being so confined I feed heavy to minimize aggression but also exporting heavy through water changes. I went through a lot of water the first week and a half to two weeks until there was a better biological filter.
It was stated to keep feeding the tank while going fallow to keep the biological filter going and I had been for the first few weeks but recently took it down to about half as much as I was feeding. I had a filefish that kept aptasia manageable and with him in quarantine and feeding that heavy I've had an explosion of aptasia and now have 20 berghia in the tank dealing with that.