Tang died after 12h of QT - what did I do wrong?

[Kerinin]

I feel terrible, and want to try to understand what happened so I don't do it again.

Yesterday I got a kole tang, a christmas wrasse and two very small clownfish and put them in a QT I had set up for them. Following the How to Quarantine post the QT tank's water was pre-medicated with Cuprion. I accidentally overshot the ppm - it measured 1.14 when I started. The tank is a 10g with a heater and an Eheim Aquaball. The aquaball has a venturi that produces a lot of microbubbles in tank. I have an ammonia alert badge and a couple PVC fitting in there too.

The fish came from the LFS in three bags. I measured the salinity in one of them at 1.024 and adjusted the QT to match. The tang was in one of the two bags I didn't measure, so it's possible the salinity was different. I floated the 3 bags for 30min unopened, then transferred the fish to the QT (just the fish, not the water). I realized this morning that the water temp was 81.5 - the heater's thermostat turns out to be junk.

When first transferred the tang seemed OK - he was hanging out in some of the PVC and not being very active but didn't seem to be breathing hard of swimming unusually. The wrasse has been hiding in the most sheltered part of the tank and looking stressed, but AFAICT wrasses often "play dead" when they're stressed from tansfer.

My current theories:
* I overshot the initial copper concentration and that was too much of a shock
* Too many fish in the tank for the oxygen available
* The tang's water salinity was lower than what I measured, causing a salinity shock
* The water temperature was too high
* All of the above combined with general stress of QT

 

[andrewkw]

All your theories sound good except the general stress of QT. While many say this I don't think there is anything stressful in coming home from the fish store to a QT tank. Into a reef with established bosses on the other hand...

Temp/salinity within acceptable ranges is probably not going to kill a healthy or even sick tang unless it's already deathly ill. Starting from too strong of copper would be my guess, but that is just a guess.

 

[BackToTheReef]

How long were they in the bag total? The manager at the LFS I worked at had a theory that the ammonia might build up in a bag but not be too bad for the fish. Then when we plop it in warmer tank water to adjust the ammonia does something goofy and turns toxic (can't remember the details as it has been a while).

Did you add water to the big via drip or scoop? Not sure what prevailing methods are these days but we always tried to adjust the fish to not only to water temp but chem as well.

***Might also be a combo of all these things adding up together at the same time.

 

[Kerinin]

They were probably in the bag for around an hour. I didn't do any kind of water mixing, just adjusted the temp/salinity and moved them over.

I just added an old nano skimmer to the tank to try to make sure there's plenty of gas exchange and I'm working on fixing the temp issue. Next time I'll definitely try to be more accurate with the copper levels. Is there any reason to start at 1ppm and ramp to 2ppm over 4 days rather than starting at 0 and ramping to 2ppm over 8 days?

 

[Kerinin]

Well I'm pretty sure I found the cause - I used Cuprion rather than copper power because I assume "copper is copper" and the instructions on the bottle are basically "don't use this unless you already know how to us it". Turns out the theraputic level is 0.2ppm rather than 2ppm. Just added a bunch of carbon to the tank, hopefully I can keep from killing the other 3 fish.

 

[Qasimja]

Well I'm pretty sure I found the cause - I used Cuprion rather than copper power because I assume "copper is copper" and the instructions on the bottle are basically "don't use this unless you already know how to us it". Turns out the theraputic level is 0.2ppm rather than 2ppm. Just added a bunch of carbon to the tank, hopefully I can keep from killing the other 3 fish.

well at least you figured it out

 

[vetteguy53081]

Your theories are typical causes. It would likely be high copper or low oxygen concentration. If not already, run a small pump with airstone in treatment tank but cover that area with plastic wrap or glass as it will cause salt overspray from tiny bubbles.
Did you acclimate fish into quarantine tank, and how did you acclimate it?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Ionic copper is generally safe to use with tangs (except with hipos), but it's best to gradually raise it over the course of hours, not all at once. Wrasses can be sensitive to ionic copper. So again can be used but gradually raising it. Any sign of distress, lower the concentration.

Over shooting it most likely did the damage.

Sorry for your loss.

 

[Spieg]

I would have done drip acclimation to the QT before plopping fish in there.

 

[Flippers4pups]

One of the best methods to transfer from bag to tank is to salinity match the qt water to the bags salinity. Once achieved, float the bag in the qt for temp for 15 mins and then in they go.

If you cant do that, place the water and fish from the bag into a bucket. For the next 15-20 mins, take out a small amount of water and discard it. Using a different cup, add water to the bucket from the qt. Do this every couple mins. Once done, fish goes into the qt. Do not add a water conditioner such as Prime or amquel to the bucket water. If the fish was kept in a system that had therapeutic levels of copper in it at the LFS, the copper will interact with the water conditioner causing the copper to become highly toxic.

Inverts on the other hand should be drip acclimated over the course of a hour or two, especially star fish.

 

[schuby]

+1 on put fish in QT (after acclimation) and then start dosing copper up to therapeutic levels, over 2-4 days as per instructions. Typically, you want the fish to start eating before starting copper.

Tangs seem most sensitive to copper, IME. For Tangs, I dose the copper at half doses for twice as long until reaching target value. Some Tangs just can't take copper and you have to choose not to treat them with copper and do a longer QT process.

 

[Tamberav]

Well I'm pretty sure I found the cause - I used Cuprion rather than copper power because I assume "copper is copper" and the instructions on the bottle are basically "don't use this unless you already know how to us it". Turns out the theraputic level is 0.2ppm rather than 2ppm. Just added a bunch of carbon to the tank, hopefully I can keep from killing the other 3 fish.

Carbon is not great at removing copper. Do a water change. I am surprised the Wrasse is alive with that overdose.

 

[miyags]

I always treated my fish with lower salinity 1.019 ..they can handle drops in salinity,but you have to slowly raise it back up when returning fish to main display.I use cupramine and took 10 days or so to bring it to full dose.And I had a well seeded foam filter and 2 more seeded filters on hand,incase of ammonia spike.10gal is pretty small for QT.

 

[Kerinin]

Thank you everyone for the help. I'm in the process of doing a couple water changes, trying not to do them so quickly that they cause yet another problem - the QT article mentions using carbon to draw down copper levels so I figured it couldn't hurt, but I'm definitely planning to water change my way down to zero copper. The wrasse is alive, but definitely not doing very well - I'm really hoping I can save her.

@Flippers4pups when you say "and then in they go", do you mean the fish and the water, or just the fish? The method you describe is essentially what I did, but I was concerned about what might come with the LFS's water so I just transferred the fish. In retrospect I probably should have just transferred the water too, since I was planning to do a full QT anyway.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Thank you everyone for the help. I'm in the process of doing a couple water changes, trying not to do them so quickly that they cause yet another problem - the QT article mentions using carbon to draw down copper levels so I figured it couldn't hurt, but I'm definitely planning to water change my way down to zero copper. The wrasse is alive, but definitely not doing very well - I'm really hoping I can save her.

@Flippers4pups when you say "and then in they go", do you mean the fish and the water, or just the fish? The method you describe is essentially what I did, but I was concerned about what might come with the LFS's water so I just transferred the fish. In retrospect I probably should have just transferred the water too, since I was planning to do a full QT anyway.

Just the fish! Not the water.

 

[ca1ore]

I see no particular problem in adding bag water to the QT .... I do it all the time. Anything in the water is already on the fish anyhow. Most LFS actually run their salinity at 1.018, so always he’s to check all bags before adjusting the QT. I also think it is generally better to let fish acclimate to the QT before using medications. In my case, I only use meds if symptoms present.

 

[Kerinin]

Well I did a series of water changes until I ran out of saltwater. Copper is currently at 0.11ppm which is below the therapeutic level. RODI is running now and I'm hoping to get another water change in tonight, hopefully get that copper level down to 0.05 or so. The heater's dialed in to 77 and I'm running a nano skimmer. I don't think there's much more I can do at this point besides wait. Both clowns continue to behave normally. Wrasse is still struggling in a corner but she's hanging on.

Definitely coming around to the "medicate if symptoms are present" perspective, although this was more the result of my ignorance than unnecessary medication.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Well I did a series of water changes until I ran out of saltwater. Copper is currently at 0.11ppm which is below the therapeutic level. RODI is running now and I'm hoping to get another water change in tonight, hopefully get that copper level down to 0.05 or so. The heater's dialed in to 77 and I'm running a nano skimmer. I don't think there's much more I can do at this point besides wait. Both clowns continue to behave normally. Wrasse is still struggling in a corner but she's hanging on.

Definitely coming around to the "medicate if symptoms are present" perspective, although this was more the result of my ignorance than unnecessary medication.

Do you have some sand for the wrasse? Assuming it's a Halichoeres claudia. Put some sand about 2" deep in a tupperware container for it to sleep in. If they don't have this in qt, it only adds to the stress. Lights off, only ambient light for qt.