Trying to Determine What Went Wrong

[Schlafrig]

A few months ago I unfortunately lost almost all of my fish in my main display tank to some sort of disease outbreak. I have started to slowly restock the tank and have been making sure to quarantine all new fish. The last two fish I have in quarantine is a Tomini Tang and Scissortail Goby. I was trying the tank transfer method of 14 days in copper, transferring to another tank then treating with Prazi. Today is the day I transferred them to the new tank waited about 2 hours and dosed Prazi. A few hours after I dosed the prazi I noticed the tang was breathing very rapidly, I increased the air stone to full strength and waited to see if he improved at all. A few hours later I found the tang stuck to overflow, as a last ditch effort I did a freshwater dip for 5 minutes with tempature matched water. When putting him back in the tank he flashed very violently a few times then laid on the bottom of the tank still with rapid breathing. A few hours after that, he had passed. The scissortail is still completly fine and doesnt show any of the same symptoms. The tang seemed fine in the copper tank and went from completely fine to dead in under 12 hours after dosing prazi.

Any ideas on what couldve caused this? I know sometimes fish can bleedout from all the flukes falling off but I didnt see any symptoms that would suggest that level of infection.

 

[JTP424]

Not sure... but highly recommend following the current R2R protocol.. I don't think 14 days is enough in the copper....

Current Quarantine Protocol

2024 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed, proactive quarantine process can effectively eliminate these...

www.reef2reef.com

*Edit... Tagging @Jay Hemdal

 

[Schlafrig]

The 14 days was based off of the Humblefish 14 days in copper method. Here is the Link

 

[W31Olds]

A FW dip would not be recommended for your Tomini as he was too sick to Tolerate it. Was he behaving like he had Flukes before you added the Prazi? Scratching, Flashing, etc. Also was he eating before adding the Prazi?
Is it possible you calculated the dosage wrong? Prazi is pretty forgiving though. With 14 days in Copper at the correct levels you can pretty much rule out Ich and Velvet, however with only 14 days everything has to go right or something could slip through. Also , when you did the TT, I assume all the parameters were matched?

 

[Schlafrig]

Yes all parameters were matched when doing the tank transfer. I dosed 3.5 ml of Prazipro to 15 gallons of water. He was eating LRS fish frenzy but didnt have any interest in the purple nori I had rubber banded to some PVC. I didnt see any signs of flukes beforehand but in hindsight where the qt tank was setup I didnt observe as much as I probably shouldve. I agree the FW dip wasnt the best idea with how weak he was, at that point I didnt think he was going to make it anway and used it as a "hail mary".

 

[Jay Hemdal]

A few months ago I unfortunately lost almost all of my fish in my main display tank to some sort of disease outbreak. I have started to slowly restock the tank and have been making sure to quarantine all new fish. The last two fish I have in quarantine is a Tomini Tang and Scissortail Goby. I was trying the tank transfer method of 14 days in copper, transferring to another tank then treating with Prazi. Today is the day I transferred them to the new tank waited about 2 hours and dosed Prazi. A few hours after I dosed the prazi I noticed the tang was breathing very rapidly, I increased the air stone to full strength and waited to see if he improved at all. A few hours later I found the tang stuck to overflow, as a last ditch effort I did a freshwater dip for 5 minutes with tempature matched water. When putting him back in the tank he flashed very violently a few times then laid on the bottom of the tank still with rapid breathing. A few hours after that, he had passed. The scissortail is still completly fine and doesnt show any of the same symptoms. The tang seemed fine in the copper tank and went from completely fine to dead in under 12 hours after dosing prazi.

Any ideas on what couldve caused this? I know sometimes fish can bleedout from all the flukes falling off but I didnt see any symptoms that would suggest that level of infection.

What brand of copper did you use?
What brand of prazi and at what dose?

 

[Schlafrig]

What brand of copper did you use?
What brand of prazi and at what dose?

I used copper power and I used prazipro at a dose of 3.5ml in 15 gallons of water

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I used copper power and I used prazipro at a dose of 3.5ml in 15 gallons of water

O.K., I wanted to confirm that the prazi dose was accurate (it was) and that you weren't using ionic copper (you weren't).

The tang may have had severe flukes and bled out. If so, the FW dip would have worsened that effect (sorry!)

 

[Schlafrig]

In the future is there anything I should do differently? If it was bleeding out from severe flukes was there anything I could do to help, or is it just a waiting game to see if they pull through.

 

[W31Olds]

There was a Gentleman on another Forum that had a similar situation with a Yellow. He treated it with Prazi and almost immediately the Fish flailed around as the Flukes dropped off and then it layed on its side and shortly thereafter died. There were many Flukes that dropped off and the fish could not recover. I doubt there was anything that could be done for that fish and yours also. Your Fish probably had a bad case upon purchase because after only 2 weeks I doubt they would have reproduced enough. Careful observation is the key. Fish usually show some signs.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

In the future is there anything I should do differently? If it was bleeding out from severe flukes was there anything I could do to help, or is it just a waiting game to see if they pull through.

The only thing that I've ever heard of is to administer prazi in a tank that has a lower salinity, similar to that of fish blood, around 1.018. Of course, invertebrates won't tolerate that. I've also not done an exhaustive study to see if this actually helps or not......

I did try lower dose prazi to try to kill of just SOME of the flukes at a time, allowing the fish's skin to heal between each dose - but I could not adjust the dose to make that happen though.

 

[MaPePo]

In the future is there anything I should do differently? If it was bleeding out from severe flukes was there anything I could do to help, or is it just a waiting game to see if they pull through.

The only thing that I've ever heard of is to administer prazi in a tank that has a lower salinity, similar to that of fish blood, around 1.018. Of course, invertebrates won't tolerate that. I've also not done an exhaustive study to see if this actually helps or not......

I did try lower dose prazi to try to kill of just SOME of the flukes at a time, allowing the fish's skin to heal between each dose - but I could not adjust the dose to make that happen though.

I’m about to start prophylactic treatment of my Tomini tang. She hasn’t shown any issues besides a lot of resting and I’m doing copper power treatment first. Would it be safer to do a low dose of prazi pro first (after the copper) to prevent something like this?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I’m about to start prophylactic treatment of my Tomini tang. She hasn’t shown any issues besides a lot of resting and I’m doing copper power treatment first. Would it be safer to do a low dose of prazi pro first (after the copper) to prevent something like this?

Unless the tang is scratching or flashing against things, or rocking in place, or coughing, I would treat with copper first and then, once that is removed, treat with prazipro.