Yellowtail damselfish sick.

[Fishguy1079]

Hi all so i have a bunch of yellowtail damselfish in my 210 and about a week ago I started losing about 1 a day. Water tested fine, didn't really see anything on them. Thought maybe internal parasites so I dosed with coppersafe. I tried to cover my bases and started dosing there food with kanoplex/focus in case bacterial. Well neither has seemed to work and I'm still losing about one a day. Tonight I noticed one that's still alive with stuff on His face and a dead one has some discoloration on his side. The only other thing I've noticed is they look kind of lethargic and kind of just float. But not usually staying at the top of the tank. Anybody have any suggestions on what medication I could try instead?
Thanks

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi all so i have a bunch of yellowtail damselfish in my 210 and about a week ago I started losing about 1 a day. Water tested fine, didn't really see anything on them. Thought maybe internal parasites so I dosed with coppersafe. I tried to cover my bases and started dosing there food with kanoplex/focus in case bacterial. Well neither has seemed to work and I'm still losing about one a day. Tonight I noticed one that's still alive with stuff on His face and a dead one has some discoloration on his side. The only other thing I've noticed is they look kind of lethargic and kind of just float. But not usually staying at the top of the tank. Anybody have any suggestions on what medication I could try instead?
Thanks

How many damsels in the tank to start with?
How long had you had them?
Are there other fish in the tank? How are they?
What was the copper dose?

Skip Kanaplex and focus, you got some really bad advice - to dose that, you need to measure the amount of drug precisely, and then feed it out dependent on the fish’s weight. Too much drug and it poisons the fish’s kidneys. Too little and it doesn’t work.

 

[Fishguy1079]

How many damsels in the tank to start with?
How long had you had them?
Are there other fish in the tank? How are they?
What was the copper dose?

Skip Kanaplex and focus, you got some really bad advice - to dose that, you need to measure the amount of drug precisely, and then feed it out dependent on the fish’s weight. Too much drug and it poisons the fish’s kidneys. Too little and it doesn’t work.

Hey thanks for responding. Initially it was 24(petco sells some damsels in lots of 12 or 24) . Had them 2-3 months i believe. I also had some orange line Cardinals that I lost about a week ago too. Same thing didn't see anything wrong with them just kind of listless. Got some angels and tangs in the tank also. So far there ok, they kind of hide but do eat. So if stop using kano/focus what medication would you recommend?

 

[Fishguy1079]

Hey thanks for responding. Initially it was 24(petco sells some damsels in lots of 12 or 24) . Had them 2-3 months i believe. I also had some orange line Cardinals that I lost about a week ago too. Same thing didn't see anything wrong with them just kind of listless. Got some angels and tangs in the tank also. So far there ok, they kind of hide but do eat. So if stop using kano/focus what medication would you recommend?

How many damsels in the tank to start with?
How long had you had them?
Are there other fish in the tank? How are they?
What was the copper dose?

Skip Kanaplex and focus, you got some really bad advice - to dose that, you need to measure the amount of drug precisely, and then feed it out dependent on the fish’s weight. Too much drug and it poisons the fish’s kidneys. Too little and it doesn’t work.

Jay i have paraguard and SW melafix on hand. Either one of them work any better than kanoplex/focus?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Jay i have paraguard and SW melafix on hand. Either one of them work any better than kanoplex/focus?

Neither of those meds have a really good record for treating external marine fish parasites or bacterial infections.

I do question trying to keep a number of YT blue damsels in the same tank - they tend to fight and take each other out. My first thought was that is the issue, but when that happens, there is always some "winners", and in this case, all of the damsels seem affected, so something else is going on, either adding to tankmate aggression, or instead of it.

Is the coppersafe at 2.25 ppm? If so, I'd opt for a concurrent praziquantel treatment, in case the issue is flukes.

 

[Fishguy1079]

Neither of those meds have a really good record for treating external marine fish parasites or bacterial infections.

I do question trying to keep a number of YT blue damsels in the same tank - they tend to fight and take each other out. My first thought was that is the issue, but when that happens, there is always some "winners", and in this case, all of the damsels seem affected, so something else is going on, either adding to tankmate aggression, or instead of it.

Is the coppersafe at 2.25 ppm? If so, I'd opt for a concurrent praziquantel treatment, in case the issue is flukes.

Thanks as always for the advice Jay! As far as the YT damsels go I never had a issue with them in my 210, even had some full grown and some smaller. But I suspect it's because I had a lot of plants and places from them to hide. Plus in my experience YT's aren't as aggressive as say dominos, blue devils , 3 stipes, sergeant majors, etc. I tried putting like 12 dominos in my 125 one time to see if they would all co-exist and hangout. That was a Big No LOL, within 3 months there was only two left, after 6 months I took them back to the fish store because they were harassing and attacking every new fish I tried to add to the tank.