Are my fish sick and if so, what is it??

[Jay Hemdal]

I left the purple guy in the bucket overnight to see if anything revealed itself but I did not see anything different. It could have been really bad flukes that upon falling off just left too much damage in their wake.

So from a timeline perspective, the ich was discovered on Thursday 9/29. That night I pulled the Sailfin, Purple, Whitetail and trigger into the QT and began copper immediately bringing it up to 2.5 over 24 hours. There was immediate improvement with the exception of the whitetail who had the obvious mouth damage and died by the morning of 10/1.

10/3 my swallowtails came in which unfortunately were ordered before this all started and we bound for the QT anyway so in they went with the 2 tangs and the trigger. Everyone seemed to be fine. The female was a little shy and hid in the cave mostly but everyone was eating and doing just fine in the copper. No ammonia, no ill effects, everything seemed just peachy.

10/13 I came home from work and went to feed and found the female swallowtail dead in the cave. Removed her, fed everyone, back to normal for now.

10/17 I wake up to a dead male swallowtail. Pulled him out and went about my business.

10/17 night was when I noticed they did not eat anything and were breathing heavy.

10/19 pulled the trigger and put her in the other QT (sidenote: She and everyone else in that tank are doing just fine)

10/20 night I dosed the Prazi

10/21 night - lost both tangs

#fishmedics

Just looking for trends, this seems to point to an issue with the QT itself, not a disease that the trigger would have carried over:

10/19 pulled the trigger and put her in the other QT (sidenote: She and everyone else in that tank are doing just fine)

Jay

 

[alabella1]

Just looking for trends, this seems to point to an issue with the QT itself, not a disease that the trigger would have carried over:

10/19 pulled the trigger and put her in the other QT (sidenote: She and everyone else in that tank are doing just fine)

Jay

I tested the water today and nothing was too crazy. Phosphates were pretty high, but not usually an issue for fish right?

 

[Danny G]

Just throwing it out there but you can check some of your local stores see if they have a quarantine tank ready to go so you can treat right away. I was lucky found someone in the past that helped me out. I was in the same place with one tank and no QT running.. it really helped out. I do now have a second small 13 gallon that runs all the time. Best of luck

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I tested the water today and nothing was too crazy. Phosphates were pretty high, but not usually an issue for fish right?

Correct, phosphate isn’t an issue for fish. The big issues are high ammonia, low pH or low dissolved oxygen. In rare cases, a tank can have become contaminated with some toxin.
Jay

 

[alabella1]

Well, Things were quiet for a month or so. I let my fish all finish out their QT after the latest ich breakout. My coral has all been moved to the DT as have the fish. Lights are on running a normal schedule and everyone in there is healthy and happy. Fast forward. 1 empty QT and 1 empty observation tank... time to restock.

 

[alabella1]

OBS tank

First I grabbed some last minute deals from among the reef - Koi Scopas (HUGE), LT tang, Linnetus Wrasse and a footballer damsel. Being that Eric fully QT'd them, I threw them in observation. Also, since my Gem tang finished up QT by me, I threw him in the obs as well so the tangs would all go into the DT at the same time. Wrasse was looking pretty bad so I pulled him and put him in a bucket with paraguard. He seemed to rebound nicely. Instead of putting him in obs, I placed him in the QT. He seemed to do well in there for a bit but then one morning I woke up to him dead. Back to the obs 2 weeks were up... time to move to DT. Freshwater dips and then into the DT. First went the damsel and he was just fine. He still is as of now. Next was the Gem who once I moved him was acting very weird... lethargic... hiding. He lasted a day maybe and i found him floating with bulging eyes. The Koi and Lt looked to maybe have flukes. I saw a bunch of little white specks in the bottom of my black bucket. So back into the obs for both of them and started prazipro. They appeared to be breathing heavy pretty much all the time. Changed their water every other day or so, did another prazi dose last night i think. I have the return pump pointed at the surface for plenty of agitation. I also have one of those eheim bubblers bubbling away. I broke my airstone otherwise it would be in there. Going to grab some new ones. Fast forward to today, the scopas was not looking good. He was laying on his side, breathing heavier than ever. I did another huge water change and threw in some stress guard. No help. As a last gasp I moved him to the DT. He was lethargic still, but he was forcing himself to swim around and check out the new digs. Sad news as he did not make it through the night. LT Tang is losing his mind. He keeps slapping his body off the glass bottom of the tank. So here we go with another prazi dose and turned on the bubbles. I can still see him struggling a bit in there. I'm thinking maybe it's not flukes and maybe he needs to go into some copper. Here are some just terrible pix of the ones I lost.

#fishmedics

 

[alabella1]

Moving on to the QT - everything here should be just fine as I had a whole round of fish go through a full QT and sent them to the DT. Emptied and cleaned the tank. Rinsed the media in rodi water. New ones added included a Choati, gold rimmed tang, cleaner wrasse, half black mimic tang, pair of square anthias, bi-color cleaner, peppermint hogfish and a leopard wrasse.

Like the obs this tank is fairly healthy from a number of tests to confirm. Ammonia badges good, pH, nitrite, nitrate and phos all look good. All of a sudden in the fish just started dropping and were found dead with mostly mouths wide open. I don't know what I am missing here, but something definitely is not right!

#fishmedics

 

[MnFish1]

Moving on to the QT - everything here should be just fine as I had a whole round of fish go through a full QT and sent them to the DT. Emptied and cleaned the tank. Rinsed the media in rodi water. New ones added included a Choati, gold rimmed tang, cleaner wrasse, half black mimic tang, pair of square anthias, bi-color cleaner, peppermint hogfish and a leopard wrasse.

Like the obs this tank is fairly healthy from a number of tests to confirm. Ammonia badges good, pH, nitrite, nitrate and phos all look good. All of a sudden in the fish just started dropping and were found dead with mostly mouths wide open. I don't know what I am missing here, but something definitely is not right!

#fishmedics

Flukes often display this symptom (i.e. the fish has the symptom). What is your definition of 'Full QT' - and do you think you might start a new thread?

 

[alabella1]

Flukes often display this symptom (i.e. the fish has the symptom). What is your definition of 'Full QT' - and do you think you might start a new thread?

I can start a new thread if you guys want. I didn’t want to muddy up the board with 100 threads. Also my definition of Full QT is @jay Hemdal‘a definition which I followed to the letter.

 

[MnFish1]

I can start a new thread if you guys want. I didn’t want to muddy up the board with 100 threads. Also my definition of Full QT is @jay Hemdal‘a definition which I followed to the letter.

Apologies - I thought you were posting about a different problem than you original post (I thought it was posted by someone else)

 

[alabella1]

Apologies - I thought you were posting about a different problem than you original post (I thought it was posted by someone else)

New problems, new fish, I'm just not having as much luck with my home QT as I'd like and I'm trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing wrong so I can stop flushing 100s of dollars down the toilet.