Fish steadily dying in QT. Breathing heavily with no other symptoms

[static416]

As I suggested before - it's a very very low risk. However, it is a risk. It depends on how compulsive you want to be. It also sounds like you stopped copper at 26 days and then restarted it?

For some of them, but the stop-start was only for a day, and there is no consistency between the fish that are effected and the presence or absence of copper that I can tell. And they show no symptoms that I can see.

Since I last posted here, I've lost another 4.

- The Coris Wrasse hung on for a long time, 3 days or so from symptoms (heavy breathing) to death.
- One of the anthias died, those are difficult to notice because sometimes it's just the others bullying one or starving it out.
- Court Jester Goby (in with Anthias), also difficult to tell, found him yesterday. But he was not used to prepared food, may not have been eating.
- The Tomini Tang (in with the Anthias) was fine yesterday, this morning moving oddly and nearly crashed. Dead this afternoon. Less than 24hrs.

Thats three in one tank in 2-3 days. That tank showed no issues for the previous 29 days. Water changed nearly daily. Inspected all the bodies and there are no external indications of a problem.

- Male bluethroat trigger (was in with Coris wrasse) now acting odd, but likely breathing fine. I moved him to a completely new tank, new filter, new water, and we'll see.

I'm thinking this has to be some kind of virus? What else kills in like 1-3 days with no other symptoms?

At this stage I'm just going to wait it out. I may end up with no fish, but I don't want to risk introducing this to the tank, if it's not already in there. (Tank currently fallow)

 

[static416]

Currently still fine:
- Female bluethroat and Scribbled Rabbitfish that were in with the Moorish Idol. They seem very good, no issues since the Idol died over a week ago.
- 7 Chromis. These were in a tank with about 8 other fish that died. They seem completely uneffected, surprisingly.
- 4 Anthias. I'm not convinced the one that died was because of this mystery illness. Could be bullying in the small space.
- Firefish and red-head goby. They are in with the anthias, currently fine and normal.
- Magnificent Foxface. It's breathing heavy when I look at, but always has been, even in the DT. Very skittish for being by far the largest fish I have. Seems fine otherwise. Was in with the Powder Blue that died.
- Lionfish. It's on it's own in hypo-salinity tank, next to the others.

Test Case:
- The maroon clown is in with the anthias as well and the Tomini. It is the smaller of the two I had (not paired) and it's bigger cousin died of the disease along with the Marine Betta. Will be interesting to see if it goes.

 

[static416]

It's also clear that it can move between tanks, whatever it is.

Either via the air. Or shared stuff like hoses for waterchanges.

In the future I will use one hose for draining and another for filling, and try to clean in between.

You might think "air" is unlikely, but these tanks are all very close together, many touching, and all have air stones going pretty heavily.

 

[static416]

I have a small house, so the current QT setup is in my storage room.

Looks like this.

The black thing in the middle is a tank turned around so as to not spook the skittish fish.

Also can see this was before they started dying off. Sad really.

Tank on the extreme right-top is freshwater guppies I breed for the predator reef tank. At least, when I had predators to go in it.

 

[static416]

In a brief moment of panic I considered that perhaps my tank heaters are not aligned with my mixing station and this was repeatedly introducing daily acclimation issues.

Quick check and my salinity is within 1-2ppt, and temp within 2C. So that's likely not the issue.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I have a small house, so the current QT setup is in my storage room.

Looks like this.

The black thing in the middle is a tank turned around so as to not spook the skittish fish.

Also can see this was before they started dying off. Sad really.

Tank on the extreme right-top is freshwater guppies I breed for the predator reef tank. At least, when I had predators to go in it.

Sorry I don’t have a solution for you. Biosecurity in that room would certainly be a challenge.
Viruses are tough because you can’t diagnose them at the home level. Most of them though, tend to hit a particular group of fish - like the dwarf gourami virus or the Banggai cardinal virus - they just don’t seem the kill off groups of unrelated fish species.

 

[KrisReef]

Currently still fine:
- Female bluethroat and Scribbled Rabbitfish that were in with the Moorish Idol. They seem very good, no issues since the Idol died over a week ago.
- 7 Chromis. These were in a tank with about 8 other fish that died. They seem completely uneffected, surprisingly.
- 4 Anthias. I'm not convinced the one that died was because of this mystery illness. Could be bullying in the small space.
- Firefish and red-head goby. They are in with the anthias, currently fine and normal.
- Magnificent Foxface. It's breathing heavy when I look at, but always has been, even in the DT. Very skittish for being by far the largest fish I have. Seems fine otherwise. Was in with the Powder Blue that died.
- Lionfish. It's on it's own in hypo-salinity tank, next to the others.

Test Case:
- The maroon clown is in with the anthias as well and the Tomini. It is the smaller of the two I had (not paired) and it's bigger cousin died of the disease along with the Marine Betta. Will be interesting to see if it goes.

Any thoughts about trying hypo-salinity on fish other than the lion?

I don’t have much experience with QT & copper, ( to qualify my comments potential value) just looking at the numbers and outcomes thus far.

I hope that the deaths have ended, sorry for your pain with each loss.

 

[jtf74]

I had an ich outbreak in my DT about 26 days ago, and yanked all of my fish out of the tank, moved into multiple QT tanks. I have way more fish than tanks, and some would kill each other, so they are split over 7 QT tanks of different sizes.

I consistently treated all of the tanks with Copper Power in the 2.2-2.5 range, other than my lionfish which is in hyposalinity maintained by an ATO.

All tanks have airstones and HOB filters with only rocks and foam for bio-media.

History

Up to day 12/13 everything is fine.

- The few fish that showed spots had them go away.
- Everyone was eating
- I monitored ammonia closely with Seachem badges and Hanna checker, and most tanks got a 80-90% water change every other day to keep ammonia down.

Around day 12, I decided to pro-actively treat with General Cure in addition to the copper. I know this is frowned upon and I wish I could undo it, but there were a few people on here saying they regularly use GC + Copper without issue. And I had previously used PraziPro in the past with copper a few times, with no bad results, despite it being worse because of the liquid form containing a solvent (I didn't know at the time).

Day 13, everything was fine.

Around day 14 I noticed two fish breathing heavily, Copperband and Purple Tang, both in the same tank. Did an 80% waterchange and adjusted the copper back to 2.3.

On day 16 the Copperband, Purple Tang, and two damsels in that tank were dead. Another 80% waterchange and adjusted the copper back to 2.3.
On day 17, no deaths, double-checked that copper levels are correct in all tanks. Large Powder Blue tang in other tank is breathing heavy, as well as most remaining fish in first group of deaths.
On day 20 two more dead damsels. dead cleaner wrasse and dead royal gramma. Another 80% waterchange and adjusted the copper back to 2.3.
On day 22, also dead Marine Betta in another tank, and Maroon Clown in the same tank. Powder Blue dies too.
On day 24, two dead Perc clowns in a so-far uneffected tank.

Now we're on day 26 and my Coris wrasse (same tank as the last two percs) is crashed on the bottom and breathing heavily. My Magnificent Foxface is moving well, but also breathing very heavy (same tank as the Powder Blue that died a week or so ago).

Overview
Over the space of about 12 days, I've lost about 14 fish across 4 of the 7 tanks.
- None of them showed any spots or symptoms other than breathing heavily
- Most went from first symtoms to death in 2-3 days at most.
- All of them were in Copper-treated tanks for the entire duration, up until the last couple days when I've started suspecting copper toxicity and backing it off.
- All of them had the same treatment of copper + GC.
- Some I've tried to save with peroxide dips or methylene blue dips, with no effect.
- It's not ammonia, the badges and testing show that, and I do frequent water changes.

Survivors
Oddly, not all are effected.

- One entire tank, the most heavily stocked, with 5 Anthias, a Tomini Tang, Firefish, Redhead Goby has had no deaths and no effects
- 7 Chromis in the tank with the most, and fastest fatalities, were completely uneffected and fine.
- Two Bluethroat triggers, in separate tanks with deaths, also uneffected so far.
- Two rabbitfish mostly uneffected, one breathing a bit hard, but has been for awhile.

Questions
- Velvet seems like the obvious answer, but this many deaths with no spots? Only gills? How can it survive 2.3-2.5 copper power?
- Could it be copper toxicity at some point that is just catching up with them? I have stopped copper two days ago in case.
- Would the GC + Copper Power really have created this much trouble? Why are some completely fine? Even sensitive stuff like Anthias?
- Are there options I haven't tried?
- Are there drug conflicts I haven't thought of?
- I have sporadically added anti-biotics (Metroplex/Kanaplex/Sulfaplex) at different times to see if it had any effect, but did not.
- I just tried adding 1ml per 3gal of peroxide to a few tanks in case it's Velvet. Good idea/bad idea?

I had a similar problem. Similar fish as you have clowns, angels, copperband,tang. Copperpower @ 2.25 or slightly higher- 4 tanks seperated. Thanks to Jay problem was solved and only lost two fish. My trouble was ammonia from the new setup. You set up 7 qt's so all were new yes? At about 12 days some of mine stopped eating and got sluggish. Couple days later lost a fish. The seachem badge I had showed in the safe range but it wasn't. I don't trust those at all now. Are you 100% sure your other ammonia checker is working? After I got that corrected the copper power has worked very well for me.

 

[static416]

Any thoughts about trying hypo-salinity on fish other than the lion?

This is the first time I've tried hyposalinity and I do really like it. It's much simpler, even if it doesn't catch quite as many things as copper.

The problem is that it's essentially required to have an ATO in order to reliably run hyposalinity. The band is so narrow, and the evaporation in a 10gal with an airstone is so high, that I'd be constantly moving out of theraputic range. And I only have one spare ATO and 7 tanks.

But I'll definitely use it in the future when I'm in a more normal situation.

 

[static416]

I had a similar problem. Similar fish as you have clowns, angels, copperband,tang. Copperpower @ 2.25 or slightly higher- 4 tanks seperated. Thanks to Jay problem was solved and only lost two fish. My trouble was ammonia from the new setup.

It does have similar symptoms to ammonia poisoning. To the point that I'm wondering if it's some kind of similar poisoning effect. Hence my previous questions about copper toxicity.

But I'm pretty sure it's not ammonia. I've run into that issue in the past enough times that I know what to look for. Only had one death due to that though, and it was negligence on my part with not enough water changes.

- Generally it takes more than a day, at least 3 with no waterchanges in a moderately fed 10gal to get to be a problem.
- Usually preceded by faintly cloudy water, and very often I can smell it before it gets ciritcal. The airstones seem to put it into the air?
- It usually effects all the fish to some extent. You don't have some completely normal, and others dying on the bottom. They'll all be kind of gasping and acting oddly. And a 90% waterchange almost immediately fixes it for everyone.

In my case, waterchanges have no effect, and not all the fish in the tank are effected.

The seachem badge I had showed in the safe range but it wasn't. I don't trust those at all now.

The seachem badges are reliable, but you have to ignore the range on the front.

Only yellow is truly 100% safe IMO. If it's green you need to change the water quickly, if it's blue you probably have some dead fish.

I change the water soon after (same day) that it's creeping into green.

 

[static416]

UPDATE:

All the fish, other than the firefish and the maroon clown, in the Anthias tank, died overnight. So 4 more Anthias and a red-head goby died. Went from normal yesterday morning to dead in 24hrs. Nearly everything in the tank died in a space of 36 hrs. During that time I did two waterchanges.

I did stop treating this tank with copper around the time this started in that tank, but hard to say if that's related given the history. They were in copper for 29 days prior to that with no symptoms. But I'm leaning in that direction, it may have been contamination or transmitted via aerosol.

I've moved the firefish and maroon clown to a clean tank, but I imagine they are goners too.

Male bluethroat has gotten a bit worse, but is not progressing as fast as the others. Seems to be faster the smaller the fish is. This would be day 3 of him acting oddly.

I'm just going to focus on maintaining the copper and seeing if they pull through.

Viruses are tough because you can’t diagnose them at the home level. Most of them though, tend to hit a particular group of fish - like the dwarf gourami virus or the Banggai cardinal virus - they just don’t seem the kill off groups of unrelated fish species.

This makes sense about viruses. My only guess is some kind of Velvet variant or similar that is only in the gills, and moves extremely fast.

At least some of the remaining fish seem normal, and have been through an exposure to this, so I'm optimistic they'll be ok.

 

[threebuoys]

It's also clear that it can move between tanks, whatever it is.

Either via the air. Or shared stuff like hoses for waterchanges.

In the future I will use one hose for draining and another for filling, and try to clean in between.

You might think "air" is unlikely, but these tanks are all very close together, many touching, and all have air stones going pretty heavily.

Your experience here has been awful. Given how it has played out, I have to believe something toxic in that room has found its way into your tanks. Then, cross-contamination is a real possibility. I have no idea how to determine what the contaminant is. I feel for you. I wish you better luck going forward.

 

[static416]

Given how it has played out, I have to believe something toxic in that room has found its way into your tanks.

Yeah, I'm wondering that too. I don't know what it could be, but it did occur to me.

Questioning everything at this point to be honest.

 

[jtf74]

It does have similar symptoms to ammonia poisoning. To the point that I'm wondering if it's some kind of similar poisoning effect. Hence my previous questions about copper toxicity.

But I'm pretty sure it's not ammonia. I've run into that issue in the past enough times that I know what to look for. Only had one death due to that though, and it was negligence on my part with not enough water changes.

- Generally it takes more than a day, at least 3 with no waterchanges in a moderately fed 10gal to get to be a problem.
- Usually preceded by faintly cloudy water, and very often I can smell it before it gets ciritcal. The airstones seem to put it into the air?
- It usually effects all the fish to some extent. You don't have some completely normal, and others dying on the bottom. They'll all be kind of gasping and acting oddly. And a 90% waterchange almost immediately fixes it for everyone.

In my case, waterchanges have no effect, and not all the fish in the tank are effected.


The seachem badges are reliable, but you have to ignore the range on the front.

Only yellow is truly 100% safe IMO. If it's green you need to change the water quickly, if it's blue you probably have some dead fish.

I change the water soon after (same day) that it's creeping into green.

Well good luck. So sorry its happening to you. Please post up if you figure it out.