Something ain’t right.

[Lady of Babylon]

Since the big crash in January, I have watched my tank stabilize. So I started slowly adding fish to the tank on April 10th. I added two tangs and a cleaner wrasse. Everyone was doing great! So on May 1st I added 5 firefish and 3 bluestripe pipefish. I noticed a few white spots on one of the tangs as I was acclimating the fire fish. To be on the side of caution, I started dosing with kick-ich and rally pro. I have also been soaking their mysid shrimp cubes in garlic guard. (Once a week.) this looks like more than just ich to me. My perimeters seem to be good with exception of PH at 7.64.

The cleaner wrasse started to look stuffed a few weeks ago, and within the last two hours is now acting a little dazed/ disoriented.

Any advisements? I REALLY REALLY DON’T WANT TO LOOSE THESE FISH.

 

[fishguy242]

@Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081

 

[mdb_talon]

Hope someone can help. Good luck!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Im having a hard time determining of ich or Lympho as pics are a tad Fuzzy.
Can you retake? Assure camera lens and the tank glass are clean.

Are they eating?
Any rapid breathing?
Any lethargic behavior?
Itching or scratching against objects?
Age of tank?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Since the big crash in January, I have watched my tank stabilize. So I started slowly adding fish to the tank on April 10th. I added two tangs and a cleaner wrasse. Everyone was doing great! So on May 1st I added 5 firefish and 3 bluestripe pipefish. I noticed a few white spots on one of the tangs as I was acclimating the fire fish. To be on the side of caution, I started dosing with kick-ich and rally pro. I have also been soaking their mysid shrimp cubes in garlic guard. (Once a week.) this looks like more than just ich to me. My perimeters seem to be good with exception of PH at 7.64.

The cleaner wrasse started to look stuffed a few weeks ago, and within the last two hours is now acting a little dazed/ disoriented.

Any advisements? I REALLY REALLY DON’T WANT TO LOOSE THESE FISH.

The firefish does seem to have ich. The tang may have ich as well, but I can’t see discrete dots on it. Is it breathing fast? If you don’t know, post a short video and I can tell you if it is. The cleaner wrasse seems just skinny (behind its head).
Garlic and kick ich aren’t going to help, and I doubt the rally pro will either. There are basically two effective treatments for ich; copper in a treatment tank, or the tank transfer method where you move the fish from container to container to outrun the disease. I prefer copper. However, the pipefish aren’t going to handle that well, m not sure what you can feed them in a bare QT. The cleaner wrasse is a really delicate fish also. Sorry for the bad news!
Jay

 

[KingTideCorals]

I would want to see possibly ich, but I am going to call in the experts..

@Jay Hemdal

 

[vetteguy53081]

Since the big crash in January, I have watched my tank stabilize. So I started slowly adding fish to the tank on April 10th. I added two tangs and a cleaner wrasse. Everyone was doing great! So on May 1st I added 5 firefish and 3 bluestripe pipefish. I noticed a few white spots on one of the tangs as I was acclimating the fire fish. To be on the side of caution, I started dosing with kick-ich and rally pro. I have also been soaking their mysid shrimp cubes in garlic guard. (Once a week.) this looks like more than just ich to me. My perimeters seem to be good with exception of PH at 7.64.

The cleaner wrasse started to look stuffed a few weeks ago, and within the last two hours is now acting a little dazed/ disoriented.

Any advisements? I REALLY REALLY DON’T WANT TO LOOSE THESE FISH.

To add, Not sure on the age of the tank , but 8 fish is a LOT of fish to add at one time without quaranting especially. Hyposalinity may be your best recourse but depending on the health of the fish, it may be a chance you take.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

To add, Not sure on the age of the tank , but 8 fish is a LOT of fish to add at one time without quaranting especially. Hyposalinity may be your best recourse but depending on the health of the fish, it may be a chance you take.

I didn’t suggest hypo because I saw some clove polyps in one picture....
Jay

 

[TheDragonsReef]

All the fish need Qt and copper, display tank needs to go fallow. Kick ich is snake oil. Doesnt do anything.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I didn’t suggest hypo because I saw some clove polyps in one picture....
Jay

Yikes- I didnt

 

[Lady of Babylon]

They kinda nibble, but are mostly shy. They prefer to graze off all of the algae in the tank over prepared foods, however any prepared foods I have dropped in do disappear. Clean up crew is pretty good.

No rapid breathing from anyone other than the wrasse.

Two of the firefish I never come out of hiding until late evening. One of the tangs stays pale and zips around the tank, then gets color back when everyone in the room stays still. So that’s a no on lethargic behavior.

I have only seen them do that once. Not really since.

3 years ago the tank was a 20 gallon that got upgraded to a 60 gallon last year, using a lot of the same sand and live rock. In the past two years, besides microscopic jellyfish and pumps crashing, only issue was the one time that I panicked and overstock the tank and crashed it in January (because all the fish I was after were hard to get before the indo-pacific closed). Prior to that the tank used to have five green chomis, a yellow tang, a potters angel, a copper band butterfly, 5 pipefish, and about 15 of 4 types of goby species under 2”, and a dwarf Moray eel. (All of this prior to me adding pairs of at least 9 other species of fish like an idiot on top of that…)

Will do my best to get better pictures.

Im having a hard time determining of ich or Lympho as pics are a tad Fuzzy.
Can you retake? Assure camera lens and the tank glass are clean.

Are they eating?
Any rapid breathing?
Any lethargic behavior?
Itching or scratching against objects?
Age of tank?

 

[vetteguy53081]

They kinda nibble, but are mostly shy. They prefer to graze off all of the algae in the tank over prepared foods, however any prepared foods I have dropped in do disappear. Clean up crew is pretty good.

No rapid breathing from anyone other than the wrasse.

Two of the firefish I never come out of hiding until late evening. One of the tangs stays pale and zips around the tank, then gets color back when everyone in the room stays still. So that’s a no on lethargic behavior.

I have only seen them do that once. Not really since.

3 years ago the tank was a 20 gallon that got upgraded to a 60 gallon last year, using a lot of the same sand and live rock. In the past two years, besides microscopic jellyfish and pumps crashing, only issue was the one time that I panicked and overstock the tank and crashed it in January (because all the fish I was after were hard to get before the indo-pacific closed). Prior to that the tank used to have five green chomis, a yellow tang, a potters angel, a copper band butterfly, 5 pipefish, and about 15 of 4 types of goby species under 2”, and a dwarf Moray eel. (All of this prior to me adding pairs of at least 9 other species of fish like an idiot on top of that…)

Will do my best to get better pictures.

Reduce white light intensity and add a little blue as they appear a little scared Or intimidated by the bright lighting

 

[Lady of Babylon]

My tank is VERY invert heavy, so no copper.

Video taken earlier today.

The firefish does seem to have ich. The tang may have ich as well, but I can’t see discrete dots on it. Is it breathing fast? If you don’t know, post a short video and I can tell you if it is. The cleaner wrasse seems just skinny (behind its head).
Garlic and kick ich aren’t going to help, and I doubt the rally pro will either. There are basically two effective treatments for ich; copper in a treatment tank, or the tank transfer method where you move the fish from container to container to outrun the disease. I prefer copper. However, the pipefish aren’t going to handle that well, m not sure what you can feed them in a bare QT. The cleaner wrasse is a really delicate fish also. Sorry for the bad news!
Jay

 

[NoahLikesFish]

I’m no expert but RAISE THE PH

 

[NoahLikesFish]

Give the fish to someone who can treat them

 

[Lady of Babylon]

These are my lighting settings. Long lights due to multiple macro algae in my display. Also replicating shallow reef ecosystem to the best of my ability.

Reduce white light intensity and add a little blue as they appear a little scared Or intimidated by the bright lighting

 

[Lady of Babylon]

@Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081 here are a few better pictures. I turned up the oxygen about 4 hours ago.

Also included pictures of my coral and a few of my inverts. I cannot tear down my tank easily. And a lot of my inverts are bivalves and mollusks that are embedded into the coralscape… losing them is not something I want to do, especially since I have to visit multiple lfs that are all over an hours drive in hopes that they are hitchhikers on an affordable piece of coral or snail.

 

[TheDragonsReef]

That's 100% velvet. Hate to be blunt but if they don't get treated with copper asap they will die. It may already be too late for the tang with how bad it looks.

Since you have inverts and coral you need to set up a quarantine/medical tank or atleast find someone that has one if you want to have a chance at saving them.

 

[Lady of Babylon]

Thank you. My other tank has an unbelievable copepod boom… however I think that since the two tanks have had a lot of water and invert swapping… that it most likely is a bad candidate for a QT tank. I do have a 2.5 gallon that I usually use as the QT tank… however those fish are not going to let me catch them without me tearing down the entire tank… which would hurt the other life in my tank.

From reading up on https://humble.fish/marine-velvet/ after reading your comment… I think the only reason they have held out this long is because I have been doing what I am doing with rally and kick-ich in combo with feeding garlic. I did up the dosage to every other day on the kick-ich, every day on the rally… so I might have to play the waiting game? Interesting to note is that Kona (goldring surgeonfish) had more of them the other day, then today had less. Yesterday Samoa (white tail bristletooth) had less and today has more. No one has been trying to swim into the power heads, which is a trait of velvet… so there is that at least. Kona and Samoa have survival priority over the firefish. The pipefish seem to be unaffected at this point.

The only thing I can think of would be to move any macro algae into the other fishless tank and basically have low to no light on my main tank for a few weeks. Not sure how that would impact the coral or inverts though, especially since so many of them seem to be heavily reliant on the algae as a food source.

That's 100% velvet. Hate to be blunt but if they don't get treated with copper asap they will die. It may already be too late for the tang with how bad it looks.

Since you have inverts and coral you need to set up a quarantine or medical tank or atleast find someone that has one if you want to have a chance at saving them.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thank you. My other tank has an unbelievable copepod boom… however I think that since the two tanks have had a lot of water and invert swapping… that it most likely is a bad candidate for a QT tank. I do have a 2.5 gallon that I usually use as the QT tank… however those fish are not going to let me catch them without me tearing down the entire tank… which would hurt the other life in my tank.

From reading up on https://humble.fish/marine-velvet/ after reading your comment… I think the only reason they have held out this long is because I have been doing what I am doing with rally and kick-ich in combo with feeding garlic. I did up the dosage to every other day on the kick-ich, every day on the rally… so I might have to play the waiting game? Interesting to note is that Kona (goldring surgeonfish) had more of them the other day, then today had less. Yesterday Samoa (white tail bristletooth) had less and today has more. No one has been trying to swim into the power heads, which is a trait of velvet… so there is that at least. Kona and Samoa have survival priority over the firefish. The pipefish seem to be unaffected at this point.

The only thing I can think of would be to move any macro algae into the other fishless tank and basically have low to no light on my main tank for a few weeks. Not sure how that would impact the coral or inverts though, especially since so many of them seem to be heavily reliant on the algae as a food source.

That isn't velvet, it is Cryptocaryon/ich - the key is the tang in the long video - it is breathing at less than 100 bpm, so it isn't Amylodinium/velvet. Copper is still the treatment and the losses will be 100% if untreated, in a treatment tank, Sorry, but that's what you will need to do to try and save these fish - and even that isn't a sure thing because copper can take up to three days to work, and the tang has a pretty severe infection at this point.

Jay