What disease is this?

[ryudo80]

Hello, I'm new to salt water fish keeping. I've setup my salt water tank 3 months ago. It's a 20 gallon IM tank. It has been cycled with turbo fritz 900 + Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride with live rocks and live sand. I added a pair of small clown fish, a watchman goby, and a fire fish along with a clean up crew (4 trochus snails, 3 nassarius snails, a few blue leg hermit crabs, and 1 cleaner shrimp). They have been pretty healthy for 2 months living together. Last week, I decided to add royal gramma and a tuxedo urchin. I was not aware of the fish quarantine process (my fault for not doing my research). I have a 6 month old fresh water tank with many fish that are all thriving that had not encountered any fish death since the start of that part of the hobby.

After about 3 or 4 days adding the royal gramma, it died in its cave and I noticed cleaning crew was already eating some of its body. Nothing stood out as to why it died and I didn't think too much about it. Also, around that time, I also haven't seen the fire fish either but that fish had always been very shy in the past. This morning, about a week after the royal gramma died, I noticed 1 of my clown fish was missing and the remaining one was swimming funny. It was pressing its body against back of the tank where the water goes into to get filtered. With a couple of minutes, it sank to the bottom of the tank onto the sand and died. It all happened very fast. I then noticed a nassarius snail was digging into one of the rock so I lifted the rock and saw the other clown fish underneath, also dead. These clown fish had never gone that low into the tank before. As of yesterday, the clown fish pair was still eating regularly and did not display anything different from their typical daily behavior. Currently, all my cleanup crew are still fine along with a few corals I have. My watchman goby is also fine. I looked at the goby body and don't see any white spots.

I tested the water and ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates level are still fine. I've attached a couple of picture of one of the clown fish that died. Can you see if it has some type of disease that caused its death? If there is some type of disease, do I need to treat the goby even though it showed now symptom? I assume the fire fish may also be dead as I haven't seen it in a few days.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hello, I'm new to salt water fish keeping. I've setup my salt water tank 3 months ago. It's a 20 gallon IM tank. It has been cycled with turbo fritz 900 + Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride with live rocks and live sand. I added a pair of small clown fish, a watchman goby, and a fire fish along with a clean up crew (4 trochus snails, 3 nassarius snails, a few blue leg hermit crabs, and 1 cleaner shrimp). They have been pretty healthy for 2 months living together. Last week, I decided to add royal gramma and a tuxedo urchin. I was not aware of the fish quarantine process (my fault for not doing my research). I have a 6 month old fresh water tank with many fish that are all thriving that had not encountered any fish death since the start of that part of the hobby.

After about 3 or 4 days adding the royal gramma, it died in its cave and I noticed cleaning crew was already eating some of its body. Nothing stood out as to why it died and I didn't think too much about it. Also, around that time, I also haven't seen the fire fish either but that fish had always been very shy in the past. This morning, about a week after the royal gramma died, I noticed 1 of my clown fish was missing and the remaining one was swimming funny. It was pressing its body against back of the tank where the water goes into to get filtered. With a couple of minutes, it sank to the bottom of the tank onto the sand and died. It all happened very fast. I then noticed a nassarius snail was digging into one of the rock so I lifted the rock and saw the other clown fish underneath, also dead. These clown fish had never gone that low into the tank before. As of yesterday, the clown fish pair was still eating regularly and did not display anything different from their typical daily behavior. Currently, all my cleanup crew are still fine along with a few corals I have. My watchman goby is also fine. I looked at the goby body and don't see any white spots.

I tested the water and ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates level are still fine. I've attached a couple of picture of one of the clown fish that died. Can you see if it has some type of disease that caused its death? If there is some type of disease, do I need to treat the goby even though it showed now symptom? I assume the fire fish may also be dead as I haven't seen it in a few days.

Welcome to Reef2Reef

Sorry to hear all that. It’s pretty certain that the royal gramma brought a contagious disease into the tank - probably Amyloodinium/velvet). The goby is at least partially resistant, but it could still get sick. Is it still eating normally and not breathing fast?

What to do going forward? I would set up a quarantine tank and treat the goby and all new fish, while leaving your main tank with no fish in it for 60 days to have any fish diseases in there to die out due to lack of a host.

 

[ryudo80]

Thank you for information. The goby is still doing fine this morning. He has never been a big eater but still eat a couple of pellets last night. He is still fine this morning.

He did displayed a strange behavior in the tank this past week. I also have a small Candy pistol shrimp in the tank and after about 3 weeks, they managed to find each other and shared a rock. Since the introduction into the tank, he had been just sitting at the bottom next to his rock looking out. About 4 days ago, he left his rock and his pistol shrimp and started swimming (I didn't know he was such a good swimmer). He swam up and down, attaching to the glass, and going around all over the tank. Since yesterday, he has gone back to his normal routine but picked a different rock to be his home. Is is possible that he has beaten the disease since he back to his usual self? Should I wait a couple of days before starting treatment or treatment him asap at this point?

 

[ryudo80]

His breathing this morning is slow and relaxed. I've attached a video of him this morning.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

His breathing this morning is slow and relaxed. I've attached a video of him this morning.

I agree, it isn't breathing too fast. It won't be totally immune to parasitic fish diseases, but we do see reports of gobies surviving disease episodes, but as I said, it could also just be the last one to catch the issue. The trouble is that while that goby is still in the tank, it could be harboring a chronic infection, and that could become acute at some point, but could also cause any new fish to become sick if they are added to the tank too soon.

I always wait a minimum of 14 days (30 is safer) before considering that a fish has not caught a particular issue that swept through a tank. Better yet, is to treat it as a new fish, perhaps by quarantining it with new fish that you later acquire.

 

[ryudo80]

Thanks for the guidance. I will get a separate tank and treat the goby with copper power and let the main tank be without fish for 60 days.

 

[ryudo80]

A follow up question I have is, can I use some media (Seachem Matrix) from the DT in the QT tank filter for nitrifying bacteria? I am assuming that if there are velvet parasites in the media, they would also be killed during the QT process. Perhaps I can also reuse the water from the DT tank as well for the initial batch of water?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

A follow up question I have is, can I use some media (Seachem Matrix) from the DT in the QT tank filter for nitrifying bacteria? I am assuming that if there are velvet parasites in the media, they would also be killed during the QT process. Perhaps I can also reuse the water from the DT tank as well for the initial batch of water?

Yes - you can use any non-calcium media from your DT in your QT since it will be exposed to the same treatment that the fish will be. Same thing with using water from your DT.