Bacterial Infestation or Parasite?

[SmallFry]

So I am very new to the hobby of keeping aquariums, my boyfriend is trying to help me out but he's never had one either. We started off with a 5 gallon tank but realized very quickly that wasn't big enough for the blue damsel and ocellaris clown. So we got a 20 gallon and are using the 5 gallon as a treatment tank.

Recently my ocellaris clown and coral beauty have come down with what looks like small white spots covering their body and sometimes it gets on their eyes. The spots go away after a day or so only to come back again. Then the other day, my ocellaris clown started looking really bad. He had these white string looking attachments over his gills and on most of his fins. I thought it could be a parasite but wasn't sure what to do.

The first thing I tried was a freshwater dip for 3 minutes, he looked better and was swimming around but he was gasping for air a lot. Then I put him in our hospital tank with the salinity 1.009 for about a day. I went down to my LFS store and the guys there said if it was a parasite it would need to be treated with copper, but if the strings looked more like slime it would be bacterial. I went with the copper, because I don't know what to do for bacterial infections. I didn't put the cupramine in until I had raised the salinity back up to 1.022 because my boyfriend said it wasn't safe to use copper in hyposalinity. But when we put the copper in, the fish stopped swimming around the tank. Now he just sits at the bottom and is breathing rapidly.

The clown is getting what looks like a slime layer coating his fins again, so I am thinking I did the wrong thing... Is there anything I can do? I was thinking of putting a carbon filter back in to take out the copper then lowering the salinity again since he seemed to be doing better with that, but I don't know if he will make it much longer. The angel looked better compared to the clown but she died this morning and now I am very worried about our clown's well being. Please help :bowdown:

 

[bjohanson1234]

Is there enough water circulation? Copper treatments depleat oxygen levels in water. So throw either an airpump in there or another small powerhead that ripples the water.

Sounds like ich to me. You need to treat ALL the fish in the tank or else when you put the clown back in, he will just get it back. You will need to leave your main tank fishless for a minimum of 8 weeks to break the life cycle of the parasite.

Also, it sounds like your tank might be a bit over stocked. You have a blue damsel, clown, and coral beauty in a 20 gallong tank. The coral beauty needs atleast a 30 gallon tank to be happy. Over crowding leads to stress which lowers the fishes immune system. This will cause them to be more succeptable to disease.

Hope your fish pulls through.

 

[hingreef]

If it is ich all fish need to be treated in either copper or hyposalinity. Keep you main tank fishless for 8 week. I would not think it would be good for the fish to go back and forth form hyposalinity to copper i would say that would stress them more, and it is not goin to help the fish unless it gose thur the entire cycle.Since one is in copper now i would say keep it that way and all fish will need to be treated.

The fish was in hyposalinity for about a day did you properly lower and raise the salinity the fish would be stressed from a rapid salinity change. Do you have a copper test kit(recomened test from the manufactor of the treatment) even tho the bottle give a dossage you still will need to test the copper in the water it could be to high.

Also to keep a fish stress lower during treatment put pvc in your tank it provides dark tunnels from the fish to hide in. And soaking food in kent garlic extreme buildis the fish immune system to help fight of diseases.

 

[SmallFry]

I will try putting a power head in then, or will an airstone be better? We have both but they are very small.

I do have a copper test kit and right now the level is .25, I was going to add a second dose today and hope the levels go up to .5.

If all the fish need to be treated, I still have a sixline wrasse and the blue damsel in the tank but I'm afraid to put them in the 5 gal hospital tank because then they would be even more overcrowded? And when you say all fish, does this include invertebrates?

The salinity was probably raised pretty fast. I've heard it should be over a period of 5 to 6 days, but we did it over several hours... Is that really bad?

 

[bjohanson1234]

dont treat inverts or coral with copper. It is highly toxic to them. Same with hyposalinity, they cant adjust well. Also, Ich doesnt effect those organisms so you will be fine. If you have one, you can treat the fish in a large tupperware container. It is cheaper than buying another tank that would be large enough for the fish.

 

[SmallFry]

Can I leave my fish in tupperware for 8 weeks? That sounds scary. But I will keep the inverts in the main tank then, they do look much better than the other fish.

I put an airstone in and my clown is swimming again :D Thank you!

 

[bjohanson1234]

Meant to say large rubbermaid container not tupperware:mrgreen: You know those big storage containers.

As long as the temp is right and that there is good water circulation and oxygenation, you can keep them in there.

 

[SmallFry]

Oh! Ok, I will look into getting one of those.

Will the container start cycling again though? I'm not sure how to control nitrites and ammonia if that happens and I don't think all my fish are hardy enough to make it through a tank cycle too. :O

And I just checked my hospital tank and already it has 1.0 nitrite level and .25 ammonia, will a water change bring that back down?

 

[wontonflip]

You can....just do regular water changes to keep ammonia down. Or, stick live rock in there to help keep ammonia down. If you put live rock in there, don't do any more copper treatments because you cannot put that rock back in a tank because copper will be on the rocks.

And just to clarify, we're talking a tub, not just sandwich tupperware ;) maybe one of those round plastic tubs w/ the rope handles. They cost around $5 or so at Walmart. Make sure there's a powerhead for circulation and heater.


LOL NINJA'D!

YES do frequent water changes!

 

[bjohanson1234]

The copper OR hypo actually will kill all the bacteria that would cycle the tank. You would need to do waterchanges per to keep the ammonia and nitrites down. Usually on the copper treatment, it tells you do do waterchanges during treatment. And with hypo, you could do water changes with water the same salinity as what you have in the tank. Just a reminder, do one or the other not both.

Damn NINJA'd!!!!!!

 

[SmallFry]

Ok, I will do a water change then. And I am just sticking with the copper treatment. I don't want to stress the poor creature more than I have already done. That fish has come back from near death twice before, so I want to make it easier on him.

 

[SmallFry]

Help!

I did the water change and added the copper, and yesterday he was doing a lot better, swimming, eating. But the ammonia was at .5 and the nitrites were at 1 D:

Then today he stopped swimming. Now he just sits at the bottom kind of curled up going in circles with the water current, and he got stuck to the filter. The ammonia is down today after another small water change, but the nitrites are still at 1. His eyes got cloudier and those slimy strings are back again.

Is this how he loses the parasite? It looks painful.