Fish Got Wiped Out

R

reefraiser

Reefing newb
Well, woke up yesterday to see our emerald crab dragging our basically lifeless starry blenny away for a snack. About 3 hours later our powder brown tang died. The tang had a bit of haze over its eye at the time of death. That left only our clown fish from when we originally started salt water.

He seemed okay yesterday and we did a large water change and lowered the salinity to 1.021 in hope of slowing down the disease if it was ich.

Today we woke up to see that his eye was slightly hazed over and luckily class was canceled due to this big storm coming through. So he is currently in a QT at 1.009 salinity with high hopes of survival.

This isn't like an outbreak of ich I have ever seen in freshwater. The fish showed basically no symptoms until it was too late. I have considered some other issues however, all inverts, polyps and the anemone are fine.

Hopefully he clears up and makes it. Would hate to lose all our fish livestock...

Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions or proposed times to stop this treatment.

Thanks!
 
Well, we did the salinity drop throughout the day today. We didn't just toss him in. The other fish died so fast it was impossible to try to save them. At the time of this change he was not extremely stressed and yesterday I treated the tank with stress coat.

The tank he is in now has a nice dose of stress coat also. He has been in there for hours and seems to be doing fine. He isn't darting around or swimming awkwardly. Basically, it was lower the salinity and hope he lives through it or watch him die like the other two fish.

He has been in there for about 8 hours and no signs of stress. (I'm hoping that if the change was that bad he would have died by now)

He still has great color and the haze around his eye has already seemed to subside.
 
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A Formalin bath is the product I hear the most to treat brooklynella.If that is indeed what your fish have.Follow directions closely,overdosing is lethal.
 
check your water parameters, that is a disease fish can get from the stress of poor water conditions...I'm not saying that is the problem, but it's still good info to know.

sorry about your losses and good luck with the rest of your livestock.
 
I will see about getting a picture. He is starting to get spots across the top of his head in the white stripe. I doubt I will be able to get anything clear enough to distinguish it but I will give it a try.
 
The picture isn't very good. I don't know how you guys manage to get clear pictures......I must give you credit....

At least in the picture you can see the dots that have just become noticeable on his head.
 

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Well, day 3 of the quarantine. Good news is that he is still alive. Bad news is that he has developed more of these red spots around his head and he has started to get a little hazy on his back. Went to the LFS today and picked up that formalin treatment and gave him a 30 minute dip.

Other news is that he stopped eating. This is at least the second day that he has not ate and I am beginning to wonder what else to try.

I have tried the typical tropical fish food with no luck.

It has only been about 10 minutes since the dip so I plan on trying some krill. I also think I am going to try to hang a piece of the deceased tang's seaweed in there despite the fact that he didn't typically eat it in the main tank.

Any other suggestions, I am all ears. I would like to at least start to see him get better soon. I am also wondering how often to give these dips to him. The bottle says it can be re-administered after 24 hours however, I am not sure what would be overwhelming for a sick fish.
 
i would also try a freshwater dip, since this sounds like a parasite. and to get him eating again, soak all food in selcon and garlic. seclon to help boost the immune system and the garlic to stimulate a feeding response
 
It's very hard to describe these symptoms. Basically it started with a slight haze around his eye. Now there are red spots in his white stripe mostly on his top of his head. These spots appeared yesterday and I am beginning to believe they are from rubbing on the decoration. Now, today there are more red spots and there is a bit of a haze on his back. The haze is similar to picture 4 or 5 from the top in the other forum.

He does not have the typical spots on his fins I have seen in the past from ich.

The one thing that kind of makes me think ich is that a week or two ago I noticed a couple spots on our less than a month old tang's fins. My sister made the mistake of adding him to our peaceful tank without leaving him in the quarantine tank for any time. I now believe these spots could have been a mild case of ich that progressed and devistated our fish during the next free swimming stage.

I decided to use formalin because it was highly recommended for both brooklynelli and ich. The only regret I have is that I did not take into consideration the spots that appear to be sore on his head before performing the dip.

Tomorrow I plan to try to get him to eat in the morning. Then I am going to do a water change by noon. Finally, in the evening, after evaluating his health, I may give him a fresh water dip. I do not plan on using any more formalin until possibly Sunday evening.

My other problem is that my sister also made the mistake of throwing the sick tang in our quarantine tank for its final moments. I am somewhat afraid that this could have contaminated this tank. Sooooooooo.......the hospital tank the clownfish is in is actually un cycled water.
 
I didn't want you to do formalin bath unless you are pretty sure.Brooklynella and Ich can be treated with formalin so that's good.If the fish is eating,vitamin enriching it's food will help it recover.

Good luck.
 
I haven't had any luck with eating yet and some interesting stuff is happening today.

I noticed when I got up that he has a white filmy material coming out of his gills and it was coming off his back. I am hoping it is the dead and dying parasites coming out. Since then, it has completely fallen off his back and most of it has fallen out of his gills.

I am going to continue to monitor him today and hopefully do a fresh water dip tonight. I don't plan on using formalin again until he a.) starts eating and b.) the sores begin to heal.

I felt the formalin was necessary just because of how fast this problem killed our other fish and at the time he was still in pretty good spirits. He has yet to show any serious signs of stress and did not show any stress during the dip.
 
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