• Welcome back Guest!

    MARSH is a private reefing group. Comments and suggestions are encouraged, but please keep them positive and constructive. Negative threads, posts, or attacks will be removed from view and reviewed by the staff. Continually disruptive, argumentative, or flagrant rule breakers may be suspended or banned.

Disease ID - HELP (1 Viewer)

Users who are viewing this thread

Reefdude

Guest
Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Messages
16
Reaction score
3
Location
Stafford, TX
I am dealing with a disease outbreak in one of my FOWLR tanks and have lost around 14 fish in a matter of days. Lost my colony of Saddle back clowns, multiple yellow pyramid butterfly fish, and chocolate tangs. There may be 3 fish left. I have been using Rally Reef for 3 days and Kick Ick for the last 2 days. It has not helped. The die off started on Sept 6th and has been sudden. I am not sure what I can do at this time. I have logs of everything that I have added/done to this tank. Sharing some photos. Any help would be appreciated....on what I need to do going forward...
 

Attachments

  • 20200908_095058.jpg
    20200908_095058.jpg
    138.9 KB · Views: 18
  • 20200908_095227.jpg
    20200908_095227.jpg
    155.5 KB · Views: 18
  • 20200909_200207.jpg
    20200909_200207.jpg
    145.7 KB · Views: 18
  • 20200908_174815.jpg
    20200908_174815.jpg
    198.3 KB · Views: 18

webster1234

Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2012
Messages
1,456
Reaction score
669
Location
Pearland
Aw man, sorry for your loss. Have you added anything new to the tank in the last month?
 
OP
OP
R

Reefdude

Guest
Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Messages
16
Reaction score
3
Location
Stafford, TX
I have had some recent fish additions in this 150G tank. The butterfly's were added on August 14th (they were in QT for almost a month) and added 2 wrasses and 3 juvenile chocolate tangs on the 18th. The Chocolate tangs were in isolation for almost 3 weeks. Added some snails on 26th. 1st chocolate tang died on 29th, 2nd one died on Sept 3, one of the wrasses died same day as well. By Sept 6th the butterfly's were all stopped eating and were hanging at the bottom of the tang, the last remaining Chocolate tank also died. 2 Saddleback clowns died on the 6th, 3 more clowns died on the 7th, 3 butterfly died on the 8th, more died yesterday and 2 more died today. I am left with 1 butterfly, 1 clown and 1 of the wrasses. Looks like this is going to be a total loss and will end up having to restart all over again. Not sure if there is anything I can do at this time.

I had some clowns die in another tank (65 G) also very similar in matter of days. This is where the 1st die off started. Now that tank seems stabilized and have had no losses for the last 4 - 5 days. Not sure if I may have cross contaminated my 150 from this 65G tank.

I have other tanks going fine with no issues so far...
 

webster1234

Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2012
Messages
1,456
Reaction score
669
Location
Pearland
I would guess one of the new fish had velvet and brought it in with them. Or it was in the water from the snails. When you quarantined them, did you treat with anything such as copper or chloroquine phosphate? or did you just observe them?

I tend to be a little more anal than most but my protocol says everything fish wise gets treated with either copper or CP for a month and then further observation for another 2 months before it gets to go into the DT.

Anything else wet, such as snails, coral, chaeto, nems, shrimps, anything, gets an automatic 90 day observation period in a QT that is fishless.

You'd be surprised how long velvet or ich can hang around unnoticed. Again...that sucks about your fish.

It may be possible to save any remaining fish if you can get them out of that tank and into quarantine right away with some copper or CP. @Humblefish has a website with a lot of valuable information.
 
Last edited:

Humblefish

Dr. Fish
Dr. Fish
Content Moderator
Joined
Feb 3, 2017
Messages
152
Reaction score
254
Location
Wandering Nomad
One of the clowns looks like the fish might have had Brook. Did you notice any skin peeling or sloughing off any of the fish?
 

Humblefish

Dr. Fish
Dr. Fish
Content Moderator
Joined
Feb 3, 2017
Messages
152
Reaction score
254
Location
Wandering Nomad
No skin was peeling off but it definitely lost color.

Based on the number of fish deaths, it sounds like Velvet. Dosing Rally might have suppressed visible physical symptoms (white dots) from showing up.

Did you notice any of these behavioral symptoms of velvet?
  • Reduced or complete loss of appetite.
  • Heavy breathing, scratching, flashing, head twitching, erratic swimming behavior (unfortunately velvet shares all these same symptoms with ich & gill flukes.)
  • Swimming into the flow of a water pump/wavemaker/powerhead (unique to velvet).
  • Acting reclusive (velvet causes fish to be sensitive to light).
 
OP
OP
R

Reefdude

Guest
Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Messages
16
Reaction score
3
Location
Stafford, TX
Thank you for all the advise and feedback. Some of the fish did have loss of appetite and were acting reclusive before they died.

Latest Update -

Yesterday, I met with Dr. Sharon R. Tiberio, DVM, CertAqV in Dallas. She is a Certified Aquatic Veterinarian. Home
Drove up to Dallas with my almost dying last butterfly (he did not end up making the trip) and rest of the dead fish that I had preserved along with water samples. She was going to do some tissue cultures on the fish. I am going to get an update from her later today but from her initial lab results, it shows heavy Booklynella infection plus a few Cryptocaryon (Marine Ick) on some of the fish. I will ask her about Velvet.

I am now down to 1 fish in this 150G and a bunch of snails. The illness completely killed all the fish in the tank except for this wrasse. Lost coupe of saddleback clowns, yellow pyramid butterfly's and chocolate tangs.

The remaining Wrasse is still alive and there visually seems to have no impacts to him. This wrasse is called Macropharyngodon moyeri, Moyer’s leopard wrasse. Link - Macropharyngodon moyeri is a unique leopard wrasse from the waters of Japan | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

He is swimming around and eating as well. He is showing no signs/ symptoms of any illness. Atleast I am not seeing any (have shared some pictures). He is the only fish remaining in this tank. I am frankly at a loss with regards to next steps. Should I try to remove him and treat him for Brook or leave him alone in the tank? Just avoiding to not having to euthanize him. I would assume Brook is in this tank as it killed the rest of the livestock..

From my 65G, the 2 Orange clown fish are also doing fine. They are the only fish left. Included a picture of them from this morning. If Ick is in their tank, should I treat them or leave them alone for 90 days and observe?

This has been a very expensive lesson to date and I think my next steps may be to have the 150G emptied out and sitting dry/idle for the next 3 months. Not sure if anyone has advise in this matter....
 

Attachments

  • 20200913_132928.jpg
    20200913_132928.jpg
    139.7 KB · Views: 3
  • 20200913_133255.jpg
    20200913_133255.jpg
    178.6 KB · Views: 3
  • 20200913_133400.jpg
    20200913_133400.jpg
    149 KB · Views: 3
  • 20200913_133356.jpg
    20200913_133356.jpg
    158.8 KB · Views: 3

Humblefish

Dr. Fish
Dr. Fish
Content Moderator
Joined
Feb 3, 2017
Messages
152
Reaction score
254
Location
Wandering Nomad
The Brooklynella diagnosis is interesting because conventional wisdom states that only susceptible species (mostly clownfish) succumb to Brook, whereas most other fish can live with it. This clearly was not the case in your situation though. :unsure:

The fallow period for Brook is 6 weeks. You can also eliminate Ich in 6 weeks time by raising aquarium temp to 80.6F: New Ich Fallow Period | Fish Diseases and Treatments

However, the wrasse will need to be removed and treated in a QT. More info here: Brooklynella – Marine Fish Diseases and Treatment

A 90 minute bath using Ruby Reef Rally, and then dosing Seachem Metroplex every 48 hours for 10 days in a QT should clear the wrasse of Brook. (y)
 
Top