What is up with my tank?

[Victoria]

Hey there -

I've got something odd going on in my tank ..

Been battling ich for a bit (I'm learning my "I don't QT" lesson the hard way ... much like all my other lessons), but nothing too bad. Then added a couple yellow clown gobies that broke out in like warty-looking skin after being in the tank. Fine. Lesson #2. They died, then I lost the black sailfin and tailspot blennies that'd been in the tank for awhile. And the lawnmower I'd gotten recently. Also lost the neon cleaner goby that'd always been infested with ich (not sure if he cam with it and I just didn't notice or if he picked it up from the raccoon butterfly that came via mail order with some ich.)

So the remaining fish have been in the tank thru it all: the raccoon (still has ich, but is fat and healthy otherwise), a maroon clown pair (they look great), a royal gramma (slowly getting dragged down by the **** ich), a blue-green chromis (completely unscathed by this all, which is really odd to me), a redfin waspfish pair (they're fine), and a spotted mandarin pair that are slowly losing the skin on their heads ... male's still fat and active, female's lost weight and isn't super active. Also her tail-end seems to not stay down - like it's floaty-er than her head.

Water parameters? Friggin great, chemistry-wise. Temp does fluctuate a bit (and can swing 5-6 degrees on really hot days - which I know sucks. Working on that part.) Salinity is a question - both hydrometers give different readings, and neither aligns with what Aquadome reported from their refractometer. But they've been a constant, so whatever they're "off", the tank salinity has been "off" by that all along.

I'm honestly not sure what to do now. Yes, I screwed up by not QT'ing, but if there's something bad in my tank, taking the mandarins out to treat 'em just to put 'em back in a sick tank seems kinda pointless. I do have inverts and corals, so that impacts how I can treat the tank. Honestly, I'm cool losing the corals to save the fish, if that's what needs to happen, but would prefer that not be the case.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Do I pull all the fish and QT the lot of 'em? Nuke the tank and accept the coral and invert losses? Give up entirely?

Thanks for reading this novel if you made it this far!

Victoria

[jestep]

Get all the fish out and treat them in a hospital tank. You then need to leave the tank fish-less for about 6 weeks to ensure there is no chance of any ich in it.

I would absolutely under no circumstance treat the DT directly. It will render your rock and sand completely unusable forever, and may make the tank itself unusable depending on what treatment you use.

[(Bio)³]

Are you running GAC? Grab a poly pad and check to make sure noting is leaching into your water? Anyone put any foreign object in that could poison? (perhaps a kid when you werent looking)

How often do you do WC?

Can you list your parameters?

[Victoria]

Thanks guys!

No GAC. I do run a reactor with GFO.

(Edit to add: I have a UV sterilizer on order, but am not running one currently. Also adding: water changes have been in the 50% range over the past month as I've dewormed a few times. Typically I do 15-ish% changes every week or two)

Been testing water all along and it's tested perfectly. I've dewormed a couple times, so wasn't running a skimmer for about a month, but kicked that back on earlier this week. Oddly, now nitrates are at 20 where they'd been at zero for weeks. <shrug>

Today's parameters:

Salinity 1.022

Temp: 77*

Nitrites 0

Ammonia 0

Nitrates 20

Phosphates >.25 (not 0, but not a true .25)

pH 8.0 (tank lights've been off since midnight, fuge light's been on since 9 am)

KH 9 (161)

Ca 520

Didn't test Mg this a.m., but typically that's around 1300.

Kids know (way) better than to touch the tank, and have been gone since 8/8, so while they're always on the short list, suspect-wise, I'm not inclined to think they put something in there.

Was definitely going to freshwater dip the gramma, who seems the worse for wear, ich-wise. But with the mandarins affected - and how they're affected - it makes me think there's more than ich going on? And the chromis being unscathed is just weird to me ....

Edited August 18, 2013 by Victoria

[(Bio)³]

When you say you dewormed did you run some flatworm exit or something? (I may be wrong, but I think you need to run GAC with the water changes to pulll out any toxins the worms release as they die.)

If it weree my tank I'd run a poly pad to see what it detects, fire up a GAC reactor and keep going with the water changes. Also feed garlic/vitamin soaked foods.

[Victoria]

Thanks, Bio³ ....

Did not run carbon after the deworm ... was just a few rounds of PraziPro and I didn't see anything die as a result. Not saying there wasn't some worm death, but all of my bristles and fans are still alive.

Really did the PraziPro as I had seen what might have been a fluke on the male mandarin a while back, and as I had never QT'd or dewormed, figured it wouldn't hurt. Truth be told, everyone looked a lot better when following my usual approach of benign neglect than when I started actively "taking care" of the tank.

Have been doing garlic and Vit C daily for awhile now, and soaking most foods in selcon. Problem is, the mandarins and butterfly are pretty spoiled on live blackworms, so it's hard to soak *their* meals.

Going to grab a hang on back and some carbon this afternoon, and keep up on the water changes. Thanks a ton for the feedback!

VV

[(Bio)³]

Can you gut feed black worms like you gut feed mysis? Maybe dose the blackworms food and hope for a little food web trickle down?

Keep us updated, and let others chime in.... someone here will get you set straight!

[+etannert]

You have some pretty nice livestock to not own a refractometer. I think you can get them for around $40 on eBay.

I would also vote for moving all the fish out and letting the tank lie fallow. Water chemistry doesn't have anything to do with fish disease; poor water chemistry will affect your corals, but fish are pretty resilient even to drastic changes in salinity as long as the change is gradual. If you had a contaminant in the tank that could be picked up by a PolyPad, it seems like you'd be seeing coral and invert problems too - any losses there?

[Victoria]

Thanks, etannert!

Agreed on the refractometer, but really didn't think there was a problem with the hydrometers ... they were always within a .001 or .002 of each other, so figured I was good. Then I lent them to the BF because none of his salinity stuff was lining up, and between all of his stuff and my two, he was all over the 1.020 and 1.028 range. Took a sample to the 'dome and realized how far off *mine* were. So, refractometer on order, will be here Tuesday

No invert or coral issues. The Condy 'Nem isn't as robust as it's always been, but I think that's cause the dumb thing parked itself in front of the refugium return and gets blown all around. Corals are actually growing, tho some of my zoas are on the smaller side.

[subsea]

You should expect your nitrates to come up. If you medicated to kill flatworms, you also killed bacteria. I have always been of the opinion that ich is present all the time. It merely requires a weakened immune system. Stress weakens the fish and other ailments finish the job.

At this point, you should remove your fish with ich and treat in a hospital tank. It sounds like your fish have more than one ailment besides ich.

Patrick

[ClarkiiCircus]

I would agree with all the aforementioned things. The weird thing is mandarins *usually* are pretty resilient to ich due to a different mucous chemistry/slime coat than many other fishes. You must have something else going on. I would remove all fish for a period of ~2 months. Treat the fish with medicine and treat the tank with a little extra TLC- NOT AN ACTUAL TREATMENT. I would bump up water changes to remove any toxins and excess nutrient levels that may be hanging around after flatworm death. A fallow tank for 2 months should cause anything that requires a host to die off. For the fish I would recommend the Dr. G's food- alternating both the anti-bacterial and anti-parasitic just to cover all bases. Freshwater dips on the hardier fish may also be a good idea, because if it is an external parasite thats bothering them, this FW dips may prove effective.

[victoly]

hyposalinity seems to be pretty trendy these days with the ich treatment. anyone with first hand experience?

[Wardlaw]

I had a rough go that sounds similar. You may have brooklynella. I would highly recommend a hospital tank with sea chem treatments for ich and brook. Hypo salinity is recommended by most things I read. Taking all the fish out is great, but if you had brook what I read stated that it didn't need a host to survive. Add fish slowly and always quarantine. Since my bout I have held fish in qt for no less than 30 days and all my issues went away( fish wise ). I don't have uv. Fish loss sucks. Keep trying and act quickly when you see signs of stress

[ClarkiiCircus]

We've hypo treated a purple tang and a blue tang in addition to a hospital tank treatment with copper- I repeat in ADDITION TO (not at the same time). They both turned out ok. The key to hypo treat imo is that there is no prescribed time, watch, and wait, and make sure the fish isn't extremely stressed (via gill rate). For the purple tang, times seemed to be up to 10 mins, while the blue tang seemed fairly stressed around 5 mins. I think people tend to read "10 minute dip" and leave a fish in a state of stress for the full 10 minutes, which seems counter productive. Just my 2 cents :]

[subsea]

I have subjected Hippo Tangs to fresh water dips that lasted several hours. No problems. Patrick

[Timfish]

Maybe I'm missing something but I've understood hyposaline to be brackish around 1.012 for the treatment of "ich" in a QT tank where the fish can be left indefinitely and freshwater dips completely different where the fish should only be left a few minutes. It's my understanding also that while freshwater dips may knock off some of the "ich" parasites adults that have burrowed into the skin are unaffected so at best it only gives temporary relief. Additionally there are some strains of "ich" that appear to be able to reproduce in hyposaline environments.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/fish

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa164

[Sascha D.]

Get all the fish out and treat them in a hospital tank. You then need to leave the tank fish-less for about 6 weeks to ensure there is no chance of any ich in it.

I would absolutely under no circumstance treat the DT directly. It will render your rock and sand completely unusable forever, and may make the tank itself unusable depending on what treatment you use.

+1

I would also add that you've probably got a fungal infection. It's hard to say which one without pictures, but generally warty skin means fungal and could be velvet. Either way you can't cure fungal with FW dips so you need to put them in a hospital tank.

[subsea]

I have subjected Hippo Tangs to fresh water dips that lasted several hours. No problems. Patrick

I do not recommend fresh water dips to cure ich. The several hour fresh water dip, that I mentioned was an operational error. I merely used in, to make the point that many fish can tolerate fresh water for longer periods of time than previously thought.

Patrick

[(Bio)³]

I've heard in the past that SW fish "drink" water and FW fish do not. So that is why FW dips works good on a SW fish..... can anyone confirm this? I sill don't believe the guy.

[jestep]

That's a very simple version of it but more or less it is correct. Freshwater work the opposite by osmotically absorbing water.

I think the dips kill certain pathogens, probably also due to osmosis. Cell walls don't like rapidly changing salinity.

[Victoria]

Hey all -

Thanks a ton for the feedback. Did get a refractometer and salinity wasn't out of range (1.026, but there's been a bit of evaporation over the past couple days).

Not to be all excuse-maker-y, but I sliced my finger Monday night and haven't really been able to get into the tank (stitches) all week, so no major heroic efforts have been made at this point. Have been dosing daily with Vitamin C and Garlic, and feeding selcon-soaked anything they 'll eat. Mandarins are both fat and happy with a no progression of the skin loss, the butterfly's ich is down to a dull roar and the gramma's the only one looking like the ich may be winning. However, she's still eating and can't be netted, so I figure she's still holding her own.

I wasted a chunk of change on the Dr. G's and no-one will eat it. Plus, you have to be all hyper-vigilant about removing the uneaten food as it's not invert safe. One thing I will never be accused of is hyper-vigilance.

Here's the part where I become "that girl", but I'll just be honest - I'm not going to do a hospital tank. My life is crazy-busy-stressful and I just don't have the wherewithal to run *another* tank. I actually just took the DIY'd refugium I designed and built offline because it's more trouble than it's worth at the moment.

I'm putting a moratorium on additional fish, will pull the gramma for a freshwater dip if I can catch her, and watching the mandarins like a hawk (as I'd put them in the now-disconnected sump if they seemed to need extra TLC). If/when it's under control, and I want to add fish, I'll just do it when I'm at the BF's for the weekend and he's all like "you should get that, I'll QT it for you" I kid, because he's going to read that and be all "d*mnit, Victoria, you need to take care of stuff yourself" and it'll make me happy. (For reals, tho, I'm putting a moratorium on everything until I get to a place where I can add fish the right way.)

Thanks again for the help - and sorry for disregarding the great advice