3 bounces and dead

marks69 · Dec 28, 2017

we had a coral beauty a couple of days ago that was swimming fine, had been in the tank a month with no problems. i watched him for a few minutes, saw him flash against the sand, then he pointed up, swam to the top 3 times, drifted to the bottom. then he died. boxing day i got a choc tang, he was fine, looked plump, no spots on him. was eating but spent most of his time behind the rocks.
tonight he started to sort of drift to the bottom. i got him into a 15g spare tank and he's looking pretty rough. i have an air pump going with him, the smallest filter was too much. all i have for meds is some metaflix. any ideas on what it could be? under his chin on the one side it looks purple, but no other signs of anything. water params are 0, 0, 30. i just did a 20% water change when i noticed him. all other fish are fine. tank has been up for 5 months or so.
thanks
mark

Big G · Dec 28, 2017

Welcome to R2R! Sorry for your loses. There's been a rash of velvet because suppliers and sellers have been keeping fish a sub therapeutic levels of copper. So fish are suddenly dying without much warning. And it can take up to 30 days for the disease to come roaring back after being held off with low levels of copper have worn off. So the fish are Typhoid Mary's infecting entire tanks. I've seen this especially with dwarf angels like Coral Beautys. The sad thing is that the other fish just seem to drop dead one by one without much warning until it is too late to save them. Here's a link for treatment of velvet: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/#post-2499399

Maritimer · Dec 28, 2017

Reclusion can sometimes be a symptom of a disease called velvet. It can be a rapid killer, and doesn't always show physical symptoms. It is capable of infesting the gills of the fish and causing death due to respiratory distress. Another behavioral symptom - related to the fish's need to increase oxygen to their gills - is swimming into the flow of a powerhead. Have any of your fish been doing that?

Melafix can sometimes be effective against _some_ bacterial infections, but it's not effective against velvet that I know of. For velvet (if that's what you've got going on...) you'd want to use a brief (about 5 minutes) freshwater dip, as outlined in this video: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/video-how-to-do-a-freshwater-dip.286639/#post-3487082

Follow that up with a bath - about 90 minutes - in an Acriflavin medicine like Ruby Reef Rally, and then an in-tank treatment with either copper or Chloroquine Phosphate (CP)

Humblefish has an excellent write-up on velvet here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/#post-2499399 . Read through, and see if what you are observing in your tank fits velvet's MO. If it does, move quickly.

~Bruce

marks69 · Dec 29, 2017

well the tang died overnight. this morning i found a cardnal in the tank unable to swim. moved him out and he died within 5 minutes. everything in the tank is fine, eating, moving around.
i'm stumped. checked the water with 2 test kits, everything is good.
the dead fish looked purple around the gills.
thanks all
mark