Baby Mandarin has ammonia burn!!!! PLEASE HELP!!

[Anak’s Reef]

Hi, I woke up and found my baby mandarin had a white patch of skin that looked like an ammonia burn and yes we are having an ammonia problem. It isnt super high but it’s been about 5 days and we are doing a %50 water change right now. She’s still swimming around pecking at her food. But she’s floating a lot. I’ll attach a picture but she’s floating and dragging her face across the glass. I am currently looking at a QT tank. It’s an 8 gallon tank. And my mandarin is less than an inch small. I would have to stock it with copepods and some small rocks right? Sand? No right? Please help me, I really want to save her. Please help me. Thank you soooooo much. I really hope she lives.i love her so much. Also if there is medicine to help the burn cure, than can I get some recommendations?

 

[brandon429]

ammonia was not a factor here, check for diseases that are caused by skipping fallow and quarantine most likely.

when free ammonia is the real issue, your whole tank is wiped out. That disease is not ammonia caused at all

we can see in the pics you dont have an ammonia issue, with the live rock and sand, they wouldnt allow an ammonia burn.
even if you set the wet sand and the live rock in the tank last week, they brought in bacteria from not being dry

I see shrimp whiskers too, they'd be dead if there was rising ammonia here. Even in the background of the pic it appears there are more animals or corals / can't see for sure. lots of detail in that pic.

rule of free ammonia in reef tanks: if you have a seneye meter saying it, let's look further. if its api, red sea, nyos or salifert, I can show you several threads claiming free ammonia with those where there was none for the reasons listed.

if you had free ammonia here, the fish would be dead and the water cloudy. APi or red sea claiming free ammonia is simply a misreading test/

I think that google has about eighty thousand false ammonia read threads and thats only on the first few pages of the return...its a massive hobby-wide problem.

 

[92Miata]

Tell us more about the tank.

How long has it been up? Did it cycle? What are you using to test ammonia ? What is the actual reading?

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

+1 on the request from above on your tank. Mandarins are some of the most challenging fish for non-established tanks. Your tank looks rather new and if it is and not established with a good pod population the lesion on its back may be the just first of many issues...

 

[Dark_Knightt]

Hi, I woke up and found my baby mandarin had a white patch of skin that looked like an ammonia burn and yes we are having an ammonia problem. It isnt super high but it’s been about 5 days and we are doing a %50 water change right now. She’s still swimming around pecking at her food. But she’s floating a lot. I’ll attach a picture but she’s floating and dragging her face across the glass. I am currently looking at a QT tank. It’s an 8 gallon tank. And my mandarin is less than an inch small. I would have to stock it with copepods and some small rocks right? Sand? No right? Please help me, I really want to save her. Please help me. Thank you soooooo much. I really hope she lives.i love her so much. Also if there is medicine to help the burn cure, than can I get some recommendations?

A more important question is what size is your tank? And is the heater in the tank or under? Because the fish simply mightve touched the heater while it was on and burnt herself. This is sad for me because mandos are my favorite fish (but i have a 20g so i cant exactly keep one)

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Hi, thanks for answering. Our tank has been up for two months, we are using API to test ammonia. Reading at 0.2. I didn’t suddenly have an ammonia, we had to search for the mandarin so we had to dig under the rocks and stir up sand which caused the ammonia. We have lots of pods on the back wall and she has been pecking at the rocks for a while and lots.

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Tank size 20 gallons, the heater is in the waterbox all in one section. She jumped in the overflow section and the heater is in the return pump section. No chance of heater burn

 

[brandon429]

Api will show residual a long time after the event, its self resolved in an hour if we use seneye to see, not avail here.

U need fallow tank prep + qt or most fish will die within 6-8 mos typically for new tanks

You can un-factor ammonia in your issue here. Its not currently above thousandths ppm, though your tester may show otherwise.

Per the fish disease forum, you have one or two good options to possibly save the fish + new ones from loss

Free ammonia is never a concern in display tanks due to surface area, qt tanks can have issues they show.

 

[Dark_Knightt]

Tank size 20 gallons, the heater is in the waterbox all in one section. She jumped in the overflow section and the heater is in the return pump section. No chance of heater burn

Ok so thats good to know. I wouldnt know much about ammonia burns, since ive never really had an unexpected ammonia spike since cycling.
Off topic quesitons; I need some info on how you keep the mando in a 20g, cuz thats what I have and i really want one. How long did you have pods in tank before adding mando? And where did you get the fish from?

 

[Anak’s Reef]

What is a fallow tank? And what is seneye (test kit?). Sorry newbie question

 

[brandon429]

You don't need a seneye, ammonia won't be a factor here. Seneye is a detailed ammonia measure we use to calibrate api readings for truth. We know your ammonia is ok for several reasons

Fallow is a method of starving disease from a tank:

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

Learning fallow technique is like studying for a college class, takes a few days not just one read but that forum has all the material. Literally all the steps to fallow and quarantine and a couple other options are there for the taking.

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Haha, I actually found a very small mandarin at petco. And I didn’t have pods supplied and I just saw a couple white bugs. (Copepods) she’s really small. I’ll answe your question a bit later sorry. I m focusing a bit more on my mandarin rught now. I don’t want her to die.

 

[Dark_Knightt]

Haha, I actually found a very small mandarin at petco. And I didn’t have pods supplied and I just saw a couple white bugs. (Copepods) she’s really small. I’ll answe your question a bit later sorry. I m focusing a bit more on my mandarin rught now. I don’t want her to die.

Yeah sorry #reefsquad ( also when ur free you can just tell me on my build thread) Hope your mando gets better

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Thanks for all the input. We just did the %50 water change and tested ammonia again, it seems to be at 0 now, so we’ll hope for the best. I’m not really understanding completely on all this stuff. But I’ll hope for the best. What do I need to do for my mandarin? QT?

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

Understood! This is a new setup and I am a biodiversity kind of person. I am also prepared to deal with hitch-hikers. I had an SPS tank a decade back that was successful. My favorite part was adding live rock and watching everything!

Hi, thanks for answering. Our tank has been up for two months, we are using API to test ammonia. Reading at 0.2. I didn’t suddenly have an ammonia, we had to search for the mandarin so we had to dig under the rocks and stir up sand which caused the ammonia. We have lots of pods on the back wall and she has been pecking at the rocks for a while and lots.

two months is going to be a real challenge in keeping your mandarin healthy. Personally, after finding the issue related to the lesion I would rethink the tank set up and look into either:
1) rehoming the mandarin to another established tank until yours is ready
2) add a refugium to your tank and seed with pods until an established population is set
mandarin eat constantly and need a constant supply of food all the time. I see so many people purchase these beautiful fish without the understanding of their heavy need for specific food.
I had to rehome my male madarin in my sump for several months when I added the female since both were decimating the display's pod population. as soon as the population in the display could support two mandarins then I put the male back and everything is now good.

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Yeah sorry #reefsquad ( also when ur free you can just tell me on my build thread) Hope your mando gets better

No it’s ok. Thanks. I’ll tell you then.

 

[Anak’s Reef]

two months is going to be a real challenge in keeping your mandarin healthy. Personally, after finding the issue related to the lesion I would rethink the tank set up and look into either:
1) rehoming the mandarin to another established tank until yours is ready
2) add a refugium to your tank and seed with pods until an established population is set
mandarin eat constantly and need a constant supply of food all the time. I see so many people purchase these beautiful fish without the understanding of their heavy need for specific food.
I had to rehome my male madarin in my sump for several months when I added the female since both were decimating the display's pod population. as soon as the population in the display could support two mandarins then I put the male back and everything is now good.

We have lots of pods on the back wall. It’s definitely not a food problem. Please trust me, before the burn, she was pecking all over the place. She never stops pecking for long.

 

[Dark_Knightt]

Thanks for all the input. We just did the %50 water change and tested ammonia again, it seems to be at 0 now, so we’ll hope for the best. I’m not really understanding completely on all this stuff. But I’ll hope for the best. What do I need to do for my mandarin? QT?

QT: You need to get
Filter, I would recommend sponge filter, theyre cheap and best for QT.
Heater
Some PVC pipe or a place for the fish to hide
And then youre going to want to be adding pods constantly, and maybe even try to ween her onto prepared foods while shes in there, so that you know you can get her to other foods so she doesnt starve if she exhausts the pod population.
I dont tihnk you can add medecine ive heard they dont work on mandarins due to their slime coat. not to sure.

 

[Dark_Knightt]

We have lots of pods on the back wall. It’s definitely not a food problem. Please trust me, before the burn, she was pecking all over the place. She never stops pecking for long.

Yeah the fish is definietly eating well you can see shes nice and chubby in the pics

 

[Anak’s Reef]

QT: You need to get
Filter, I would recommend sponge filter, theyre cheap and best for QT.
Heater
Some PVC pipe or a place for the fish to hide
And then youre going to want to be adding pods constantly, and maybe even try to ween her onto prepared foods while shes in there, so that you know you can get her to other foods so she doesnt starve if she exhausts the pod population.
I dont tihnk you can add medecine ive heard they dont work on mandarins due to their slime coat. not to sure.

Right. Thank you so much. There really isn’t a lot of threads on mandarins so thank you so much .