Disease or Abuse???

Marco S · Dec 11, 2018

I have a 45 gallon QT with about 15 lbs of Live Rock that has been cycled and is currently at 0 ppm Ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite and about 10 - 15 ppm nitrate. Salinity is 1.025 and PH is 8.2 and temp is around 78 - 79 degrees Fahrenheit. It will be about two months before I have the 180 gallon DT up and running so I decided not to medicate the QT unless needed.

I have two Oscellaris Clownfish, and five Banggia Cardinals that have been looking healthy and eating fine for two weeks now. I had one Coral Beauty that would not eat and died after five days. I am feeding them a mix of frozen Mysis Shrimp, freeze dried Brine Shrimp, flake and pellet food all mixed with a bit of water and several drops of garlic extreme and all the fish love it except for the Coral Beauty. I tried seaweed also, but no luck.

I read that they need to have algae to graze on all day so I intentionally grew a bunch of algae in the tank before trying to add another Coral Beauty. I added it yesterday and it has not eaten the food mix I made, but is eating the algae like crazy and swimming around fine. However, he looks like he is either diseased or has been beaten up pretty bad during his journey to my tank. I could not get a good picture, so I made a video to get a better look at what I'm talking about.

Please help me determine what is wrong and how to proceed as I really want to keep this fish alive.

Thanks in advance!

HotRocks · Dec 11, 2018

It could possibly be ich. It resembles flukes more to me (the tattered fins and then the few white spots. I would do a 5min FW dip and see if any flukes come off.

Marco S · Dec 11, 2018

HotRocks said:
It could possibly be ich. It resembles flukes more to me (the tattered fins and then the few white spots. I would do a 5min FW dip and see if any flukes come off.

I have a ten gallon hospital tank for my freshwater fish with RO water. Should I put it in that for five minutes or will it be better to use a bucket with RODI water?

HotRocks · Dec 11, 2018

Marco S said:
I have a ten gallon hospital tank for my freshwater fish with RO water. Should I put it in that for five minutes or will it be better to use a bucket with RODI water?

It needs to be temp matching and well aerated prior to dip. I would just grab a new gallon of RO if it were me.

Marco S · Dec 13, 2018

So, I did a fresh water dip for 5 minutes and nothing fell off, but the fish started to change color so I put it back. I did some reading and some suggest a 10 minute dip so I tried today, but the fish started breathing very heavy after about 6 minutes and nothing was falling off so I put it back in the tank. It is now breathing very heavy and starting to swim sideways and has laid down on the rock or bottom of the tank a few times and will not eat. I am thinking it is too late and have no idea what to medicate if anything at this time. All the other fish in the tank are fine. Not sure what to do...

Jeff Hall · Dec 13, 2018

Marco S said:
So, I did a fresh water dip for 5 minutes and nothing fell off, but the fish started to change color so I put it back. I did some reading and some suggest a 10 minute dip so I tried today, but the fish started breathing very heavy after about 6 minutes and nothing was falling off so I put it back in the tank. It is now breathing very heavy and starting to swim sideways and has laid down on the rock or bottom of the tank a few times and will not eat. I am thinking it is too late and have no idea what to medicate if anything at this time. All the other fish in the tank are fine. Not sure what to do...

I have not had good luck fresh water dipping salt water fish either.

Grossman90 · Dec 13, 2018

My potters angel would peck at algea but not eat. On the 3rd day ich popped up on it. Did a freshwater dip for 5mins and the angel was swimming the whole time in it. She ate the next day and i started copper power. Flukes appeared about a week later. Gave the angel FW dips every 5 days til the 30 days of copper was done then treated with prazi.

The FW dip isn't causing the fish to swim sideways. There is something else causing it. I would personally start copper soon. Im sure @HotRocks will post again soon to give you instructions on what to do next. I have him on speed dial for these kind of things. Good luck.

Marco S · Dec 13, 2018

I took the fish out of the QT and put it in a small 1 gallon container since it is just laying on the bottom of the tank consistently now. It is still on its side breathing very heavy so I am not sure dosing copper at this stage will help since, (as I understand) copper only kills free swimming parasites. Not sure what else to do.

On a side note: this is the second Coral Beauty that has died, (assuming it dies) in this QT. I have 5 Banggia Cardinals and two Oscellaris Clownfish that have been in the QT tank for about three weeks now with no signs of disease and look healthy and are eating everything I feed them. Are Coral Beauties just more prone to disease and should I medicate the tank now even though the other fish are perfectly fine?

HotRocks · Dec 13, 2018

Have any new white spots appeared? I'm wondering if it's ich. Did he perk back up? I have had fish lay on their side post FW dip for an hour or so. I would never recommend leaving a fish in FW for more than 5 minutes.

If it were my I would probably begin copper.

Captain Quint · Dec 13, 2018

HotRocks said:
Have any new white spots appeared? I'm wondering if it's ich. Did he perk back up? I have had fish lay on their side post FW dip for an hour or so. I would never recommend leaving a fish in FW for more than 5 minutes.

If it were my I would probably begin copper.

+1 on the RODI fresh dip on the period of time. Hopefully, the fresh had a buffered pH and acceptable temperature. I can't tell for certain but the best I could tell the Banggai in the foreground had spots of white as well which has me wondering about Cryptocaryon irritans as well.

Marco S · Dec 13, 2018

HotRocks said:
Have any new white spots appeared? I'm wondering if it's ich. Did he perk back up? I have had fish lay on their side post FW dip for an hour or so. I would never recommend leaving a fish in FW for more than 5 minutes.

If it were my I would probably begin copper.

Thanks for the advice, but the fish died already. I guess I just wasn't meant to have a Coral Beauty.

Marco S · Dec 13, 2018

Captain Quint said:
+1 on the RODI fresh dip on the period of time. Hopefully, the fresh had a buffered pH and acceptable temperature. I can't tell for certain but the best I could tell the Banggai in the foreground had spots of white as well which has me wondering about Cryptocaryon irritans as well.

None of the Banggai have white spots, (besides all the white spots they naturally have) or any other signs of disease that I can see.

Grossman90 · Dec 14, 2018

Marco S said:
Thanks for the advice, but the fish died already. I guess I just wasn't meant to have a Coral Beauty.

Sorry to hear. Don't gove up on the coral beauty. I wasn't going to try another potters angel when my first one died in qt but I recently did and it went smooth even when ich and flukes showed up on her.