Everything was good...then it wasn't

[bchas41]

Bought a new Melanurus Wrasse and a sailfin tang a couple of days ago and placed them in the QT tank. Two days have gone buy and everything was great. When i came into the office today the Sailfin Tang was swimming slowly on its side. It would not eat much, if anything. I removed the wrasse (he is doing great) and placed it in the DT tank just in case he was bothering the tang. I lowered the salinity to see if that would help any and by the end of the day the tang was barely moving and just laying on the bottom. He has lost color in the top dorsal fin. I do not see any visible signs of anything else..no spots...no injuries...nothing. Any of you all gone thru anything like this? So sad to see the little guy go from a voracious eater and swimmer to barely hanging on.

Water
Salinity: 1.026
Ammonia: .003
Nitrite: .000
Nitrate: .1
Phosphate: .000
Calcium: 500
Magnesium: 1500
Alk: 9.2
PH: 8.2

 

[redfishbluefish]

@Humblefish , @melypr1985 , @4FordFamily .

 

[gryphon]

Sorry for ...loss.... i have same thing going on with a foz face fish.. was fine ...acclimated well, 3 weeks in. No problems... 5g water change like normal on thursday afternoon.. Water tests , all normal.... but then ... he stressed out, turned from white yellow to brown, spines out, hidding, moving slowly, i talked to lfs guy, said they can get spooked, but it got worse this morning, hugging lower on rock, turned slightly, barely moving, breathing looked normal, i left tank led off, went out at 230 came back at 630, and hes sideways, barely breathing, brown, cant swim, ...sniff sniff. Hes a goner... HOWEVER.... all other fish appear fine.... im wondering if its that "breed" since nothing is wrong with water or others... and he was fine for almost a month. Grrrrrr.

 

[gryphon]

*fox face

 

[Humblefish]

Typically, two issues can lead to a downward spiral in QT:

1. Ammonia. Even brief exposure to a small amount can cause permanent damage. (I noticed you did have an ammonia reading.)
2. A fast killing disease such as velvet. Sometimes velvet has almost no symptoms because the dinospores invade the gills first and the fish dies due to asphyxiation.

 

[wkscott]

Small piece of advice: If you have fish in quarantine and one doesn't look too good, never move any of the other fish back to the DT. If disease was causing the problem, you just moved it into the DT which would mean moving ALL of your fish into the QT and now leaving the DT fallow for 76 days.

 

[4FordFamily]

Typically, two issues can lead to a downward spiral in QT:

1. Ammonia. Even brief exposure to a small amount can cause permanent damage. (I noticed you did have an ammonia reading.)
2. A fast killing disease such as velvet. Sometimes velvet has almost no symptoms because the dinospores invade the gills first and the fish dies due to asphyxiation.

X2 my thoughts exactly. The loss of color could be either one. Do you have an ammonia badge by seachem on the tank to test ammonia reliably with copper?

 

[Flippers4pups]

I second the fact that OP had ammonia showing. Velvet could be factor and an sudden drop in salinity too fast, may have made it worse.

Times like these are testing and can be confusing. Moving the wrasse in haste to the DT was not a good move. Hard lesions learned.

Hoping for the best here.

 

[bchas41]

Yeah, I new it wasn't the best idea but I was at a loss. So, next time if I have one sick fish (that i cannot see anything visible) and one seemingly healthy fish, what should I do to start treating the QT tank? I have a full stock of meds, but since I could not see anything I did not know where to start, and I hated the thought of the pretty wrasse sitting in there with the dying Sailfin. Hopefully it doesn't bite me in the butt. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Flippers4pups]

I guess the question now is can you QT all your fish? It would be the best and safest choice going forward.

$&@!¥, but it's the right thing to do now. If not now, good chance (emphasis on "chance") you may have to later. It's what I call "rolling the dice". ( I don't roll the dice anymore. When I first started the hobby, I lost $300+ of fish do to ich all at one time!, because I didn't QT then)

 

[wkscott]

Sometimes I quarantine fish that may not be very compatible especially in a smaller QT. I have dividers in the QT to munimalize direct aggression.

 

[bchas41]

So I'm assuming I need to empty the QT and what should I clean it with? Would you go ahead and dose anything in the tank before putting the fish in there?

 

[Flippers4pups]

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/quarantining-marine-fish-made-simple

 

[Elwood Dowd]

I just had a potters angel come in with what I originally thought was the beginning stage of ich. It wasnt ich, it was velvet.

the big mistake for me was that I QT'ed a black cap gramma with him. They were housed in the same tank at lfs so I thought no big deal. I hastily made the same bad choice when the potters died. I moved the Black cap back to the display. as soon as I put him in I was like " ooooohhhhhh, I just did that....."

76 days of fallow with everybody in QT getting treated.

 

[Elwood Dowd]

food safe sterilite container make outstanding expedient QT tanks if you need extra space.
look for this symbol on the container. it notes food safe material:

here is my backup QT, It currently houses a Falcos Hawkfish.
10 gallon sterilite
fixed temp heater
I had to get a cheap filter and power head for use in a copper only tank so i went to walmart and bought a junky powerhead.
cut the bottom off of a 12oz water bottle and filled the bottle with fiber fill (pillow stuffing from the sewing section). then pushed the neck of the bottle onto the powerhead intake. filter and powerhead all in one.... 20 bucks and it will only go in coppered qt from here on out.

 

[Flippers4pups]

food safe sterilite container make outstanding expedient QT tanks if you need extra space.
look for this symbol on the container. it notes food safe material:

here is my backup QT, It currently houses a Falcos Hawkfish.
10 gallon sterilite
fixed temp heater
I had to get a cheap filter and power head for use in a copper only tank so i went to walmart and bought a junky powerhead.
cut the bottom off of a 12oz water bottle and filled the bottle with fiber fill (pillow stuffing from the sewing section). then pushed the neck of the bottle onto the powerhead intake. filter and powerhead all in one.... 20 bucks and it will only go in coppered qt from here on out.

Nice DIY!

 

[Elwood Dowd]

Nice DIY!

I appreciate that.

A lot of good stuff comes when I am pinned to the wall. With my aquariums I generally discover issues in the middle of the night (I work nights and sleep during the day), leaving my options to either walmart, wait for amazon, or stay up until 10 am when the lfs opens. As much as I hate walmart, if it means saving a couple hundred dollars worth of fish I will go in there like a mad man filling a cart with all sorts of stuff.

oh, I recomend keeping a ball of fiber fill in the sump. when I have to set up a hospital or QT tank fast, its good to have.

1. remove from sump
2. shove in water bottle on powerhead
3. use old tank water to fill QT.

instant cycle

 

[Flippers4pups]

Always be prepared! Well, as much as you can. Lol

 

[mcarroll]

Yeah, I new it wasn't the best idea but I was at a loss. So, next time if I have one sick fish (that i cannot see anything visible) and one seemingly healthy fish, what should I do to start treating the QT tank? I have a full stock of meds, but since I could not see anything I did not know where to start, and I hated the thought of the pretty wrasse sitting in there with the dying Sailfin. Hopefully it doesn't bite me in the ***. Thanks for the advice!

I know it's water under the bridge, but just to throw it out there, I think the right move would have been to only bring home one of the two fish.

Even if yours were both civil to each other in your case, both fish are known to be occasional aggressors so why risk it? That's how I'd look at it anyway.

Lots of things can hypothetically cause mystery deaths like this, so it's extremely hard to troubleshoot from the position you're in. In addition to the ones mentioned in the thread already, cyanide collection is a big potential one that we hear about less these days, but it still happens and fish can survive seemingly fine for a while but they are crippled somehow inside from the toxicity of the cyanide. A few weeks in that state and they've had all they can take. Then there's bacterial infections, mishandling somewhere along the chain of custody, etc.....all very hard or even impossible to diagnose in your shoes and all can lead to mystery death.

This is another reason why buying fewer fish at a time can be better....if it was just the Sailfin, then you may still have this mystery death on your hands, but you wouldn't have this potential issue with the wrasse and the rest of the fish.

Slower is better!

You might find more interesting info along these lines on this doc:
Circular 919/FA005: Stress - Its Role in Fish Disease