Fish die off :(

[Steve Maxwell]

OK...I've gone through quite a few fish in my 75G within the last few months and I've not been able to pinpoint a reason. It started with some various wrasses, a Kole tang, and an exquisite firefish. During this time the sole survivors were a diamond watchman goby, starfish, various snails, and 2 photon clowns. During this time my water parameters were great and my corals (zoas, sps, lps, and other softies) were doing great. Most of the fish I found dead had some fading of their colors, but that's it...no spots, no signs of being attacked, etc.

I waited for quite a bit before trying to add more fish, but when I did I added (at different times) another Kole tang (dead), 2 Kaudern's cardinals (both dead), a lawnmower blennie (alive), a small flasher wrasse (alive), various corals, and 2 beautiful Potter's angelfish (both dead). This time when inspecting the bodies along with seeing the fading colors, I saw a big chunk taken out of one of the Kaudern's and before the male Potter's died I noticed it's dorsal fin had been nipped at. I've not seen any agression in any of my survivors except the larger photon used to nip at me when I put my hand in the water. I've not seen any aggression during the day, but I think the photon is bullying when the lights are off. What do you all think? Funny thing is the small flasher wrasse is still alive...maybe the photon leaves it alone because it is orange too?

If it is the clown being aggressive what fish could I put in my 75G that is reef safe, not orange, and will not take the photon's cr*p and will not be a bully itself?

Help!

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

How long has the tank been running? Do you think you could have a mantis shrimp in the tank? Or a bobbit worm?

 

[ngvu1]

Does your photon clown host/being hosted anything? Clown fish does not do much at night. I catch/caught all my clowns at night when they sleep...Clown fish normally stay in 1 place when the lights are out.

 

[4FordFamily]

That sounds like the strain of velvet I had, did not show spots on fish for months but kept killing them. Color loss, hiding from light during the last 1-3 days, tangs swimming in to powerheads.

Odd strain but velvet is everywhere right now worse than I've ever seen it seems just as common as ich if not more at most LFS I've seen and in the past 18 months literally 1/4 of my shipped fish perhaps more have had it, and with 4 large tanks I buy a lot of fish.

I hope I'm wrong but I've had some gobies and wrasse seem unaffected for months with velvet, I had a banana wrasse, melanarus wrasse, diamond goby, Humu trigger, and a red coris wrasse that survived in that ich tank for 4 months before i finally figured out what it was thanks to a martyr chevron tang, may he rest in peace. My established hippo tang even made it two months before succombing. Angels and other tangs died in 2-4 days.

 

[Steve Maxwell]

How long has the tank been running? Do you think you could have a mantis shrimp in the tank? Or a bobbit worm?

Tanks is 1/2 year old. Always possible to have a mantis or bobbit, but I haven't seen either; however if it were one of these would I see more signs of damage on the dead fish?

 

[Steve Maxwell]

Does your photon clown host/being hosted anything? Clown fish does not do much at night. I catch/caught all my clowns at night when they sleep...Clown fish normally stay in 1 place when the lights are out.

No...thought about getting a bta, but I'm paranoid about them moving around and killing my corals. They generally hang out on the left hand side of the tank...the rest of the fish generally hung out on the right side. My flasher is all over the place.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Tanks is 1/2 year old. Always possible to have a mantis or bobbit, but I haven't seen either; however if it were one of these would I see more signs of damage on the dead fish?

I'm thinking that 4Ford is onto something. I've never seen a strain of velvet with no external signs, but if it exists, that could be what's doing it.

By the way, how are things in Pearland? Still growing like crazy, I bet. I lived there for about 6 1/2 years

 

[jcdeng]

do you qt your fish additions? damages on a fish's body can be caused by CUC thats trying to eat the fish when it hasn't completely died, they will attack a fish that is laying on sandbed breathing heavily. Its like they sense imminent death.

 

[Eaj1001]

How long has the tank been running? Do you think you could have a mantis shrimp in the tank? Or a bobbit worm?

Exactly what I was wondering!

 

[Steve Maxwell]

That sounds like the strain of velvet I had, did not show spots on fish for months but kept killing them. Color loss, hiding from light during the last 1-3 days, tangs swimming in to powerheads.

Odd strain but velvet is everywhere right now worse than I've ever seen it seems just as common as ich if not more at most LFS I've seen and in the past 18 months literally 1/4 of my shipped fish perhaps more have had it, and with 4 large tanks I buy a lot of fish.

I hope I'm wrong but I've had some gobies and wrasse seem unaffected for months with velvet, I had a banana wrasse, melanarus wrasse, diamond goby, Humu trigger, and a red coris wrasse that survived in that ich tank for 4 months before i finally figured out what it was thanks to a martyr chevron tang, may he rest in peace. My established hippo tang even made it two months before succombing. Angels and other tangs died in 2-4 days.

The VAST majority of my fish have been through my QT tank and pretreated...I also didn't notice any heavy breathing. Not saying that it isn't this, but Lord I hope not!

 

[Steve Maxwell]

do you qt your fish additions? damages on a fish's body can be caused by CUC thats trying to eat the fish when it hasn't completely died, they will attack a fish that is laying on sandbed breathing heavily. Its like they sense imminent death.

The VAST majority of them went through QT w/ pretreatment. The Kaudern's that had the chunk out if it...it was the exact size of a small mouth...don't think my snails or starfish could have done that.

 

[eatbreakfast]

I agree with 4fordfamily, in that it sounds like a disease. If it was in your tank for the first set of deaths, it can still be in there if a fish were present.

 

[Steve Maxwell]

I'm thinking that 4Ford is onto something. I've never seen a strain of velvet with no external signs, but if it exists, that could be what's doing it.

By the way, how are things in Pearland? Still growing like crazy, I bet. I lived there for about 6 1/2 years

Pearland is getting HUGE...reaching out well beyond 288 and growing like crazy. Recently they've built a mall, huge HEB, Sam's Club, Costco, too many restaurants to count, a Memorial hospital, another hospital (don't know affiliation), and more! Getting to resemble Webster

 

[4FordFamily]

I agree with 4fordfamily, in that it sounds like a disease. If it was in your tank for the first set of deaths, it can still be in there if a fish were present.

I might add that it is almost guaranteed still there if it was for the first batch if a fish was present the whole time. With a host, even if the fish built a resistance it will still linger. I'm sure that's what you meant though anyway

 

[Steve Maxwell]

I agree with 4fordfamily, in that it sounds like a disease. If it was in your tank for the first set of deaths, it can still be in there if a fish were present.

If it were a disease, shouldn't the photons have succumbed to it also? They were the first fish in the tank and they are still alive and well.

 

[4FordFamily]

I'm thinking that 4Ford is onto something. I've never seen a strain of velvet with no external signs, but if it exists, that could be what's doing it.

I had not either, eventually a chevron tang did show external symptoms. I felt really stupid when I finally identified it as velvet because of the other symptoms that were present. Many of the fish didn't breathe hard noticeably because it was so fast acting, some did though. Losing color few days before dying, hiding more, and discoloration and losing splotches of color (only my large angels showed the splotches of lost color the rest just faded), and the tangs in the powerheads should have given it away. I thought it was everything else.

Cupramine (I now prefer coppersafe) in a qt completely took care of the problem and ran the tank fallow for 76 days. All is well now.

 

[eatbreakfast]

If it were a disease, shouldn't the photons have succumbed to it also? They were the first fish in the tank and they are still alive and well.

Not necessarily. Clownfish and wrasses have thicker slime coats,so they are often more resilient to protozoan and other external parasites.

 

[Steve Maxwell]

OK...so for now we will throw photon aggressiveness out and focus on nasty worm/shrimp & disease. If I get my 40g QT set back up...I just took it down ...I can do a partial water change on my 29G, throw in some filter media from the 29G and use a bottle of some of the tank start up stuff and wait for it to cycle here are some questions:
1) how long do you think the QT would take to cycle?
2) my watchman & lawnmower will not do good in a bare bottom QT (right?), so what should I do with them? Unfortunately I don't think there's room in my 29G and if there were it would be a pain getting them back out...I could possibly get one in there and remove my firefish and relocate it to the 75G when ready.
3) leaving my coral, snails, starfish and urchin (forgot about it) in the DT would that be sufficient to allow a fallow period to work (what if I need to leave the watchman or lawnmower?)...and if so, how long do you think I'd need?
4) treating the fish in the QT...what would you recommend and for how long...it will have to be store/amazon bought because none of the vets around here will prescribe the good stuff

Now to the worm/shrimp possibility. While I have the DT void of most fish, how could I trap a possible worm/shrimp without tearing out all the rocks...I have too many coral attached to them.

Thanks all...I really appreciate the help!

 

[Humblefish]

I've never seen a strain of velvet with no external signs, but if it exists, that could be what's doing it.

Sometimes velvet dinospores will invade the gills first, and the fish dies due to asphyxiation before visible symptoms on the skin ever manifest. It's also possible for certain fish (with thick mucous coats) to develop immunity to velvet, if they can withstand the trophonts in the gills. Velvet has such a fast life cycle, and certain strains will drop off the fish after just 12 hrs. This limits the "feeding time" on the fish and possibly allows time for the fish's immune system to muster a defense for the next wave. I suspect the 100% wipeouts from velvet occur when a variant with a longer life cycle (4 days feeding time on the fish) gets introduced into the aquarium.

 

[Steve Maxwell]

anyone?