I reciently had two tangs that died on me. I removed them and remaining fish to a QT. Started dosing coppermine. The two that died were freshwatered dipped and lived in the QT for 3 days or so. Just curious if coppermine will help other fish, which as of now these do not show symptoms of the fish that died. Or should I use metroplex. Here are pics of the fish that tied. Had them almost 4 years.
Fish dying
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Crabs McJones
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Sorry for your loss. Had you added anything to the tank recently that could have brought something in with it? @4FordFamily @Humblefish #reefsquadI reciently had two tangs that died on me. I removed them and remaining fish to a QT. Started dosing coppermine. The two that died were freshwatered dipped and lived in the QT for 3 days or so. Just curious if coppermine will help other fish, which as of now these do not show symptoms of the fish that died. Or should I use metroplex. Here are pics of the fish that tied. Had them almost 4 years.
The powder blue tang scratched a lot. His eating habits were normal. The yellow eye scratched once and a while but stopped eating and went into the rock and became solitary.
Reciently additions into tank were inver crew from aquarium depot and corals from the coral dudes.
No other fish appear to have symptoms but all are in QT being dosed with coppermine.
Tank just has inverts and corals in now.
What should be my next steps for DT.
Thanks for help
Crabs McJones
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Going Fallow
The reason to go fallow (fishless) is to eliminate a fish disease from your DT (display tank). Going fallow works because you are denying the disease a fish host to feed on, essentially starving it to death.
In order to go fallow you must remove ALL fish from your DT. If just one fish is left behind, even a “disease resistant” species, then going fallow is for naught because the disease will continue its life cycle. Corals/inverts can be left in the DT, as those are not capable of hosting - although some are capable of “housing” the encysted stage of certain parasites for a period of time (see “Fallow Periods” below). It is important to continue to feed your corals/inverts while going fallow, and also put a pinch of flake or pellet food into the DT every 2-3 days to feed nitrifying bacteria in the absence of fish poop. Continue to do everything normally with your tank while going fallow; although you may wish to go lights out if you are running a fish only system (just don’t forget to feed that bacteria!)
Fallow Periods - Below is the general consensus fallow periods for all diseases that require it. In most cases, it is the longest known time period that the encysted stage can survive on corals, inverts, rocks, substrate without a fish host to feed on. The fallow period starts when the last fish is removed from the tank.
- Black ich (turbellarian worms) - 4 weeks
- Brooklynella aka “Clownfish disease” or “Brook” - 6 weeks
- Gill Flukes (worms) - 4 weeks
- Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) - 76 days
- Uronema marinum - No fallow period, as it does not require a fish host to survive. It is an opportunistic parasite that strikes when a fish’s immune system has been compromised. Uronema mainly affects damsels (especially chromis) and clownfish.
- Velvet (Amyloodinium) - 6 weeks
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-disease-treatment-diagnosis/189284-fish-diseases-101-a.html
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fi...is/189658-treatment-options-my-two-cents.html
Quarantining all future livestock purchases is also very important to avoid having to go fallow again in the future: https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-disease-treatment-diagnosis/189815-how-quarantine.html
After the fallow period has ended, you can return your fish to the DT. I recommend doing it one fish at a time, spread out over a couple of weeks. This will give your bacterial levels time to adjust to the added fish bio-load, and avoid a potential mini-cycle/ammonia spike. I also prefer to add back smaller fish first, so they are established ahead of the larger, more aggressive ones.
Do be sure to closely monitor your ammonia levels while adding fish back. I advocate using a Seachem Ammonia Alert badge for constant monitoring:
Edit: You can also use a FW black molly to test if your fallow period has been successful: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fallow-periods-going-fishless.190324/page-2#post-2855190
Big G
captain dunsel
You may need this for your fish that are in QT:
Here's Humblefish's Emergency Treatment for Marine Velvet advisory. Humble has noted that survival rates increased when a "bath" of acriflavine products is used following a freshwater dip. I've bolded and underlined this info: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/#post-2499437
Emergency Treatment for Marine Velvet Disease
I recently acquired 3 fish - Longnose Butterfly, Kole Tang, Naso Tang - with velvet. None showed visible physical symptoms right away, but they all came from a tank where velvet was known to be present so I just patiently waited. Before & after pictures will follow immediately after this write-up.
In short, the Butterflyfish didn’t make it; however the two tangs did. The only difference in their treatment was I used formalin (with Methylene Blue) on the butterfly in a bath solution, whereas the tangs got acriflavine (with NO Methylene Blue). It’s also worth noting that the butterfly & Kole Tang showed symptoms the worst, whereas the Naso only had moderate visible symptoms. Tangs are also generally considered hardier than butterflyfish, so there’s that factor to consider as well. Anyway, here is the treatment I used on them:
The short version:
- 5 minute freshwater dip
- Immediately afterwards, perform a chemical bath (in saltwater matching SG/temp the fish came from). You have two options:
- Acriflavine (preferred) - Do the bath for 75-90 minutes, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain acriflavine: Acriflavine-MS and Ruby Reef Rally. DO NOT mix acriflavine with any other chemicals.
- Formalin - Do the bath for 30-60 minutes max, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain formalin: Formalin-MS, Quick Cure, Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, Kordon Rid-Ich Plus. Use protection (rubber gloves, face mask, eye protection, etc.) whenever handling formalin as it is a known carcinogen! However, you can add Methylene Blue to the formalin bath (1 capful per 2-3 gallons of bath water.)
- After the bath, place the fish in a QT pre-dosed at 80mg/gal using Chloroquine phosphate. In theory, copper (exs. Cupramine, Coppersafe, Copper Power) should work just as well as CP. However, due to how fast velvet can reproduce you don’t have the luxury of slowly ramping up the copper level as is normally advised. Therefore, the fish needs to be placed in a QT with copper already at minimum therapeutic levels. This is the advantage CP has over copper in this particular situation.
- While in QT, use a wide spectrum antibiotic (exs. Seachem Kanaplex, Furan-2) for the first week to ward off any possible bacterial infections. Secondary bacterial infections are very common in fish with preexisting parasitic infestations such as velvet.
- Keep the fish in CP or copper (at therapeutic levels) for one month. However, you can transfer the fish into a non-medicated holding tank for observation after just two weeks (explained below). DO NOT lower the CP or copper level before transferring.
