Fish loss

[townjas]

There is certainly more than one way to skin this cat, but I would space my fish out a lot more than that - probably no more than a fish per quarter.

I might even wait months between fish to become accustomed to the new guy.

It also takes time to find fish that I can be beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt-sure are worth the hassle and risk of bringing home. It is possible to get lucky quicker, but it would take me typically weeks to zero in on an individual to bring home.

There is a downside to spacing out like that also and that is territorial agression and size differences. I have a hard time finding fish that are big enough to hold their own against the established fish in tank

 

[townjas]

If ich gets in the gills it's usually fatal and you may not see spots on the body, but you should see labored breathing

 

[melypr1985]

If ich gets in the gills it's usually fatal and you may not see spots on the body, but you should see labored breathing

That's not entirely true. Yes it can be harbored in the gills, but the fish may live for years with this until an event happens to cause stress and a lowered immune system. At that point, you Will see the spots and the fish could succumb. With a healthy immune system a fish with ick can be "managed" for a goodly while. I do support the treatment of ick in fish- for the record. Chloroquine phosphate works really well along with TTM, followed by copper then hypo.

 

[4FordFamily]

While possible, typically there are more noticeable symptoms. @4FordFamily had a bout with velvet that never showed symptoms until it was way too late. So it does happen. Maybe he can shed some light on his experience with this for you. The speed of dying fish seems to point toward velvet, but typically you would see too many dots to count or even a dusting of them.
Try and get another picture of him and the dots. We need it to be as close as possible and very clear.

This is spot on there were no spots or standard velvet outward appearance symptoms at all. Fish after fish, especially Angels, dropped dead. Each time I was certain it was one thing or the other, I fixed it and it continued. Finally after several months a chevron tang showed classic velvet symptoms, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. This parasite had been wiping out my fish quickly without ever needing to appear on the body of the fish and it all made sense. Looking back, they did hide from the light the day or two before they died and they breathed heavy. I thought it was poor oxygen, flukes, poor filtration, poor flow that led to pockets of dead water, cleaning chemicals from the cleaning lady I removed, and several other things.

Turns out it was velvet. Also, I've since had a case that looked EXACTLY like ich (I'm not an expert but I'm no noobie either I've been in the hobby awhile and seen a lot) but it was thriving in 1.006 salinity (extreme hyposaline conditions that ich can not survive). Again, it was velvet. A different strain. I thought the salinity got over 1.009 so they developed spots again so I just dropped it and focused on my work - three days later I noticed it got BAD and some fish were lost. Very sad I felt horrible. I feed them some days with the lights off but the house is light and the outside light comes in - because I leave early and don't get home to see them before the lights turn on. This happened for those three days.

Moral of the story? Velvet is far more common than we think and it behaves very differently as the strains have much variance. It is very deadly and not to be toyed with.

 

[mcarroll]

There is a downside to spacing out like that also and that is territorial agression and size differences. I have a hard time finding fish that are big enough to hold their own against the established fish in tank

All these things must be weighed.

It's not a bad way to add up to a light stocking level.

 

[underwaterdan]

So if it is velvet, does that have the same fallow period?

 

[underwaterdan]

Here's the latest photo.