Hello from WV

4FordFamily · Nov 2, 2016

Welcome home, you will love it here!

Beautiful tank thanks for sharing. It looks like you've already received some great advice

dbl · Nov 2, 2016

Welcome to R2R. As you've already discovered it's a great resource. You're in very good hands with Meredith's help.

cromag27 · Nov 2, 2016

Welcome!

KJ · Nov 3, 2016

Welcome to R2R!

bufettphan · Nov 3, 2016

Thanks, everyone has been great! Hoping to get everything setup and catch him in the next day or so.

bufettphan · Nov 4, 2016

Well @melypr1985 I managed to catch him and do the 5 minute freshwater dip. None of the "black spots" immediately fell off, so either it isn't an immediate fix or it's something else. I'm going to give him a couple days now and reassess. It was slightly easier to catch him than I thought, but I'm not looking forward to it again.

My next questions and feel free to tell me I'm an idiot or ignorant, but is a hospital tank and meds totally necessary or would it be horrible to see if he can fight it off by himself? I'm not opposed to the hospital tank, but not looking forward to that process either. And if I let him try to fight it off what's a good time frame. He'll be a month old next week and I guess he's been dealing with this for about 2.5 weeks. Thanks again for all your help.

melypr1985 · Nov 4, 2016

bufettphan said:
Well @melypr1985 I managed to catch him and do the 5 minute freshwater dip. None of the "black spots" immediately fell off, so either it isn't an immediate fix or it's something else. I'm going to give him a couple days now and reassess. It was slightly easier to catch him than I thought, but I'm not looking forward to it again.

My next questions and feel free to tell me I'm an idiot or ignorant, but is a hospital tank and meds totally necessary or would it be horrible to see if he can fight it off by himself? I'm not opposed to the hospital tank, but not looking forward to that process either. And if I let him try to fight it off what's a good time frame. He'll be a month old next week and I guess he's been dealing with this for about 2.5 weeks. Thanks again for all your help.

If the black dots fells off at all during the freshwater dip, even if it took the full 5 minutes to do it, then I'm leaning toward black ick. If nothing changed or fell off, then it's looking like a bacterial infection that is lingering. In the first case you can treat the display tank with prazipro fairly easily. In the second case you would need a QT and antibiotics. Either one could be deadly so shouldn't be taken lightly. If you want to leave him in the display an do the easiest thing first, then go ahead and dose the prazipro. Odds are, somebody in that tank has flukes (it's pretty darn common) so it would only benefit. At the end of that (about a week and two doses) if he's still struggling with this stuff, then we need to move to a QT. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm rambling a little.

bufettphan · Nov 4, 2016

No it makes perfect sense and I have some prazipro on the way, so I'll try that first and see what happens.
I was hoping the black spots would fall off, but they didn't immediately.
The dip made him look a little better if that makes sense, but I'll continue watching him and likely setup a QT tank. I have a spare 10 gallon already, so I can use that (he won't be happy in 10 gallons, but I want him to get better) I'd love to get everyone out and go fallow, but I'm not sure I want to go that far yet. I think I'll try the managing ick method for the time being.

bufettphan · Nov 11, 2016

Treating with the prazipro now and everyone seems to be tolerating it fine. My peppermint shrimp has disappeared, but that happened before I started medication. I'm not sure if he's molting and hiding or he's "gone". He's never hidden when he's molted in the past, but I'm not sure.

I went a little conservative with the Prazi dosing since I'm not quite positive of the total gallons of my system. It's a 75 with 30 sump, but the sump obviously isn't full, so I went with treating about 95 gallons. I'll follow and do the second dose as long as my foxface continues to do okay. He's not exactly showing improvement per say, but I don't think he's getting any worse either. After the second dose of prazi if he hasn't drastically improved I've gotten what I need to set up a hospital tank to treat him with Furan-2. How long should I leave my skimmer off? I of course removed my carbon, but can I turn my skimmer back on after a couple days?

Cristy17 · Nov 11, 2016

Hi and welcome! Sorry to hear about your fox face, how is he doing? Did you dip him?

Cristy17 · Nov 11, 2016

I apologize, I did not see your treatment post. My iPad is running slow.

bufettphan · Nov 11, 2016

Sure no problem! It's been a slow process and I've been trying to see if he'd pull through without intervention or chemical options, but I started with the prazi and will likely follow up with the furan.

Jay_M · Nov 11, 2016

Hello there, I see that you are from Wv, and you mention the mason dixon reef club.. is it safe to safe to assume you are from the Morgantown area, and that you bought that fox face from the very far right system in the saltwater section of the Star City Petco?

bufettphan · Nov 11, 2016

Jay_M said:
Hello there, I see that you are from Wv, and you mention the mason dixon reef club.. is it safe to safe to assume you are from the Morgantown area, and that you bought that fox face from the very far right system in the saltwater section of the Star City Petco?

No I'm actually from the Eastern Panhandle, but he did come from a Petsmart.

kireek · Nov 13, 2016

*Welcome to Reef2Reef @bufettphan !* I hope your Fox face pulls though.Sorry that you are off to a rough start.

bufettphan · Nov 19, 2016

@melypr1985 My foxface seemed to be doing well, but after the water change and second dose of prazipro he has a few more spots that look like ich. I'm definitely setting up a QT to treat him, but I'm leaning more and more to moving all my fish to a QT and trying to eliminate the ich from my system. My question on this would be what size tank do you think I'll need for my entire stock list. 2 clowns, 2 PJ Cardinals, 1 Goby, and the foxface?
If he's going to get ich again after a simple water change, I'm not sure I want to deal with the management route if it's just going to keep happening. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks

Reeferdood · Nov 19, 2016

bufettphan · Nov 19, 2016

Well fudge...now the spots are gone. Not sure if I'm just paranoid or what. This process is frustrating to say the least.

melypr1985 · Nov 19, 2016

bufettphan said:
@melypr1985 My foxface seemed to be doing well, but after the water change and second dose of prazipro he has a few more spots that look like ich. I'm definitely setting up a QT to treat him, but I'm leaning more and more to moving all my fish to a QT and trying to eliminate the ich from my system. My question on this would be what size tank do you think I'll need for my entire stock list. 2 clowns, 2 PJ Cardinals, 1 Goby, and the foxface?
If he's going to get ich again after a simple water change, I'm not sure I want to deal with the management route if it's just going to keep happening. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks

How long had the spots been present? They wouldn't just appear and disappear within a day. Are you sure it's the exact same spots that come and then went on the same day?

On the original question (depending on the size of the foxface) you could potentially get away with a 30 gallon with all of those. You would want an oversized filter for it as well. Even if you're not sure, I would still put them in QT and treat for ick. Just my opinion of course.

bufettphan · Nov 19, 2016

I had been observing him and hadn't noticed anything on him. Looked close today and thought I saw some spots that were ick, but then they weren't there a couple hours later. I'm assuming it was just something on his skin. (At this point I'm pretty paranoid about any and all spots) Either way he developed some red blotches today, so I'm setting up my 10 gallon to treat him with Furan2. After I get his bacterial infection under control I'll then treat him for ick and go from there (unless the ich treatment should be first that is). I'm frustrated and haven't totally decided on trying to setup a tank and catch everyone. Thanks for your advice as always.