Help. Fish dying one by one

[awwinterfall]

No symptoms. Except losing balance and dying. Already at Seachems recommended copper level. Only one who had symptom was a powder blue who had dust like spots all over.

No new fish added, except a recent batch from humblefish. I doubt its from that batch because he treats his fish.

What should I do?

Only thing I did differently was feed some frozen food to convince some fish to eat (who died anyways)

 

[Murica]

I couldn’t open your photos, but dust like spots sounds like velvet : /

 

[Murica]

Velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum)

Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum) What You Need To Know: * Fast killing parasite capable of wiping out most of your fish in just a matter of days. Sometimes there are survivors, sometimes not. * Can be treated in a quarantine tank using Chloroquine phosphate or Copper. A 5...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Brian Kennedy]

Act quickly as I believe you are dealing with high ammonia and low O2 levels. Also, copper will deplete O2 levels in a lightly stocked QT. This QT appears to be over stocked.

1. Test ammonia ASAP.

2. If confirmed high, do big water change. Make sure to match Temp and SG.

3. Put an air stone in the tank and continue to monitor Ammonia. and if possible, break the fish up into smaller groups in a couple tanks.

4. Additionally, Looks like bacterial infection (maroon blotchy spots) on a couple of the the fish. Likely a secondary infection from the Copper.

5. What are you using to measure the copper concentration and how quickly did you raise it to therapeutic levels? I don't use copper, but I know if its raised too quickly or is too concentrated very bad things happen.

Did you put the pre quarantined fish from @Humblefish into copper? They should have gone straight to DT.

 

[mcbdz]

I don't think you can use prime with copper or other meds. Can you get some bio-spira or or Dr. Tim's. Large water changes that are matching your levels

 

[Thaxxx]

I'm going to show a post from @hublefish from a N. J. reef club. I hope he doesn't mind.....
This all started when the manufacturer of Coppersafe (Fritz) informed me that their copper product was safe to use with Prime, Amquel, etc. This differs from what Seachem has always stated about Cupramine - that any ammonia reducer will turn it 10x more toxic. However, these are completely different forms of copper. Cupramine is "ionic copper" bound on amine, and an ammonia reducer has the potential to break that bound and reduce the Cupramine from the safe Cu2+ form to a very toxic Cu+ form. Coppersafe (and Copper Power) are both chelated coppers. A chelated copper solution is just a blend of two compounds. One is the copper sulfate granule, and the other is an ingredient that allows the copper granules to break down and stay in a liquid state. The ingredient that makes this happen is called a chelator, or sequestering agent.

After getting the green light/more confidence from a chemist about this, I began experimenting on fish by mixing Prime + Copper Power in a QT. I did this repeatedly on different batches of fish, got the copper level as high as 2.5 ppm, tested daily, dosed Prime daily and all the fish are still fine. Not once did I see a spike in the Cu level after dosing Prime using the Hanna High Range Copper Colorimeter (HI702).

So, I feel it is safe to use & recommend mixing Prime with Copper Power to control ammonia on an as needed basis.

 

[Brian Kennedy]

My logic tells me that it seems to me the fish are suffering from ammonia toxicity and possible low oxygen due to a heavily overstocked QT. Correct ammonia and O2 first to keep the fish alive then worry about copper concentrations. I didn't see any ich or velvet in any of the videos.

 

[Humblefish]

Hi @awwinterfall - I can’t open your pics/video for some reason. Do you have a pic of the PBT showing the dust?

 

[Brian Kennedy]

First pic is from Video 1. There is a lot of salt on the glass so its hard to see. Looks like some of the fish are breathing heavy and others are not.

Second pic is from video 3. Fish is sitting in one spot, tail is moving back and forth, labored breathing.

From what I can tell there are about 10 to 12 fish in the tank.

 

[Humblefish]

@awwinterfall Where did the Semilarvatus Butterflyfish come from? Because that’s not a fish you bought from me.

 

[Tamberav]

All these fish crammed into a tank with no hiding spots.... it seems like a bad thing to me. I would test ammonia and split those fish into appropriate # of QT tanks with hiding spots. All this stress can not be good.

 

[living_tribunal]

Act quickly as I believe you are dealing with high ammonia and low O2 levels. Also, copper will deplete O2 levels in a lightly stocked QT. This QT appears to be over stocked.

1. Test ammonia ASAP.

2. If confirmed high, neutralize it asap with Prime and do big water change. Make sure to match Temp and SG.

3. Put an air stone in the tank and continue to monitor Ammonia. and if possible, break the fish up into smaller groups in a couple tanks.

4. Additionally, Looks like bacterial infection (maroon blotchy spots) on a couple of the the fish. Likely a secondary infection from the Copper.

5. What are you using to measure the copper concentration and how quickly did you raise it to therapeutic levels? I don't use copper, but I know if its raised too quickly or is too concentrated very bad things happen.

Did you put the pre quarantined fish from @Humblefish into copper? They should have gone straight to DT.

Don’t add the prime to a tank with copper!!!


Do a big wc ASAP instead.

 

[Brian Kennedy]

Bad advice deleted!

 

[living_tribunal]

you’re assuming the copper is being deployed correctly, I am not making that assumption. Under normal circumstances I agree, match water change copper concentration to QT copper and do a large water change.

The op says “at seachems recommended copper level” in the second sentence.

Reading something directly from the user is not an assumption.

Prime shouldn’t be used with any water that has copper regardless if the levels are in the correct range or not.

 

[Brian Kennedy]

The op says “at seachems recommended copper level” in the second sentence.

Reading something directly from the user is not an assumption.

Prime shouldn’t be used with any water that has copper regardless if the levels are in the correct range or not.

You are absolutely correct.

 

[living_tribunal]

You are absolutely correct.

I do agree with what you think is going on though, especially since op has so many large fish crammed into a smaller qt.

 

[living_tribunal]

No symptoms. Except losing balance and dying. Already at Seachems recommended copper level. Only one who had symptom was a powder blue who had dust like spots all over.

No new fish added, except a recent batch from humblefish. I doubt its from that batch because he treats his fish.

What should I do?

Only thing I did differently was feed some frozen food to convince some fish to eat (who died anyways)

As a general rule of thumb, I keep max 4 maybe 5 inches of fish per 10g qt. It looks like there are upwards of 20-30 inches in the qt you have.


You need to go get some cheap aqueon 10gs and split these guys up.

 

[artieg1]

Most QT issues come from introducing fish into an overcrowded environment without adequate bio filtration. Learned this the hard way.

 

[awwinterfall]

Hi,

No it died before I got a chance to photo.

Hi @awwinterfall - I can’t open your pics/video for some reason. Do you have a pic of the PBT showing the dust?

 

[awwinterfall]

NOT blaming Humblefish. Just really stumped. Thinking it may be the frozen food.

Tank is 100 gallon QT. They got sick in display tank so I moved them to QT. They look crowded because they gather to same area. Every time one fish gets sick, then another,

So far the saddleback, majestic, powder blue and semilarvatus died.

@Humblefish , the semilarvatus had been with me in the display for 3 years.

Now gem tang is about to die. bannerfish are starting to breath heavy and listless.

I don't think its ammonia because if it was, all fish would be dying or gasping at same time. also, problem started in display.

Most QT issues come from introducing fish into an overcrowded environment without adequate bio filtration. Learned this the hard way.