Help please

[Doglips56]

Had a thread yesterday about a sick Mandarin goby. Did a FW dip for 5 minutes and nothing came off but he did pass away overnight but was alive at lights out.

I really don’t know why it died but I have
1 filefish (supposed to be going back home today)
1 bristletooth and one sailfin tang (very small both)
1 salon fairy wrasse adult, 1 juvenile yellow coris wrasse
2 pj cardinals
2 “normal” O. Clowns
2 tiny blue chromis
1 juvenile diamond goby
1 fire goby
1 small royal gramma
1 lawnmower blenny
1 BTA small
1 maxima clam ~ 1.5”
Several shrimp, crabs, snails, urchins

Not too much for my 150g system but way too many for my 13g QT!

Is there any safe medication (not copper) I can treat the entire tank with prophylactically just in case? I have metro, kanaplex, prazipro pro and maybe a couple others I can’t think of offhand.
Thanks (AGAIN!)

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I'm not a great proponent for "reef safe" medications. The simple fact is that there is no way to kill bacteria and/o protozoans selectively like that. For sure stay away from the "botanical tonics". There are no studies that I know of that demonstrate their efficacy.

Ruby Reef Rally and Kick Ich have ingredients that have been used in fish treatments, but since the label doesn't say the concentration, I can't tell if the dose they offer would truly be effective. Praziquantel can be used in some reef aquariums (typically, it will only kill worms like feather dusters). However, that is only effective against trematode worms, and I think your mandarin had ich.

Jay

 

[Doglips56]

Hi Jay,
Thank you for your reply. A friend of mine brought me his file fish maybe 2 months ago and before the Mandarin ever got sick I thought the file fish had ich and when I look closely at him he still has weird looking skin. Bumpy with white spots but he told me that was normal for this fish. He still looks like that but I took a magnifier to the aquarium and none of the others have even one spot and I would think at the very least one of the tangs would have a spot. I’m having surgery early tomorrow morning and he is supposed to come get it today but I haven’t heard from him. I was just setting up a bucket QT just for the file fish until he can come get it just in case. He has a perm QT setup at his place.
I just am confused as to why everyone else looks pristine if this is going on 4-5 days?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Best of luck on your surgery! A few things could be at work here: 1) Your mandarin may not have had ich. 2) The other fish just haven't had time to develop it yet. 3) It will stay isolated and not spread (rare, but can happen).

Jay

 

[Doglips56]

Thanks Jay. The file fish is worrying me, especially since it’s not mine. The friend who loaned it to me for aptasia runs his system in ich suppression rather than trying to keep it ich free.

 

[artieg1]

Mandarins are hard to keep alive. I would just observe. Go ahead and take out file fish, but any parasite he brought along with him is already in your DT. Ich doesn't kill (generally), so if this is velvet you will know soon enough.

 

[Doglips56]

I am in the hospital now because I had surgery today. I don’t think it was ich or velvet. I have an evil tang in there I need to catch when I can and re home. Maybe he was being bullied and I just didn’t see it. His body condition looked fine but when he died I thought perhaps he just wasn’t able to get enough to eat? I know I had a decent pod population when we got him but he was large and I had actually added another 1/2 gallon of pods. We won’t be getting another though. They are just too difficult.

 

[Doglips56]

Ok, been out of the hospital for a week and I just got the energy to spend an hour doing water testing.
Temp 78.6 avg of probes
pH 8.0. (Red Sea) ...lights ramping down to turn off at 9...not sure if that affects it
dKH 8 (Hanna)
PO4 .27 (Hanna)
NO3 5-10 (Red Sea)
Ca+ 446 (Hanna)
Mg 1280 (Red Sea)

Still treating with Medic (which is just peroxide) twice daily for at least another week

Corals, shrimps, clam, crabs, anemone all look happy and healthy

All of the remaining fish in the tank are white spot free and swimming and eating normally. The sickest fish that did not succumb is my royal gramma, must be a female but tail fin looks like it’s been through a war.

Anything you would do or add to encourage health in the tank? Right now the dual reactor (GFO/Carbon) is off.
Want to really build these guys up that have survived the nightmare. I know there is garlic in my home made food but I wonder if I should supplement more?

Any other suggestions to get my tank super healthy again? I know there will always be ich lurking around, my goal is to keep the fish and environment as healthy as possible to prevent another outbreak.
I don’t currently dose any supplements.