Hello everyone. I am concerned about the possible presence of a deadly parasitic disease in my tank such as ich, velvet, or brooklynella. I am a brand new reefer a couple of weeks into his first tank so I'd really appreciate advice from some reefers with more experience dealing with these kinds of thing.
My setup is a 75 gallon display with a 30 gallon sump. Last week, I purchased a pair of juvenile clownfish from Petco and acclimated them to my system. Everything was alright for a couple of days. I was a little concerned about one of the fish but I'll get to that later. Anyway, both fish were eating and were swimming around. Then, all of the sudden one had died and I found him up against the skimmer. There was no apparent cause of death to me and the other fish was showing no signs of disease or stress, so I figured it was bad luck. I purchased another small clown the next day, and this one didn't make it through the night. He seemed very stressed during the acclimation process, and in the bucket while acclimating he tended to float listlessly in one spot, but as soon as I got him into the main tank he seemed happy and fine.
Anyway, I didn't have the second clown that died around long enough to make any solid observations about his health or behavior. From what I saw, he seemed healthy and normal, showing no symptoms of disease or stress once he was in the display. That is, no clamping of fins, no rubbing up against objects, no elevated respiration. I didn't get him to eat but I figured that was typical with the first day of a fish in a new environment. I noticed some abnormal behavior from the first clown I got in the couple of days he survived. One of them being that he would stay in the top corner of the tank for long periods of time. I also saw white "splotches" on his body similar to this. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1794341 The difference in my clown was that there were two slightly larger marks that were barely visible. Anyway, it did not look like ich and he wasn't showing other symptoms of the disease so I dismissed the concern. Obviously, that was an error because he was soon dead.
At first, I thought there was not a disease in the tank because the other clown was not showing any symptoms (and still isn't). But I've been reading cases of fish building up immunity to parasitic infections like these, at least temporarily. So, I'm wondering if I may have a disease, and what disease it may be. I think it's either brooklynella or velvet, because I've never heard of ich killing fish within hours (as the other diseases can). ANY help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
My setup is a 75 gallon display with a 30 gallon sump. Last week, I purchased a pair of juvenile clownfish from Petco and acclimated them to my system. Everything was alright for a couple of days. I was a little concerned about one of the fish but I'll get to that later. Anyway, both fish were eating and were swimming around. Then, all of the sudden one had died and I found him up against the skimmer. There was no apparent cause of death to me and the other fish was showing no signs of disease or stress, so I figured it was bad luck. I purchased another small clown the next day, and this one didn't make it through the night. He seemed very stressed during the acclimation process, and in the bucket while acclimating he tended to float listlessly in one spot, but as soon as I got him into the main tank he seemed happy and fine.
Anyway, I didn't have the second clown that died around long enough to make any solid observations about his health or behavior. From what I saw, he seemed healthy and normal, showing no symptoms of disease or stress once he was in the display. That is, no clamping of fins, no rubbing up against objects, no elevated respiration. I didn't get him to eat but I figured that was typical with the first day of a fish in a new environment. I noticed some abnormal behavior from the first clown I got in the couple of days he survived. One of them being that he would stay in the top corner of the tank for long periods of time. I also saw white "splotches" on his body similar to this. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1794341 The difference in my clown was that there were two slightly larger marks that were barely visible. Anyway, it did not look like ich and he wasn't showing other symptoms of the disease so I dismissed the concern. Obviously, that was an error because he was soon dead.
At first, I thought there was not a disease in the tank because the other clown was not showing any symptoms (and still isn't). But I've been reading cases of fish building up immunity to parasitic infections like these, at least temporarily. So, I'm wondering if I may have a disease, and what disease it may be. I think it's either brooklynella or velvet, because I've never heard of ich killing fish within hours (as the other diseases can). ANY help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
