Lost an Angel is QT - Any ideas?

[amps]

Hey there,

So I picked up a swallowtail angel and a blue tang last Monday. They were acclimated to a 40g breeder QT and seemed to transition fine. The place I got them from treats all Angels and Tangs with Chloroquine Phosphate for 3 weeks before selling.

The Angel had a habit of swimming on it's side next to the glass on one side (almost looked like he was picking at the glass for food) but swam normally most of the time. Both fish were eating mysis (with selcon and garlic) all last week. On Saturday, I added a dose of Prazipro to treat for 5 days before introducing them to the DT. The angel completely lost his appetite after dosing the Prazipro. The tang would still peck at and eat a few shrimp but the angel wouldn't even look at food in the tank.

Last night I saw the angel laying on it's side in a piece of PVC but he righted himself and started swimming as soon as I touched the water. This morning he was dead. The tang seems fine but the water is a little cloudy. I added a bag of carbon and I'm going to do a large water change.

I'm completely new to QT'ing fish, my only other marine tank is a 10g nano with a couple of captive bred clowns I've had running for 18 months.

Any ideas what went wrong?

 

[Tahoe61]

Welcome.

Did you test for ammonia?

 

[amps]

I have an ammonia alert badge and it was barely reading above zero. The bio filter was from a piece of filter foam I had cycling in my 10g nano for 4 weeks and a bit of added bacteria-in-a-bottle.

I just did an ammonia test and it read 1ppm! Not sure if that's thrown off by the bit of Seachem Prime I added as a preventative measure this morning. Either way, I just did a 33% water change.

 

[melypr1985]

Welcome to R2R! Sorry this had to be your first post, but I think we can help. I would also like to know if you tested for and found ammonia. Aside from that, it sounds like there was something hinky going on with the angel at purchase.

The Angel had a habit of swimming on it's side next to the glass on one side

This doesn't sound normal and could indicate a problem within the angel from the beginning.

How long did you have the fish in QT? When did you add the prime? Was it within 24 hours of the Prazi? Did the angel die after that?

 

[amps]

Here's the timeline.

Last Monday - Bought fish and acclimated .LFS water was 1.029 so it took me a while, maybe 60mins, so I added 3 drops of Prime to each bag to detoxify any grossness.

Tuesday-Friday - Both fish were eating mysis and the tang was eating lettuce. The angel showed good appetite.

Saturday - Did a 25% water change and syphoned off any crud from the bottom of the tank (there wasn't much). I added 1.5 tsp of prazipro (30g net water in tank).

Sunday-Monday - The tang would pick at a few pieces of mysis but the angel showed ZERO interest. The angel wouldn't even look at the food.

Today - Angel dead in the morning. Ammonia badge showed barely above zero. I did an ammonia test and it read 1ppm (friggity frig). Just did a 33% water change and dosed the tank with Prime. The tang is acting a little skittish but otherwise normal to how it was last week.

The tank I'm using is a 40g breeder with a DIY All-in-one section that houses the filter sponge, a 50w heater and a maxi-jet 900 as a return. No lights over the tank other than the ambient light from the adjacent frag tank.

Here's a pic of the tank as of this afternoon. I've got some romaine in there for the tang, a bag of carbon and an extra 100w heater I put in a few mins ago to help the temp after the water change.

 

[amps]

Aside from that, it sounds like there was something hinky going on with the angel at purchase.
This doesn't sound normal and could indicate a problem within the angel from the beginning.

The divider in the tank for the filter is black acrylic and the angel would swim on it's side, nosing up to the acrylic all day long. When food was added to the tank, he would swim normally for it and would otherwise seem normal.

 

[Humblefish]

Two questions:

1. Have you been testing for ammonia? It looks like he might have some ammonia burn around his face.
2. Did you mix any other medication/chemical (even an ammonia reducer) with Prazipro? This can lead to cloudy water (bacterial bloom) and have disastrous effects.

 

[amps]

Two questions:

1. Have you been testing for ammonia? It looks like he might have some ammonia burn around his face.
2. Did you mix any other medication/chemical (even an ammonia reducer) with Prazipro? This can lead to cloudy water (bacterial bloom) and have disastrous effects.

1. Tested for ammonia the first few days, always read zero (same as alert badge). Today it was 1ppm (seems really high really fast) using the API kit.
2. I don't remember adding any Prime at the same time as the Prazi. The only other additive I've used was NutrifinCycle to help get the bacteria going. The water has been somewhat cloudy since day one but I thought that was precipitation from when I mixed the salt water initially (had to go mix it super fast to match the high SG of the LFS water).

 

[Humblefish]

1. Tested for ammonia the first few days, always read zero (same as alert badge). Today it was 1ppm (seems really high really fast) using the API kit.

Ammonia at this concentration could have very well killed the angel. Does the area around the tang's gills look red?

 

[amps]

Ammonia at this concentration could have very well killed the angel. Does the area around the tang's gills look red?

It's hard to get a good look at the tang but they don't look red to me

 

[Taso1]

the LFS salinity is 1.029???? am I reading that right?

and I am sorry to digress sir, but if you only have a 10 g nano tank, why do you have a 40 Quarantine tank?

 

[amps]

the LFS salinity is 1.029???? am I reading that right?

and I am sorry to digress sir, but if you only have a 10 g nano tank, why do you have a 40 Quarantine tank?

I thought it was crazy as well. It's not so much an LFS as it is a guy that import fish and keeps them in his basement. He has maybe 20-30 small tanks down there and he told me that it's hard to stay on top of the top-off. He's been very well reviewed by other people in the community. My understanding is that he does a lot of service/maintenance work for tanks in hotels/restaurants and always pretreats all his fish with CP to avoid issues.

Haha! I've got a new 180g tank that's been setup and cycled for a month now and I'm starting to pickup livestock for it.

 

[Taso1]

sir, I think you answered your own question right there.

1.029 salinity... and a garage vendor... and he told you he can't keep up with his top-off.... that's a guy who needs to be shut down.

Don't buy stuff from him. Just a suggestion.

 

[amps]

Just went out and bought a Salifert ammonia test to compare to my API.

Salifert - 0.25-0.3 ppm
API - 1.0 ppm

I tested another QT tank with a couple of clowns in it that haven't had any problems and got these results:

Salifert - 0 ppm
API - 1.0 ppm

Combined with the fact that the Ammonia Alert badge reads just below 0.25 ppm in the problem tank, I think I need to toss my API kit.

sir, I think you answered your own question right there.

1.029 salinity... and a garage vendor... and he told you he can't keep up with his top-off.... that's a guy who needs to be shut down.

Don't buy stuff from him. Just a suggestion.

It's kind of a kicker because the guy is well loved by a lot of people around the Toronto area and he's incredibly knowledgeable about the hobby. I wonder if he's just got so much in a such a little space and he's bringing in shipments so often that he can't keep track of the business or observe the health properly. I was happy to find him originally since it saves me 3+ weeks of CP or copper treatment and his prices are very reasonable. Such is life...

 

[Taso1]

yeah bro, no worries, and API test kits are garbage as far as salt water testing is concerned. good luck and big ups.