Please Help Identify My Mistake

[hunterallen40]

Hi all,

I'm writing this up post-mortem to learn what I could have done better. The short version is I bought a copper band butterfly on Sunday, and it passed away around 30 minutes ago. Unfortunately, I just didn't see anything wrong with it until it was laying on its side.

I'll start with the Qt tank. I have had my quarantine tank running for several months now, just to build up what I can. I initially used fritz ammonia chloride and microbacter 7 to cycle a sponge filter and some rock (I didn't understand rock shouldn't be in a Qt tank at the time, I learned this a few days ago). After it finished its cycle, I changed amounts of water infrequently when not in use. I never quarantined a fish in there, but I did quarantine a zoa rock for about a month (which moved to my display a while ago and has done just fine).

The tank is a 20 gallon long, the sponge filter is good for up to 40 gallons, there's a small power head for circulation, a decent heater set to 80 F, and my original actinic LED light.

Before I left to go get the fish, I did as big a water change as possible, and cleaned up the bottom really well. I used tropic marin's syn-biotic sea salt (pretty similar to my display's parameters, but also claims to have beneficial bacteria in it) at 1.023-1.024 SG.

Got the fish, drip acclimated it, then added him to the tank. Everything was looking pretty good. As such, I started copper power treatment. Watching with my hannah checker, I started at 1 ppm for 24 hours. The next day I did a 50% water change and increased the dose up to 2.0 ppm (dosed the water before adding it, then dosed to reach 2.0), and then ended up at 2.5 ppm the following morning (yesterday). Fish was eating really well the whole time, and would greet me when I walked into the room. I kept an eye on ammonia, and added micro bacter 7 + a sponge from my display's sump. The seachem ammonia badge didn't show anything, so I tested with my API kit and saw mostly yellow with a little green (definitely not zero, but less than 0.25 ppm total ammonia, which is why I dosed micro bacter 7).

This is a video of the fish yesterday afternoon: https://photos.app.goo.gl/UeNz7ERbRFg4FWCu6

The things I saw that worried me were the black spots on his fins, as well as the discoloration on his dorsal fin. The fish also did some flashing (scraping its beak, which has a visible bump on it). I thought that copper would be an adequate treatment, but was clearly very wrong. What should the treatment have been? Any idea what happened to my fish? This is what he looked like shortly before he passed.

 

[Timfish]

This is a guess but I'm inclined to think it had a bacterial infection before you got it. It's also looks underweight, it's back is pinched behind it's head making the outline of the skull visible (the body should be a smooth curve from the face over the head onto the back so the skull can't be distinguished). Being underweight isn't necessarily the cause of death but it indicates a fish might be in poor health even if it's eating well.

 

[ReefGeezer]

You probably didn't make a QT mistake. You have to be very selective when purchasing sensitive specimens. Judging from the picture the timeline you described, the one you purchased was emaciated (lost muscle mass). Once a specimen gets to that point, they usually die. Timfish hit the nail on the head. Even if a fish is eating, a bacterial or parasitic infection can cause it to become emaciated. It is also possible that it just didn't eat enough after being collected. Copperbands are slow eaters and don't compete well if they are housed with more aggressive eaters at a wholesaler.

My rule is to never buy fish where any part of the body looks like someone pinched it in. If it ain't fat & happy, leave it at the LFS. With Copperbands, even that might not be enough. I love them, but they are difficult. If you really want one, be VERY picky and understand that even then you may lose another one before you find one that survives in your system. I have a spot in my stock list for a Copperband. When it's time, I'll buy a quarantined fish that is fairly large from places like TMS Aquatics or Dr. Reef (Tulsa). Or, even though the quarantine is not as robust, Live Aquaria Divers Den can be a good place to look also.