Quarantine Dilemma

[Jack22]

I have a very small Emperor Angel in QT along with a yellow Tang, Flame Angel, and Sailfin Tang. They’ve been in QT for 2 weeks. Treated with cuperamine since day one.

Everyone was doing great, eating well. All of the sudden yesterday the Emperor was really lethargic, didn’t want to eat, and was mouth open breathing heavy.

I thought he might be getting picked on by the yellow tang so I separated him from everyone else last night, but he’s not looking much better today.

Ammonia alert badge shows totally safe.

Part of me is thinking about moving him to the DT where he will have a lot more room and rock work to hide in. But part of me doesn’t want to risk it.

Not sure what could be wrong or what to do.

 

[ScooterV]

After all the effort in QT already, I wouldn't risk the DT. Been there, done that

If copper was at therapeutic levels, and where you moved him to was a sterile tank, you should already have ich and velvet covered. I think I'd do a freshwater dip to check for flukes. If found, treat for that. If not, I'd go right to antibiotics on the assumption of I'm just not good enough to recognize what's wrong, but it's the only thing left after eliminating other things. I'd also increase oxygenation regardless of how much the QT already has.

You may also want to ask a mod to move this to the disease forum.

 

[Paul C.]

What size is the QT tank? What are you using for that bio-load? I'd check water parameters vs the ammonia badge

 

[MrsBugmaster]

Angels can be sensitive to copper so maybe move it to a sterile qt tank with no meds and see what happens.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Are you running any other meds or just copper?

 

[Jack22]

Just running copper.

Today is the last day of treatment so maybe I’ll do a large water change to reduce the copper and see how everyone does.

QT tank is a 20 gal. I have a HOB filter (just has filter pads right now since I can’t have carbon with the meds.) and a sponge filter.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

You will need a clean and sterile qt tank to transfers to if copper treatment have been just 2 weeks, otherwise treatment needs to be 30 days.

 

[ca1ore]

I would strongly resist the urge to move it to the display. Penny wise, pound foolish in my view. I've had this happen a few times. Better for the fish to expire in QT than risk contaminating the display.

 

[Jack22]

Did a 50% water change; redirected the power head, opened the top on the tank, and opened a window in the room to improve oxygenation; and added come carbon to the filter. Assuming he makes it I'll do another 50% water change tomorrow. That should get it down close to 0 copper within a few days and take care of any water quality issues.

He moved around a little when I was changing the water, which was promising, but then he found a place on the bottom behind the sponge filter and settled in. Didn't want to eat anything again today. Everyone else looks good and ate a ton.

I did some more research and it does seem that he has most of the symptoms of copper poisoning (gasping, lack of appetite, lethargy) and I do remember seeing him swimming near the surface a lot, kind of disoriented. Not sure if they can recover from copper poisoning or not.

Not sure what else I can do except wait and see what happens.

 

[ScooterV]

I took your comment on separating to mean another tank. Do you have another you could use, or get one soon? You're otherwise ending copper less than 50% of the time which would be needed if continuing in the same tank. Understandable to help this fish to recover, but you'll be back to square one otherwise.

 

[Jack22]

I took your comment on separating to mean another tank. Do you have another you could use, or get one soon? You're otherwise ending copper less than 50% of the time which would be needed if continuing in the same tank. Understandable to help this fish to recover, but you'll be back to square one otherwise.

Unfortunately I don’t have another tank.

My normal routine is to treat every fish with cuperamine for two weeks in QT to start and then reduce the copper and observe for two more weeks in QT. Then I do a fresh water dip and if everything looks good they go in the DT.

The only thing I can think of is that because the Angel is so small, only about 1 1/2 inches at most, the copper was too much for him, but didn’t bother the larger fish.