alg
Community Member
We've spent the better part of the year preparing to install a 750 gallon tank. A big part of the process was beginning to collect the various fish and coral we'd want to put into that tank, and to quarantine them. We knew we didn't want any chance of disease in this new tank, so we separated our fish and coral, and started the long process of treatment. We have 73 fish right now and over 100 coral specimens. Of course we had our fair share of hiccups. There was the mysterious skin-peeling disease on a triggerfish. There was the comeback-kid monrovia tang. It was a great learning experience.
I wanted to share a few interesting things we've noticed, in case anyone else might find it helpful, and to see if anyone might have some thoughts on our open questions / mysteries:
1) From our experience, Purple Firefish seem to be extremely sensitive to a combination of PraziPro and Cumpramine. We had 3 purple firefish in a sectioned 180 gallon tank with multiple other fish in the system -- tangs, wrasses, jawfish, angels, clowns. We treated PraziPro first: 3 rounds over 15 days (i.e. 1 full dose every 5 days). No problems. Next, we started Cupramine, slowly ramping over 4 days to get to a .5 concentration. After six weeks, our black tang had a severe outbreak of flukes (no other fish showed any symptoms). We added a dose of PraziPro -- we'd combined Prazi with Cupramine before with no adverse effects. Within 10 minutes, 2 of the firefish had gone stiff and were swirling around in their tank. (Other fish, totally fine, not even breathing heavier.) We moved them to an emergency hospital tank that we keep med-free, and they lasted maybe another 10 minutes. One had severe twitching spasms. Because we had to keep treating the black tang, we knew we had to keep adding Prazi, so we only added a 1/4 dose the next time, with the idea that we would add another 1/4 in the evening, and so on. The other firefish was dead within 10 minutes. I'm stumped as to why that one didn't succumb the first time. It seemed perfectly fine while the other two were floating about -- no heavy breathing, no weird behavior. Has anyone else seen this kind of sensitivity in these fish?
2) We purchased 7 total Atlantic Blue tangs from LA -- first a batch of 4, of which all but one died between arrival and 2 days later, and then a replacement batch of 3. The second batch faired much better. But: as soon as they were started in Cupramine, they developed textbook Lymphocystis. This occurred with two separate groups: we started the one from the original set with copper in a different tank at a different time before we started the other three (we did have them all together for a day, but the new 3 picked on the original 1, so we separated them). The symptoms were pretty severe: large white and pinkish-skin-colored nodules, some cauliflower-like, some pebble-like, some more like patches. After about 14 days, the symptoms began to subside, and after about 30 days, the symptoms were gone. Interestingly: an adult Maculiceps had been in the same tank with the set of 3 blues before we started our QT regimen, but we later moved the Maculiceps for space reasons. It developed minor symptoms as well, about 6 days after the onset of symptoms in the Blues. The fish all maintained their appetites during the illness. No other fish showed symptoms -- there are other Acanthurus in the system with the Blues, but not in the same section (so no contact) -- consistent with the general consensus that lympo spreads through contact.
3) Flukes are the devil. I mentioned the Black Tang above. What's even weirder than the fact that only one fish in that system developed symptoms, and it was after a full course of treatment and after over a month of no symptoms -- what's even weirder than that is, we had moved a Purple Tang from that system to another tank after treatment with Prazi but before starting Cupramine. (Cupramine was started in both tanks at the same time, though). This Purple Tang developed a fluke outbreak at the exact same time as the Black, and no other fish in that system showed symptoms either -- and it's with a school of 6 other purple tangs. The outbreak started off looking a lot like ich: a couple of small raised white spots. It spread quickly over the next two days, becoming a thick blanket of white spots with almost velvet-like texture, and then some of the spots began to elongate, dangling off the fish like fringe. Cleared up with Prazi in a few days (although treatment continued of course). Completely bizarre.
4) We do weekly water changes on all the fish QT tanks, but we still will see nitrite and nitrate spikes in some of them. (Like, off the charts spikes.) It never seemed to bother the fish, and it always settled back down on its own. The ammonia never crept over about .1 (never reached the "alert" level on the ammonia badge). Larger water changes didn't seem to help. It wasn't in every tank, and I don't have a good explanation for why it happened in some but not others. In one tank, it may have been that we treated with antibiotics, so had spikes because the nitrifying bacteria that handles nitrite/nitrate grows more slowly than the ones that handle ammonia. But the other tank where we saw spikes had no antibiotics. But, that tank has less material for bacteria to grow, and has had less time for it to grow -- so again, maybe not enough of the different types of nitrifying bacteria / improper bacteria balance.
5) We saw development of Head and Lateral Line Erosion on our Purple Tangs as soon as we put them in copper. They get two (sometimes four) sheets of nori every day, along with vitamin-and-amino-enriched mysis. They are nice and chubby. Some of the tangs developed it more severely than others. There is also a chevron tang in that tank which developed it, but the naso and maculiceps did not. Our other zebrasomas (black, desjardini, gem) in our other tanks never developed HLLE, and they were all in copper. This, to me, indicates that HLLE presents itself in copper because of the suppression of the immune system: not because copper causes the erosion. This would be very similar to the abrupt onset of lympho in copper mentioned above. It also tentatively indicates to me that vitamins / nori may help fish recover, but that HLLE isn't caused by a vitamin or nutrient deficiency. Obviously this is purely anecdotal, and not nearly enough data to draw conclusions -- just my isolated observations. (As an aside, none of the fish have been exposed to carbon, at least while in our care.)
6) I wanted to try to draw conclusions about the way fish tended to die in our QT process, but honestly it really varied. The majority of the deaths we experienced were fish that were DOA or died within a day or two of arrival -- malnourished, stressed, improperly handled. But after that, it's a lot of different cases. Some of the deaths were clearly related to the treatments themselves -- I mentioned the firefish above; we also had a boxfish develop respiratory problems after the first week of acclimating to copper, and despite moving it to a non-copper tank it never recovered. We had a supermale lineatus wrasse die within 24 hours after it developed a bacterial infection on a scrape on its head while in copper. We had a golden angel die of what we believe was internal parasites (in copper). We lost a supermale flame fairy after cleaning the tank it was in and stirring up the particulate matter -- it was perfectly healthy, eating well, and the female in the same tank was fine (no copper). We lost a blue spotted jawfish because *someone* left the tank lid open overnight. It's always something new. Keeps you on your toes. You just have to learn from each experience, and remember the successes, too!
I wanted to share a few interesting things we've noticed, in case anyone else might find it helpful, and to see if anyone might have some thoughts on our open questions / mysteries:
1) From our experience, Purple Firefish seem to be extremely sensitive to a combination of PraziPro and Cumpramine. We had 3 purple firefish in a sectioned 180 gallon tank with multiple other fish in the system -- tangs, wrasses, jawfish, angels, clowns. We treated PraziPro first: 3 rounds over 15 days (i.e. 1 full dose every 5 days). No problems. Next, we started Cupramine, slowly ramping over 4 days to get to a .5 concentration. After six weeks, our black tang had a severe outbreak of flukes (no other fish showed any symptoms). We added a dose of PraziPro -- we'd combined Prazi with Cupramine before with no adverse effects. Within 10 minutes, 2 of the firefish had gone stiff and were swirling around in their tank. (Other fish, totally fine, not even breathing heavier.) We moved them to an emergency hospital tank that we keep med-free, and they lasted maybe another 10 minutes. One had severe twitching spasms. Because we had to keep treating the black tang, we knew we had to keep adding Prazi, so we only added a 1/4 dose the next time, with the idea that we would add another 1/4 in the evening, and so on. The other firefish was dead within 10 minutes. I'm stumped as to why that one didn't succumb the first time. It seemed perfectly fine while the other two were floating about -- no heavy breathing, no weird behavior. Has anyone else seen this kind of sensitivity in these fish?
2) We purchased 7 total Atlantic Blue tangs from LA -- first a batch of 4, of which all but one died between arrival and 2 days later, and then a replacement batch of 3. The second batch faired much better. But: as soon as they were started in Cupramine, they developed textbook Lymphocystis. This occurred with two separate groups: we started the one from the original set with copper in a different tank at a different time before we started the other three (we did have them all together for a day, but the new 3 picked on the original 1, so we separated them). The symptoms were pretty severe: large white and pinkish-skin-colored nodules, some cauliflower-like, some pebble-like, some more like patches. After about 14 days, the symptoms began to subside, and after about 30 days, the symptoms were gone. Interestingly: an adult Maculiceps had been in the same tank with the set of 3 blues before we started our QT regimen, but we later moved the Maculiceps for space reasons. It developed minor symptoms as well, about 6 days after the onset of symptoms in the Blues. The fish all maintained their appetites during the illness. No other fish showed symptoms -- there are other Acanthurus in the system with the Blues, but not in the same section (so no contact) -- consistent with the general consensus that lympo spreads through contact.
3) Flukes are the devil. I mentioned the Black Tang above. What's even weirder than the fact that only one fish in that system developed symptoms, and it was after a full course of treatment and after over a month of no symptoms -- what's even weirder than that is, we had moved a Purple Tang from that system to another tank after treatment with Prazi but before starting Cupramine. (Cupramine was started in both tanks at the same time, though). This Purple Tang developed a fluke outbreak at the exact same time as the Black, and no other fish in that system showed symptoms either -- and it's with a school of 6 other purple tangs. The outbreak started off looking a lot like ich: a couple of small raised white spots. It spread quickly over the next two days, becoming a thick blanket of white spots with almost velvet-like texture, and then some of the spots began to elongate, dangling off the fish like fringe. Cleared up with Prazi in a few days (although treatment continued of course). Completely bizarre.
4) We do weekly water changes on all the fish QT tanks, but we still will see nitrite and nitrate spikes in some of them. (Like, off the charts spikes.) It never seemed to bother the fish, and it always settled back down on its own. The ammonia never crept over about .1 (never reached the "alert" level on the ammonia badge). Larger water changes didn't seem to help. It wasn't in every tank, and I don't have a good explanation for why it happened in some but not others. In one tank, it may have been that we treated with antibiotics, so had spikes because the nitrifying bacteria that handles nitrite/nitrate grows more slowly than the ones that handle ammonia. But the other tank where we saw spikes had no antibiotics. But, that tank has less material for bacteria to grow, and has had less time for it to grow -- so again, maybe not enough of the different types of nitrifying bacteria / improper bacteria balance.
5) We saw development of Head and Lateral Line Erosion on our Purple Tangs as soon as we put them in copper. They get two (sometimes four) sheets of nori every day, along with vitamin-and-amino-enriched mysis. They are nice and chubby. Some of the tangs developed it more severely than others. There is also a chevron tang in that tank which developed it, but the naso and maculiceps did not. Our other zebrasomas (black, desjardini, gem) in our other tanks never developed HLLE, and they were all in copper. This, to me, indicates that HLLE presents itself in copper because of the suppression of the immune system: not because copper causes the erosion. This would be very similar to the abrupt onset of lympho in copper mentioned above. It also tentatively indicates to me that vitamins / nori may help fish recover, but that HLLE isn't caused by a vitamin or nutrient deficiency. Obviously this is purely anecdotal, and not nearly enough data to draw conclusions -- just my isolated observations. (As an aside, none of the fish have been exposed to carbon, at least while in our care.)
6) I wanted to try to draw conclusions about the way fish tended to die in our QT process, but honestly it really varied. The majority of the deaths we experienced were fish that were DOA or died within a day or two of arrival -- malnourished, stressed, improperly handled. But after that, it's a lot of different cases. Some of the deaths were clearly related to the treatments themselves -- I mentioned the firefish above; we also had a boxfish develop respiratory problems after the first week of acclimating to copper, and despite moving it to a non-copper tank it never recovered. We had a supermale lineatus wrasse die within 24 hours after it developed a bacterial infection on a scrape on its head while in copper. We had a golden angel die of what we believe was internal parasites (in copper). We lost a supermale flame fairy after cleaning the tank it was in and stirring up the particulate matter -- it was perfectly healthy, eating well, and the female in the same tank was fine (no copper). We lost a blue spotted jawfish because *someone* left the tank lid open overnight. It's always something new. Keeps you on your toes. You just have to learn from each experience, and remember the successes, too!
