Sudden fish deaths

[MikeCizzle]

It's always a hassle for me to QT my fish. I've used Safety Stop by Blue Life for a while now. So far so good. It always sucks to loose our fish to diseases but it's always a gamble. I've seen people that QT their fish for weeks only for the fish to still break out with ick once placed in the display. Good luck and I hope everything recovers well.

 

[ReefSTX]

It's always a hassle for me to QT my fish. I've used Safety Stop by Blue Life for a while now. So far so good. It always sucks to loose our fish to diseases but it's always a gamble. I've seen people that QT their fish for weeks only for the fish to still break out with ick once placed in the display. Good luck and I hope everything recovers well.

Thanks Mike! I just hooked up the food grade co2. This time I made sure to source it from a local brewery supply store, they reassured me of the co2 purity. Fingers crossed, hoping this was just a case of impure secondary gasses leaching into the system. Additionally I plan to do a large water change and run carbon like you suggested to ensure any lingering gasses/chemicals are taken out as much as possible.

 

[ReefSTX]

Quick update.

Miraculously my melanurus survived the fish wipe out. I am beginning to suspect use of dirty (welding/industrial) co2 was indeed the issue, possibly leaching unknown contaminants into the water. I say this because when I first observed the heavy breathing and skin lesions, ammonia or lack of oxygen came to mind. However, both of these were tested for here at home and at my LFS with both tests reading 0; ammonia, 8 - 8.2; ph. Yet fish continued to show rapid breathing with no observable indications of ich or velvet or any of the kind on their exteriors. And as well all know now they succumbed.

Yesterday I safely purged out the industrial grade co2 and refilled the tank with food grade. Got the calcium reactor back online. This morning I found my melanurus wrasse swimming around hunting for food on the rock. No signs of distress whatsoever. Interestingly enough, some of my acros finally displayed some bleaching etc. likely because of all the changes and my hands frequently going in the water to make adjustments. So I suppose pinpointing their distress is a bit more difficult, since acros are more sensitive and hate being touched, moved, constantly. Whether or not it was due to the co2 is a toss up.

• Is it possible that whatever secondary gasses were in the industrial grade co2 only affected the fish? Perhaps it's because it's easier to view initial distress in fish compared to coral?

• If it was velvet shouldn't the wrasse still show some symptoms, given the aggressive nature of the life cycle?

For now, all I know is the wrasse is okay and so is 70% of coral. Still early though so I am holding off on adding anything new until I can be sure it was co2 or velvet.

 

[cmcoker]

I would add a couple black freshwater mollies, they will not have immunity to saltwater disease and could show if there is velvet in the tank.

Some time ago @4FordFamily had a strain of velvet with atypical symptoms, though it was slower on fish losses iirc. Perhaps he will comment on that.

It wouldnt surprise me if a wrasse made it through an outbreak, from what I have read they are some of the more resistant fish and can be silent carriers

 

[4FordFamily]

I would add a couple black freshwater mollies, they will not have immunity to saltwater disease and could show if there is velvet in the tank.

Some time ago @4FordFamily had a strain of velvet with atypical symptoms, though it was slower on fish losses iirc. Perhaps he will comment on that.

It wouldnt surprise me if a wrasse made it through an outbreak, from what I have read they are some of the more resistant fish and can be silent carriers

Yeah the strain I ran in to was quick to kill new fish, within 3-5 days (especially angels and tangs) but existing fish had slowly built a resistance to it and it took longer to kill them. They didn’t show white spots, this strain killed via the gills before any spots or “dusting” showed until one of my new tangs finally showed the normal velvet spots.

I was sure I identified the culprit each time I did something to the tank only to find out it was “stealth velvet” as I called it. I felt dumb, I should have known!

 

[ReefSTX]

Alright, so the wrasse is still alive. It has been alive for a week now, and noticed some changes in its behavior. It is no longer breathing heavily/rapidly nor has its mouth open. Two days ago I added a small damsel to test for parasite/disease, and it seems I am dealing with some type of disease/parasite since the damsel died the following day, exhibiting identical symptoms.

For the time being, I am considering leaving the wrasse in the DT to observe in time whether characteristics of velvet manifest. Otherwise, still considering gill flukes as a possibility.

It is important to note; the wrasse ate the entire time under gill/oxygen stress.

 

[BannerFish]

Alright, so the wrasse is still alive. It has been alive for a week now, and noticed some changes in its behavior. It is no longer breathing heavily/rapidly nor has its mouth open. Two days ago I added a small damsel to test for parasite/disease, and it seems I am dealing with some type of disease/parasite since the damsel died the following day, exhibiting identical symptoms.

For the time being, I am considering leaving the wrasse in the DT to observe in time whether characteristics of velvet manifest. Otherwise, still considering gill flukes as a possibility.

It is important to note; the wrasse ate the entire time under gill/oxygen stress.

Sorry for your loss. Sucks to Loose livestock

I had a similar situation sometime back, what i did was i removed all the fish i could to a QT and reduced the salinity to 1.007. Overnight all the fish that were moved to QT showed improvement and survived. But the ones that were in the DT continue to die except for 2 damsels.

using marine fish to test the DT is not a good idea because the fish that you are adding could be resistant to the disease in your tank. best is to use black mollies to test

PH is not an issue at all for fish, i have my fish @ 7 ish in the QT. This is better because if there was an ammonia spike your fish can handle it better than in higher PH.

If the issue was with CO2 you would have seen it in your corals way before the fish.

best of luck for round two