Unknown disease breakout. HELP!

[JCJones]

Our tank is about 6 months old, and we have a break out of an unknown disease. Fish are eating well, tank is at 1.025 and 0.75ppm nitrates. The Clarke clown, purple tank and the cleaner wrasse have a white coating on them, it's not slimy, just seems like its a sheen , do I get worried to just wait it out?

 

[Reefing Madness]

Something doesn't jibe, looks like you have some great looking corals in there also, but theres no way if your Nitrates were that high. Retest with something else, or have your LFS test it for you.
I don't see anything wrong with the fish.

 

[stunreefer Verified Sponsor]

but theres no way if your Nitrates were that high.

Read OP again... says 0.75 ppm Nitrate (not high). Most test kits won't actually test that low of a range.

JCJones, any new additions recently (coral, rock, fish, etc.)? Or completely random outbreak?

 

[Mike J.]

Something doesn't jibe, looks like you have some great looking corals in there also, but theres no way if your Nitrates were that high. Retest with something else, or have your LFS test it for you.
I don't see anything wrong with the fish.

Hey buddy, stunreefer beat me to it. (.75ppm) My Red Sea test says it's accurate to .12 ppm.

JCJones, wish I could see a close up of a fish with the slime problem you're talking about.

 

[JCJones]

Just seen the uv filter build has gone... Wonder if that's the root of our problem. We bought it after the last outbreak of marine velvet 4 months ago. I use the Red Sea nitrate test kit, as our previous reagents could measure that low accurately. The tank is going to twilight, so when it settles (just done a 20% water change) I will post photos. It seems to show up more in the blue light.
Ps thanks for the comment on the coral Reefing Madness.

 

[JCJones]

Light is too dark to take a good photo... Basically it looks like they have dandruff.... But here is a shot of the tank anyway

 

[Mike J.]

What you're describing sounds like Marine Ich. Look at the photo of the Powder Blue here:

Marine Fish Diseases and Parasites

 

[Reefing Madness]

What you're describing sounds like Marine Ich. Look at the photo of the Powder Blue here:

Marine Fish Diseases and Parasites

Yup, sounds like Marine Ich to me also.

 

[JCJones]

Slightly better pictures of the "outbreak".. All are still eating, with the exception of the larger cleaner wrasse..

 

[rlman41299]

Looks like a bacterial i fection based on the cloudy and slightly bulging eyes. I have used Furan 2 when i had a bacterial infection. You would need a hospital tank to treat all fish.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Yup, looks like Marine Ich to me.

 

[JCJones]

Whatever it was has done through the tank and decimated it. I'm gutted, we have lost half a dozen fish, the rest are clinging on by their gills. It's a well established tank so getting them out isn't a problem, unfortunately neither was getting the bodies out. Whole tank is barely clinging to life. Did a 69% water change, more to go tomorrow. I'm heart broken.

 

[JCJones]

It's an issue...

 

[JCJones]

I must be gutted. Getting the, out isn't an option without tearing the tank apart.

 

[guidedbyechoes]

Your options are to tear down and get them out alive or tear down and get them out dead. Fish rarely survive ich.

 

[H2O]

It's ich not as bad as people think its due to some kind of stress mostly happens when water par are off the chart ..
What u use to test the salnity I would double check it with someone that has a tank in good shape and your temperature if the tank got cold or hot one day that would make the fish break out with ich check the heater those things go bad often and check all equipment for electricity leak I had a korila pump ones that had some electric shocking the fish

 

[guidedbyechoes]

It's ich not as bad as people think its due to some kind of stress mostly happens when water par are off the chart ..
What u use to test the salnity I would double check it with someone that has a tank in good shape and your temperature if the tank got cold or hot one day that would make the fish break out with ich check the heater those things go bad often and check all equipment for electricity leak I had a korila pump ones that had some electric shocking the fish

I think it's possible people mistake ich for velvet. I thought I had velvet and treated for it right away in the quarantine the fish still died. It's really discouraging when your first fish dies before it gets in the dt. But on the upside it didn't kill everything like I've seen it do in others tanks.

 

[JCJones]

Unfortunately, it ended up being tear it down when it's dead. Whole tank is gone, we have 4 bangaii cardinals left in our QT tank.
I will be taking a break for a while, while I mentally regroup. I'm gutted.
Next tank setup will be much more minimalist so if anything happens again at least I can get the fish out and into QT.
At least I have my photos of what it used to look like

 

[mandinga]

Tank doesn't need to be broken down!

Just needs to run fallow, fishless, for 10 weeks. Parasites will die without a host.

 

[JCJones]

Because of the huge number of dead fish and crazily large amount of rock, we had to take the rocks out to get the corpses out. The coral all died too, massive ammonia spike. The tank started to stink of death so we decided to take it apart, clean it out and will start again in while. We have an aqua one cube to set up in the bedroom first.