What could be killing my fish?

[marinap]

I am leaning towards velvet. Brook is more clownfish-specific, even though it can affect other fish. Copper is the only med that cures velvet. Can you post a pic of the sick fish?

[Jan]

Thanks everyone for your replies, suggestions and most importantly your support. I'm exhausted! I was up until 6am treating the surviving fish with hypo salinity at 1.009. The skin on the severely affected clowns became more visible more patchy. Mucous started to slough off of the the other fish. Then I changed the water and brought it up to 1.024 SG and gave a full dose of copper as per mfr recommendations. So far they're all doing very well. I lost 2 out of the 4 clowns. The 2 that I lost were lethargic and had severe respiratory problems when I was able to finally catch them. My guess is that no matter what I did these 2 weren't going to make it. they were too far gone. The others are looking much better. All the white patches are gone. My only concern is the engineer goby. It looks blind. It's eyes look like they are covered with an opaque film. I'll try to get a picture of it.

 

I just red in the link below that I trreat my mixed reef with Revive for velvet and wont harm my corals. Has anyone heard of this before? http://www.seymouraq...et_disease2.htm

 

 

I am leaning towards velvet. Brook is more clownfish-specific, even though it can affect other fish. Copper is the only med that cures velvet. Can you post a pic of the sick fish?

Edited July 24, 2011 by Jan

[Jan]

Okay so I've got Formalin 3 thanks to Tony (Thank you so much!). As I was getting another tank ready to dip the fish my 17" engineer goby poop out a lima bean size glob of brown rust colored gelatinous goo. I will take a picture and post it. I've never seen anything like this. So I'm thinking intestinal parasites as well as ich and maybe brooklynella or velvet. I say brooklynella because the powdery white stuff on my clowns cleared up a little but they have these slimey white patches on their sides towards their tail. The engineer goby is covered in white powdery slime. It lookes like it was dusted with powder. As I mentioned earlier it also looks blind but it's moving around fine and trying to eat. What the heck happened here? The one survivng PJ cardinal is darker and all the white grainy stuff is gone. Could I have had all of these diseases in my tank?

Edited July 25, 2011 by Jan

[FearTheTerps]

my 17" engineer goby poop out a lima bean size glob of brown rust colored gelatinous goo. I will take a picture and post it.

 

Too bad it wasnt red white or blue, that would win Picture Of The Month for sure.

 

All kidding aside, sorry about the fish, I hope the rest pull through. I would say that the weakened state of your fish has just led to secondary problems, which is why you see different symptoms in different fish.

Edited July 25, 2011 by FearTheTerps

[Jan]

Edited July 25, 2011 by Jan

[FearTheTerps]

Yea, I would say he has some type of internal parasite, Thats what I would treat for first.

[Jan]

Definately parasite infected poop. when I did a water change the brown stuff broke down and out emerged a what looked like a 3" white worm with a flat round head. It was wrapped in the poop. I love this hobby but sometimes it really grosses me out.

 

Idid the Fromalin dip for no more than 50 mins as recomended by the mfr and everyone was fine. I dipped them in waer that was not medicated for a few seconds before I placed them back into the hospital tank with copper.

 

BTW on a members recomendation I purchased Ich Attack which is a 100% organic "reef safe" treatment for Ich. I read as many reviews as I could find and they were all good, Many claim to have had great success with this product. So far all my corals and inverts are still alive and appear unaffected by the addition of this product in the tank.

Thanks everyone! I'm exhausted....................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Edited July 25, 2011 by Jan

[Tri Bui]

If you are using Glass temp heater make sure it not broken or crack which mercury will leak into the water and it will kill everything in the tank slowly. It happened to me many year ago. My 75g tank started having issue everything start to die slowly but I can't find the problem. Fishes stop eating, corals start to bleach, LPS no longer open same with the RBTA's? One day I start tracing everything from top to bottom finally I found the glass heater in the sump was cracked and all the Mercury slowly sipping out. I hope this is not what you going thru! Keep us posted on your problem.

[Jan]

I'm not sure what this is. I dipped all the fish in Formalin 3 last night then I placed them all back in the tank with the copper. All the fish look alright today except for the clownfish. They have white powdery slime all over them again. The goby looks better. I'm going to take the clowns out of the copper tank and put them in a tank with less formalin see how they do. This is nuts!

 

 

I am leaning towards velvet. Brook is more clownfish-specific, even though it can affect other fish. Copper is the only med that cures velvet. Can you post a pic of the sick fish?

[Jan]

Thanks but the heater in the main display is fine. All livestcok is doing great in there. There's still 4 fish in that tank that I could not catch and they are doing fine. I'm dosing that tank with "Ich Attack" an organic reef safe ich eliminator.

 

If you are using Glass temp heater make sure it not broken or crack which mercury will leak into the water and it will kill everything in the tank slowly. It happened to me many year ago. My 75g tank started having issue everything start to die slowly but I can't find the problem. Fishes stop eating, corals start to bleach, LPS no longer open same with the RBTA's? One day I start tracing everything from top to bottom finally I found the glass heater in the sump was cracked and all the Mercury slowly sipping out. I hope this is not what you going thru! Keep us posted on your problem.

Edited July 25, 2011 by Jan

[TonyD]

Okay so I've got Formalin 3 thanks to Tony (Thank you so much!). As I was getting another tank ready to dip the fish my 17" engineer goby poop out a lima bean size glob of brown rust colored gelatinous goo. I will take a picture and post it. I've never seen anything like this. So I'm thinking intestinal parasites as well as ich and maybe brooklynella or velvet. I say brooklynella because the powdery white stuff on my clowns cleared up a little but they have these slimey white patches on their sides towards their tail. The engineer goby is covered in white powdery slime. It lookes like it was dusted with powder. As I mentioned earlier it also looks blind but it's moving around fine and trying to eat. What the heck happened here? The one survivng PJ cardinal is darker and all the white grainy stuff is gone. Could I have had all of these diseases in my tank?

 

You're welcome. I'm glad someone could use it. Hope everyone makes it out of this ok. Keep us posted.

[Jan]

I'm sorry I've not gotten back to everyone. Once you started to give me some direction on how to handle this situation, what to use to treat, how to treat, what could be causing all these mortalities, etc. I jumped right into researching and trying to save the few fish I have left. I've been up to all hours of the morning dosing, dipping, changing water and watching over these fish. I would not have known where to start, what to look for or how to treat if it weren't for all of you. My sincerest heartfelt thanks for all your suggestions and sound advice.

Jan