davelin315 March 3, 2012 Author Share March 3, 2012 I may yet check the dead ones, but it's been very difficult to do much of anything as they seem to fall apart when I get them out. It'll be tough to get a skin scraping or get a gill sample. I am down to 5 fish that I can see now and there are two dead ones that are stuck in the rocks and I can't get them as they deteriorate and get eaten by bristle worms - the Yellow Belly Regal and the Pacific Blue Tang. I tried to catch the remaining black ocellaris, the copperband butterfly, the purple tang (not sure how it's not dead), and the solarensis wrasse which is somehow looking like there's not a thing wrong with it when I actually see it. I did catch the lawnmower blenny which is still alive, although I can't imagine it'll make it through the night since the bristle worms were trying to eat it and it was more or less just sitting there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishie March 3, 2012 Share March 3, 2012 Thanks everyone, at this point it's just kind of sad watching them drop and not being able to do anything about it. Lost the 2 Dussumieris at some point today... they went from little babies that were only an inch or two long to 10" fish and even though they weren't the flashiest fish or brightest colored fish in my tank they were probably the ones I was the most attached to. Very sad even reading this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 March 5, 2012 Author Share March 5, 2012 Well, that's it. The rest of the fish are either dead and removed, decaying in the tank because I can't get to them, or simply missing and presumed dead. The last to go were the copperband, the solarensis wrasse, lawnmower blenny, and the purple tang. The solarensis wrasse never showed any signs of anything but dropped dead overnight. I'm back to thinking brook or velvet. MIA are a royal gramma, lycopod, and a yellow tang. Rotting carcasses include the Pacific Blue Tang and Yellow Belly Regal. Dismantling and rebuilding to start as soon as I can figure out what to do with remaining inverts and anemones. If it's a disease that they can carry I have to make the difficult decision on whether to just kill them or attempt to treat them somehow, will have to do the research on how to treat for all of the diseases but I'm fairly certain that whatever I could do to treat them would kill them. I've got 3 tiger tail cucumbers, 2 pink cucumbers, 2 queen conchs, various nassarius snails, some random corals that were being held for school to replace any that died off, and a few bubble tip anemones. In various readings I believe that I've seen that at least one of the protozoan infections can be carried by invertebrates so it will be a tough decision to kill them off if that's the case. Bodies, by the way, were too decayed to do a scraping. This is what leads me to believe it was more likely brook with the tissue sloughing although treatments with formalin and malachite green did not help, nor did freshwater dips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan S March 5, 2012 Share March 5, 2012 Dave - What is your best guess at this time as to what could have happened? I am really nervous adding anything to my tank right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainRon March 5, 2012 Share March 5, 2012 Dave - What is your best guess at this time as to what could have happened? I am really nervous adding anything to my tank right now. I'm back to thinking brook or velvet. This. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 March 5, 2012 Author Share March 5, 2012 The only thing that keeps me from thinking it was brook or velvet is that typically the kill time is within a day or two from what I understand. This took agonizingly long to kill the fish and I would have thought that it would have struck very quickly with all of them. Also, the fact that it killed indiscriminately, hitting both large and small fish without rhyme or reason and killing same species or same genus fish at very different times makes me doubt the diagnosis. I simply couldn't know without scraping the skin, but again, it was pretty much impossible to do that with the condition of the fish when they died and the fact that I didn't want to scrape a fish that had a chance at survival or take a gill clipping from one that was alive (often the fish would completely fall apart when I removed it from the tank). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan March 5, 2012 Share March 5, 2012 (edited) A stretch but could it have been a strain of dino introduced by another fish or invert? PFIESTERIA PISCICIDA (DINOPHYCEAE) It causes massive fish kills the way you describe your fish died; some with lesions, some with no signs, etc. http://nepis.epa.gov...ekPage=x&ZyPURL Well, that's it. The rest of the fish are either dead and removed, decaying in the tank because I can't get to them, or simply missing and presumed dead. The last to go were the copperband, the solarensis wrasse, lawnmower blenny, and the purple tang. The solarensis wrasse never showed any signs of anything but dropped dead overnight. I'm back to thinking brook or velvet. MIA are a royal gramma, lycopod, and a yellow tang. Rotting carcasses include the Pacific Blue Tang and Yellow Belly Regal. Dismantling and rebuilding to start as soon as I can figure out what to do with remaining inverts and anemones. If it's a disease that they can carry I have to make the difficult decision on whether to just kill them or attempt to treat them somehow, will have to do the research on how to treat for all of the diseases but I'm fairly certain that whatever I could do to treat them would kill them. I've got 3 tiger tail cucumbers, 2 pink cucumbers, 2 queen conchs, various nassarius snails, some random corals that were being held for school to replace any that died off, and a few bubble tip anemones. In various readings I believe that I've seen that at least one of the protozoan infections can be carried by invertebrates so it will be a tough decision to kill them off if that's the case. Bodies, by the way, were too decayed to do a scraping. This is what leads me to believe it was more likely brook with the tissue sloughing although treatments with formalin and malachite green did not help, nor did freshwater dips. Edited March 5, 2012 by Jan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 March 5, 2012 Author Share March 5, 2012 No way to really know, but it's possible that something came in and infected the tank with something new. That said, I would think that based on the reading for that particular dinoflagellate it's not the specific one that infected my tank. It says that the toxins typically dissipate within a few hours and with the way the "kill" took place, it lasted far longer than it should have. It's definitely possible, though, that this was in the same grouping of dinoflagellates. I really am leaning towards brook, though, as the excessive mucous on the fish after death points towards it, but again, the lack of consistency with how brook hits a tank and how it hit my tank leads me to doubt that as a diagnosis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan March 5, 2012 Share March 5, 2012 Thetoxins stay in the fish and keep killing them even though it dissipates in thewater a few hours later. Sometimes for days. I had the same dilemma, Dave. Some fish just dropped with no signs, some hadred gills, some had excessive mucous, some where breathing heavy and some justvanished; mated pair of mandarin. I treated for everything. It took 10 days towipe out my fish. The only thing I introduced into my tank at that time was alarge colony of a soft coral that was in someone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luan67 March 5, 2012 Share March 5, 2012 I am assuming that ammonia and nitrite were in the safe range? To decimate the population in that big of a tank that fast is really strange. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 March 5, 2012 Author Share March 5, 2012 Yes, indetectable for both of those. There's so much biological filtration in there that it's nearly impossible to overload it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan S March 5, 2012 Share March 5, 2012 Dave, did any fish look like this clownfish? http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_6/volume_6_1/brooklynella.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 March 6, 2012 Author Share March 6, 2012 One did, but really none of the others showed any signs of it. Also, the signs shown by other fish looked more like ich than that, but again, it could have been anything. Oddly enough, some of the clowns lasted far longer than other fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sen5241b March 7, 2012 Share March 7, 2012 (edited) I am re-thinking quarantine. For small to medium size fish it can't be that expensive. How much would an e-bay tank, a heater and a cheap pump cost? Fun fact: ORA Inc. quarantines new livestock in a separate building for at least 6 months. Edited March 7, 2012 by sen5241b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan S March 7, 2012 Share March 7, 2012 (edited) I am re-thinking quarantine. For small to medium size fish it can't be that expensive. How much would an e-bay tank, a heater and a cheap pump cost? 10g tank at petco: $10 25w heater: $15 maxi jet: $20 You could set it for under $50? cost isnt the factor myself, its space. no where to put another tank! Edited March 7, 2012 by Ryan S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore March 7, 2012 Share March 7, 2012 Just now saw this thread. Wow, that really hurts. Very sorry to hear about the losses. I suppose it's possible some rare deadly dinoflagellate got into the system and wiped everything out, but occam's razor suggests something more mundane like poor water quality that reached a tipping point and allowed multiple opportunistic pathogens that are normally always present to start taking things out. You'd probably find different pathogens on different fish. What is your water change schedule? Let me know if you'd like my thoughts on your filter system if you decide to reboot everything. I know you were battling high nitrates, hence the pellets & resin. Maybe I can stop by and look things over and see if we can figure out any potential improvements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 7, 2012 Share March 7, 2012 Fun fact: ORA Inc. quarantines new livestock in a separate building for at least 6 months. ORA has a large commercial enterprise to protect. I think I even read somewhere that they QT their rock. The downside of QT is that the new livestock must endure an additional tank transfer. For some species, this extra stress, following on the heels of the transfer process, from the field, through wholesalers, and then thru retailers (often in quick succession) is what causes some aquarists to sometimes choose not to QT at home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldReefer March 8, 2012 Share March 8, 2012 I have a 30 gallon QT system sitting dry that I will not need for at least couple of months. It even has a 150 watt MH that might keep a couple of BTAs going for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grav March 8, 2012 Share March 8, 2012 So sorry Dave. FWIW, air dry any equipment. 100% bone dry for 48 hrs. rubbing alcohol spray helps to dry. Either way, totally dry will kill almost any known marine problem. This is a trick I learned from Dr. Whitaker of the N.A.Balt. Not a lecture, but happy to QT stuff for you in the future if you like. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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