HELP - New Firefish Not Looking Good

[mpitzer]

Everyone,

 

I just added this purpl firefish to the tank on Friday.  He has been all good up until now when I went downstairs and he was chilling on the sandbed barely moving.  It looks like he has ich but ive never dealt with it before so I wanted confirmation.  I don't have a QT so that's out of the question unless someone wants to quarantine him.  He also have a strange looking clearish growth or parasite looking thing behind his right fin.  Please let me know if this is ich and how I should treat the tank.  I have a few zoas, palys and a Duncan in the tank.

 

 

[arking_mark]

Picture is not clear enough for me to see anything. Fin stuff could just be some sand...how is behavior and eating. What other fish do you have in the tank? FF can be jumpers so make sure your tank is covered.

 

I have had quite a few FF...new ones like to hide early on in the tank and take a couple weeks sometimes to just hang out. My new Helfichi FF in observation now has been MIA twice now but usually comes out to eat. In another week or two, I expect her to be mostly out and about.

[mpitzer]

yea he was MIA for the first two days.  good now though.  here is a better pic.  wis I could respond to yor q's but my stupid keyboard hates forum for some reason.....this took 3 mins to type

[arking_mark]

I see some spots in that picture. Ick or velvet would be my guess. Lots of info on both of these...

[zygote2k]

If you can't afford a QT system, then you should only buy QT'd fish. Or deal with the consequences of sick fish.

[Jon Lazar]

He also has a strange looking clearish growth or parasite looking thing behind his right fin.

 

It's hard to diagnose if you're not able to post a clear picture.  

 

Instead, go online and look at other peoples' clear pictures of different diseases/parasites and compare that to the firefish's symptoms.  Theres a handful of diseases/parasites that are the most common.   Your firefish is probably suffering from one or more of these. 

 

Good luck!

Edited April 5, 2017 by Jon Lazar

[Bruleyii]

Here a pretty good index with images. https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/fish-disease-index-pictorial-guide.199/

[mpitzer]

Ok, so now that I got a computer that gets along with the forum, ill post more.  Zygote - thanks for the advice, that really helped

 

I bought the purple firefish from Quantum Reefs.  It is a 57G with a six line, two clowns, firefish, royal gramma, orange spotted blenny, skunk cleaner shrimp, tons of snails and a couple hermits.  Yesterday, I found him in the bottom right corner of the tank just laying on the sand looking very lethargic.  He was pretty uninterested during the first minute of feeding but then began moving and picking up the floating scraps.

 

Here is an very close if not exact picture of the parasite (?) behind his right fin.

Edited April 5, 2017 by mpitzer

[mpitzer]

Based on my research, I believe it is velvet as opposed to ich.  When I saw it yesterday, it seemed to be in the very early noticeable stages as I saw a few particles on his body but didn't seem to be on any of the fins yet.  When I get home around 3pm, I will check him and post another picture.  If it is much worse, I will take him out of the tank and put him in a freshwater dip and then a 5G bucket until I can buy a little quarantine tank for him.  If the suspicions are correct, that would mean that the display tank and the rest of the inhabitants will be infected soon if not already, right?

[arking_mark]

If velvet, you can expect most of your fish to be infected and die within 1-2 weeks if not treated.

 

Despite having both an observation tank and QT, I added some delicate fish to my display tank fearing they wouldn't do well in the less stable tanks and their coral requirements. What I thought was Ick and started to treat as such turned out to be velvet. By the time I got everything into the QT it was too late for 5 of my 8 fish. 3 disappeared in tank before I realized it was velvet, and the rest didn't survive QT.

 

Long story short, if you suspect velvet treat ASAP.

 

I have a running QT tank that has been sitting and doing nothing. I was planning on replacing it with a biocube I have sitting around. It's a 20gal tank with all the pumps and stuff. I would be willing to let it go for $80. I live in Rockville. PM me if you want it.

[zygote2k]

velvet is one of those things that can wipe out all of your fish quickly and make you not want to be a fishkeeper. I've rolled the dice and paid a hefty penny to learn this lesson. We now only put fully QT'd fish in our systems and since we started, never had any outbreaks of disease.

You can start a QT in a 5g bucket with an airlift filter pretty cheaply....

[mpitzer]

Alright, I forgot to get a picture but the firefish was looking much worse and almost dead, it looked like it was going in and out of consciousness.  The white spots were more prevalent and were on the fins as well.  I went to the LFS and asked whether they had any problems with velvet in their last shipment .  the owner asked whether it was getting bullied and said it might have just been picked on but in looking at the pics, he said it probably was ich rather than velvet.  He also said firefish skin is so mucousy that it may have just been on the surface.  He also told me if I see any problems, I can bring in the rest of my fish and he can quarantine and treat my fish until I can get a QT.

[arking_mark]

Ick doesn't kill that quick.

[rtelles]

Glad the store will potentially be helping you out, but if there's one lesson to take from all of this, it's to never, ever, ever buy from a LFS (with few exceptions) and put the fish directly into your display without quarantining and/or treating. Unless you're buying from a LFS that has an aggressive quarantining/treatment protocol ala ERC or Reef Escape, expect that any fish you purchase will have, at best, ich, and at worst a number of other illnesses that will kill every fish in your tank. You may get lucky and have a series of relatively healthy fish, but all it takes is one and you'll have to remove everything and treat or they're all going to die. There's no nice way of describing it, and nearly every person in this group has some horror story of deciding that the fish looked healthy at the store and added it directly to their display, only to either lose every one of their fish or have to break down their tank to catch everything to treat. It happened to myself when I sold a few fish to a fellow WAMAS member and received a lovely frag as a thank-you, which I put directly into my display. I learned later that week that all of his fish perished due to velvet from a fish he hadn't quarantined and added directly to his display, and sure enough, I lost 75% of my own within a week as the water or coral itself carried it into my tank.

 

You can either set up a separate treatment/quarantine system yourself, which is actually relatively cheap (lots of threads on this) so long as you only have 1-2 fish go through the process at a time, or you can buy from a treatment-first LFS. You'll pay more upfront, since the LFS' that treat initially eat the cost of the fish that they lose during their treatment (which would normally be sold by other LFS' and the entire loss will be on the customer). Either way, somebody will be paying for the treatment of any fish that is ill during the admittedly terrible collection/shipping process that any non-captive-raised fish goes through. FTR, I've purchased many fish from Quantum and other LFS that don't have a long treatment process automatically baked in, and many of them have been healthy, but I've also lost quite a few during my own quarantine/treatment process because the fish had latent illnesses that I couldn't successfully treat (finding a healthy copperband was a nightmare, though I finally got lucky).

 

Paul B and a few others have more or less circumvented this by feeding healthy foods such as live black worms, clams, LRS, etc, to instead build their fish's immune systems, but they also expect to lose some of their fish as they're introduced to their systems, even if that part is left unspoken. 

 

I don't mean to be a debbie-downer, but it's always so sad to hear about ich and/or velvet outbreaks, because they're preventable, but the industry has very little incentive to treat on their own unless they do so as a premium service.

[mpitzer]

Its an expensive lesson to learn.  I got half of my fish from reef escape and love their dedication to quarantining.  Will go to them from now on.

[paul b]

 

Paul B and a few others have more or less circumvented this by feeding healthy foods such as live black worms, clams, LRS, etc, to instead build their fish's immune systems, but they also expect to lose some of their fish as they're introduced to their systems, even if that part is left unspoken.

That doesn't happen. The only time I lose a fish is if I buy a very sick fish on purpose because I got it very cheap or for free. I may lost that one, and even that is very rare. I also like to sometimes introduce parasite infected fish to boost the immunity of the already immune fish in my tank. 

This has worked over 40 years so far.

[arking_mark]

How is the FF and the rest of the tank? 

[zygote2k]

That doesn't happen. The only time I lose a fish is if I buy a very sick fish on purpose because I got it very cheap or for free. I may lost that one, and even that is very rare. I also like to sometimes introduce parasite infected fish to boost the immunity of the already immune fish in my tank. 

This has worked over 40 years so far.

maybe with ick, but not with velvet.

[paul b]

maybe with ick, but not with velvet.

I know, I hear that almost every day. But in over 40 years I am sure I have introduced velvet at least 50 times so It is in there happily living alongside my fish I am sure. But I realize most people will just say I have been lucky. In 4 years my reef will be fifty years old and of course I am older. I may take the tank down then as it has had a good run and we may downsize. After fifty years if I am still "lucky" I will then buy my first lottery ticket. 

[mpitzer]

Its great to hear all these uplifting Paul B stories!  The purple firefish was even more lethargic the day after I made the post.  I ended up taking him out of the tank and putting him in the freezer to humanely put him down.  All of the tank inhabitants seem to be doing just fine since he has left the tank.  I don't see any signs of sickness from the others although I can almost guarantee the six line wrasse was giving the purple firefish a really hard time because he is now bullying around the red firefish who stays in his rock the majority of the day now.  

[molcott]

to qt/treat something that small just get a simple 10 gallon tank with a hang on filter

[arking_mark]

Love the 6 line wrasse, but won't keep them in my tanks. Have had too many bad experiences with them killing my smaller more delicate fish. I've seen many people able to keep these with no problem, it just never worked well for me.

[mari.harutunian]

Love the 6 line wrasse, but won't keep them in my tanks. Have had too many bad experiences with them killing my smaller more delicate fish. I've seen many people able to keep these with no problem, it just never worked well for me.

I've ever had a problem bc I added my sixline last. Won't even attempt to put one after...

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[zygote2k]

you haven't had a problem with the 6 line...yet.

[mpitzer]

This is unrelated to the firefish situation but would still like some advice about a fatality in the tank that happened last night.  I have had a fairly large orange spotted blenny in the tank for about a month now.  Kind of a bully but not too bad and usually very active.  He loves to 'sleep' and chill up near the overflow teeth throughout the day for whatever reason. I came home around 3pm yesterday and went down to check on the tank....everything is fine and everyone accounted for.  I then departed for two hours for a doctors appointment and got home around 530.  I do not remember if I checked the tank when I came home but when I put the pumps on feed mode, I noticed he wasn't around being the pig he normally is so I look up in the overflow teeth and he is hanging headfirst out of the teeth with his body in the overflow box, still breathing and I caught it right as the overflow water was draining down.  I freed him right away and he quickly swam to the rock and chilled there but didn't eat anything which was strange.  I watched him for about 10 minutes and he sat on the rock the whole time breathing.  So I dunked the baster in there to see if he could move and as soon as I touched him, he quickly swam to the sandy bottom in the shade of the liverock still chilling and breathing.  Inactivity is very strange for him but I just assumed he was stressed or shocked with what happened.  Woke up this morning and he was in the same spot but had perished during the night. 

 

Does anyone have any ideas on how he died?  He couldn't have been in that position in the teeth for more than 2 hours.  Could it be shock or could he have tired himself out trying to get back?  stress?  shock?