Beth I need Your help!!!

[trisha]

Hello! My name is Trisha and I have recently started posting on this message board. You may have seen some of my posts, I have just opened a new fish store. I am having a bit of a problem with my saltwater tanks ( well, one of the units anyway) I have four saltwater units, one of them is infected with something, I believe is Brookynella. The fish seem to have a white haze over them. I took them out of the tank, performed formalin baths and have them in a 100 gallon hospital tank ( I have some pretty big fish so I need the room) and am in the middle of Hypo.
When I noticed the disease, and put them all in the QT, I drained all but about an inch of water from the tanks (12 of them) and let them sit overnight. The next day I added new aged saltwater into the tanks and kept the temp up to about 92 degrees. I have slowly been bringing the temp down, and now I am at normal temperature. My fish are still in the QT and seem to be doing fine, they eat fine, they swim, no labored breathing, nothing. still a little milky on my sweetlips, but the others seem to be doing great. How long do you think it will take to be able to put them back in?
Thanks for the help!!

 

[beth]

How many fish were "infected" and what type of fish were infected> A white-grey haze is more a symptom of a bacterial problem then brook. With brook, the white will actually peal off. Take a look at the pic of the clownfish in the FAQ thread. That is an example of brook. Also, take a look at the formalin bathe treatment in the FAQ Thread. Three bathes are needed.
More info needed.
Glad to hear that a LFS owner is doing right by your fish!

 

[trisha]

When I noticed the fish with the white haze over them, I put them into the QT tank. After performing Hypo, I noticed that stringy stuff was just shedding right off of them, this is why I thought that it was Brookynella. I have formalin and furan at my store. I am going to do that tomorrow.
I have a sweetlips (about 5"), Sailfin Tang (about 3"), 2 Tomato Clowns, Dogface Puffer, 2 Spotted Hawkfish, White Line Squirrell fish, and a Kole Tang. I was REALLY hesitant to put all of these into the QT, but I figured that since I have such a large QT tank, I thought, better than letting them die. They are not bothering each other at all. The only thing that I lost so far was my Radiatta Lion fish (he was about 6" or so).
As far as my main display goes, when do you think that I can return them? Is there anything that I can put into my main display tanks that may prevent things like this? I have an invert holder that is seperate from the tanks, and I also keep all of my corals in seperate systems. I wanted to keep everything seperate.
I am so funny about all of my fish in my store, its like they are my children or something. I don't want to risk the chance of them having something and then someone buy it and their tanks get it. I had a lady want to buy my dogface puffer, but I explained to her that he was sick and in the "hospital". She told me that no LFS has ever told her that one before! LOL (this is exactly why I wanted to open a store) I want people to have fish that are healthy and I'll do whatever it takes to accomplish that.
Thanks so much.

 

[trisha]

I have a question about the preventative part of any diseases or fungus that may come on fish that are new from the fish farm. While i am acclimating them, i use the drip methodand usually drip them for about three hours with all the lights off and kept off until the next day, do you think that it would be wise to do a formalin bath on these while acclimating, or do you think that this would be too stressful? Maybe a freshwater dip before putting into the display tanks?

 

[krowleey]

the LFS here use UV steralizers in thier system, and they NEVER have a problem. you will never walk into that store and see a dead or sick fish, If i owned a fish store i would be using a big UV or two or three to keep anything bad in the water dead, btw never have i had a fish from this store with ich. I have a question for you tho, how can you make any money if you do hypo on all your fish you sell? while i think hypo may be great for the home aquarist it doesnt seem logical for a retail business, look into UV and the benifits it gives. and for anyone that bags on UV it usually means they never used one and are just unsure what it can do.

 

[trisha]

I have the marineland Mars systems, equipped with a UV Light, Protein Skimmer, Bio Wheels, Heater and Refridgerator. The only fish that I perform Hypo on are the sick ones that I have right now that are in it. My ohter 3 saltwater units are fine (12 tanks each unit) I think one of the fish I got had something and it spread to my others in that unit. I am looking to find a preventitive method so I won't have this problem in the future.

 

[krowleey]

i believe the LFS here runs 3 120 watt UV's i believe they also have 12 units truvu system that runs into the back with a huge sump and monster skimmer that also includes bioballs. what size is your UV light? how old is the bulb? how much water in gallons is it doing? UV is a idea for prevenative, but prolly QT them for a week before putting them out in display would also be a good way to treat fish behind the scenes without having to tell people you have sick fish. good luck, i know it has to be a hard business to run

 

[trisha]

These UV lights were all replaced when we started the system. I wanted to make sure that everything was new and working properly. as far as The UV wattage, I'm not sure. I call marineland and they have a certain type of UV light that I have to put in it. I know it runs the water from the pump and my pump is running 2200 gph. I cannot QT all of the fish I get. I have a 100gal QT tank, but I get a lot of fish in. I definately want my fish to be healty and the customer who buys them to be satisfied with their new addition. I am mainly concerned if there is anything else that I can do to my tanks (display)

 

[beth]

trisha, you should follow the procedure for brook on all the fish that were symptomatic, and even all the fish that shared the tank with infected fish. Brook is highly contagious but it is contagious more from fish contact to fish contact than in the water column. Perform the procedure as outlined in the FAQ Thread then wait 7 days at least before returning the fish to main tank. 3 wks wait time would be ideal.
I agree a quality UV in a fish store would be good for FISH tanks only. However, don’t count on the UV being a cure-all because it is not. It can help, however.
I would not use formalin bath unless absolutely necessary on sick fish where this medication is helpful. Formalin is formaldehyde, and very potent [toxic]. Thus, you do not want to expose fish to it unnecessarily.
As far as "preventative", the only way is to QT all incoming fish. Can you reasonably do this as a person in business? If so, then, I'd say you're the exception and my hat goes off to you.
Trisha, I would be very interested in talking to you about how you got started in the fish store business. If don’t mind talking, you can email me at beth@saltwaterfish.com. Please put Saltwaterfish.com in the Subject line to be sure that I don’t toss your mail out with spam.