Brooklynella hostilis

[anenewbie]

Well one month into my first salwater tank and I wiped out. I lost 1 clown already and the other will probably not make it through the night. I am not sure if it was cuased by somthing I did wrong but I thought everything was going great in the tank. The water quality seemed fine. I tested every other day and had not had one spike to speak of.
If I loose both of my fish, will the parasite die off in the tank on it's own with no hosts or do I need to do something to the tank. How long before I put anything back in the tank? 30 days?

 

[aquaman]

Originally posted by anenewbie
Well one month into my first salwater tank and I wiped out. I lost 1 clown already and the other will probably not make it through the night. I am not sure if it was cuased by somthing I did wrong but I thought everything was going great in the tank. The water quality seemed fine. I tested every other day and had not had one spike to speak of.
If I loose both of my fish, will the parasite die off in the tank on it's own with no hosts or do I need to do something to the tank. How long before I put anything back in the tank? 30 days?
My guess is it was not parasites, but they probably did get / have them. What were your levels in the tank? i.e. Ammonia, ph nitrates, nitrites? Give a little history about what you did and had in your tank.

 

[anenewbie]

My ammonia was reading 0.25, my nitrite was 0, and nitrate was 5.0. The tank is a month old. It is a small tank , 15 gallon eclipse, with about 12lbs of live rock. The only thing that shared the tank with the clowns were 2 nassarius snails.
The fish displayed all of the symptoms of Brooklynella hostilis from what I have read here. White bloches on the skin, rapid breathing, swimming erratic, decreased appetite, and laying on their side.

 

[snipe]

.25 of amonia reading is actually alot in a 15 gallon tank. But of course it may be your test kit showing that.

 

[anenewbie]

How long should I wait until I put fish back in the tank?

 

[snipe]

You should be able to add stuff when amonia is 0 nitrites are 0 and nitrates are 20 or below. You should add inverts first and then add fish you would be able to have 3 inch of adult fish in that tank or a pair of clown fish. You should add the clowns at the same time 1 week or two after the inverts and if you dont go with the clowns add 1 fish slowly every week or two until you have maxed out your 3"'s.

 

[anenewbie]

Thanks Snipe for the response. What I meant by the question though was, if the fish had the disease (which I believe that they did) do I need to wait x amount of days so that there are no hosts in the tank. I have read some conflicting articles but I understand that this parasite can not live on its own and that it would die off when the fish did but I just want to make sure. Is it only the fish that can host the disease? The guy at the LFS said to wait 30 days but I am not sure he knew what he was talking about. Nonetheless, I think I will wait just in case. It will give the tank some time to get stable again.