Help!!

[awall]

I've had my tank set up for over a year, but like all people, I made some mistakes, lost a few fish. After my last original fish died a couple months ago I was about to give up, but decided to start over. The tank had that couple months to cycle without fish, I thought it was nicely established and was ready to try again. So I spent about $200 on various fish, put them in and everything seemed to be doing great until a couple days ago. I noticed some discoloration but only in spots...kinda like they'd been hit with bleach. MY six line wrasse was the first to show these signs, it showed them for about a week then died yesterday. This morning I noticed my mandarin dragonet had the same discoloration, it was dead 2 hours later. I tested the water, and all the tests came up looking good. So my question is what could be causing this and how can I fix it?

 

[elfdoctors]

Welcome to the Boards!
Beth, who is the usual guru here appears to be on vacation. I am trying to help out in her absence.
Do you quarantine? If not, a disease is more likely than a water chemistry problem. I would wonder about Brooklynella based upon your symptoms. There is more information including pictures of fish in the stickies at the top of this forum. See if the spots look like brooklynella.
What other fish are in your tank? Brooklynella is more liikely if one of the fish you added was a clownfish.

 

[awall]

I have 2 devil damsels (bought 2 cuz I didn't expect both to live), I have a neon damsel, coral beauty angel, cinnamon clown (I had to laugh when I read your post), lawnmower blenny, and I did have a six line wrasse and a mandarin dragonet, but they died. I also have some inverts...cleaner shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp that are MIA, and some hermit crabs on the way. I've had people telling me I have too many fish, but I really don't think I do....asked several people when I was shopping for fish. Then I have some people telling me that the tank couldn't clean up and I have an ammonia problem but I tested the water...several times today. It's fine.

 

[elfdoctors]

A 35 gallon tall tank has a lower stocking capacity than a 35 long tank as the height interferes with oxygenation.
The absolute highest stocking ratio I would try to go is 1 inch of the adult length of your fish for every two gallons of your tank (for an established tank like yours).

 

[awall]

Well like I said...I don't have many fish in there, especially now. They keep dying. It looks like my dottyback is gonna be next. I looked at the diseased fish pictures and I'm pretty sure they have brooklynella. You said they come from clownfish...does this mean I can avoid the disease by avoiding clownfish? Also, now that I know what my fish have, how can I treat it? I found on a website that one way is to do a freshwater dip at the same temperature and ph as the marine tank. I'm assuming this means the parasite can't live in freshwater. Also, if I do the freshwater dip, how much with that stress my fish out? I've noticed with my freshwater tank, the more stressed they are, the more susceptible they are. I'm guessing the same is true for marine life. And what about my inverts? Will they get it too? Lots of questions...I appreciate your help.

 

[elfdoctors]

The preferred treatment for brooklynella is formalin baths. The procedure for this is outlined in the sticky at the top of this forum.
The way to prevent your tank from getting infected is to quarantine your fish. Any fish can have brooklynella but it is particularly common in clownfish (similar to ich being particularly common in tangs).

 

[awall]

The closest thing to formalin I could find was a treatment called Formalite...is it the same thing? Unfortunately I couldn't compare ingredients or anything. I ended up buying a natural treatment called Pimafix that is supposed to work on all parasites without hurting my shrimp and other inverts.