MY TANK IS DIESEASED! HELP!!!!

[ladyhart]

MY FISH HAVE GOTTEN WHAT I THOUGHT WAS "ICK" BUT TWO DAYS AFTER TREATMENT I HAVE LOST TWO MORE FISH AND I AM SEEING WORM LIKE THINGS FLOATING IN THE WATER... NOT ON THE FISH?? THIS IS A FISH ONLY TANK AND I AM TREATING THE MAIN TANK. THIS IS MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH DISEASE.... CAN SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME SOME INSIGHT??? THANKS!!

 

[hockeyplyr]

Chill
The best thing you could do is remove the fish that are infected to a hospital tank. But if as you say they are all infected you need to treat hole tank and you lucky its a fish only tank. I wouldnt worry too much about the ones you see swimming around but if they are some sort of parisite you need to kill them fast.
The cheapest and easiest thing you can do is drop your salinity or SG. Do you have Inveribrates of any kind? The reason I ask is that they will not be able to handle the drop in salinity like the fish. Ive had fish living in salinitys as low as 10(SG 1.014), this will realy help kill any parasites, if that dosnt work alone use copper safe or any other copper additive. Again be careful of any inverts. If you have any fish with signs of infection fresh water dip them. get a small 2 gal tank make sure its the same PH and temp as show tank and net your sick fish one at a time and let them sit in there for about 1 to 2 min. you may want to put some stress coat in there to. do this gently depending on the fish and how sick it is. this could shock it. But for the most part Ive don this with great success.
You may want to invest in an UV sterilizer to in the future this kills of any water born nastys. works good.
hope I helped
And be carful if you use copper follow the dosage to the letter levels higher than 3 ppm of Cu can harm the fish and any copper kills inverts
good luck

 

[ladyhart]

hey thanks for replying!! I am already treating with a copper based treatment from Organicure. I had done some reading prior to this and i know that a good treatment level is around .25 but i have dosed the tank three times since thursday morning(the directions only say once every 48 hrs) and ican only get the copper level to .10??? and as i said i have already lost two more fish. I do not have any inverts and i am working on a HT. Can I still use the hyposalinity route even though I have already started the copper treatment??? Thanks in advance!!!

 

[ofalegend]

ladyhart,
I am by no means or measure an expert on disease, so as always I will default to the experts. However, it is my understanding that a freshwater dip will *not* help the situation, only serve to stress the fish even more. Also the copper based medications weren't a great idea, especially if you have any intention of ever adding inverts or corals. They cannot tolerate the copper, and it will most likely seep into the crush coral, or whatever substrate/rock you may have in the tank. From what I have read on these boards, the most effective treatment and the most recommended is hyposalinity in a quarantine tank. But again, I certainly default to the experts when they come along to offer more advice.
~M

 

[hockeyplyr]

Listen good questions. you probably cant get the copper level up if you have you carbon still in your filter and if you have a lot of rock then that can also absorb alot of it.
And to answer the other two posts I did tell her that the first thing she should try is lowering salinity and furthermore I said that the best thing to do is Isolate fish in hospital tank but because the entire tank is infested it realy dosnt mater anymore does it. So IMO you dont need to isolate any thing.
Also I said to be carful when fresh water dipping because it could stress the fish. And it does work I have done it before and cure fish of parisites, white spot , ich . but like I said all fish are different, some damsels are hardier then others, groupers very hardy Ive fresh water dipped them and they didnt even have a problem, fish like angles be careful , get the picture.
Let me also reiterate that all treatments for fish can be bad for inverts No inverts no problem.
If you ever plan to put inverts in tank then you need to get all traces of copper out of tank Polyfilter pads work great for everythink from copper to phosphates and other meds like penicilin.
And it is never too late to drop your salinity (If NO INVERTS) Again I said that should have been your first try.
Do you have a UV Sterilizer? you didnt answer me the first time they work very well.
Hope I am helping good luck and keep me informed

 

[ladyhart]

Thank you all very much for your advice. I think the rock and coral substrate were mt prblem with the copper bc I did take my carbon filter out. But I will put it back in and start working on getting the copper out and starting hyposalinity.
I have to tell you guys too. I AM SO GLAD I HAVE FOUND THIS SITE!!!!! I had been depending on the LFS and a couple books..... never again!!! Especially the LFS!!! The LFS or the book I have never says a word about hypo and it seems to make so much more sense!! If I had found you guys first I would have definitely started with hypo in the first place!!
I do not have a UV sterilizer but I will definitely put it on my to get list!!!!
Again thanks so much for your help!!!!!

 

[dwf]

I have had very good results treating my fish with garlic soaked foods. It takes a month til you see results but so far for me it has worked every time. You can get liquid garlic from a health food store. It has other healthy benefits for the fish too. It also will not affect inverts. You can use it along with hypo salinity too. I introduced a new hippo tang to my tank about two months ago. Within 24 hrs he stressed and was covered with ich. I began feeding him garlic soaked foods daily and letting him eat all he wanted to help build his defenses. He now is completely ich free and growing like a bad weed.
Good Luck

 

[ladyhart]

Anthem, I have bought everything from Animal Jungle which I was very impressed with by selection,what appears to be fish quality and there was one person who really did a lot of explaining but he was a marine biologist and apparently only works weekends. I was just not very impressed this week when I went in to have my dead boxfish examined for a second opinion... "is it "ich" or what?" and we got a very smart joking response and then I explained that I was looking for a second opinion... it was like.... "yeah, I think your right try this medication" No explanation or anything. If I hadnt already done some research I wouldnt even have known to take the carbon out or get the copper test. Again... thanks for your help!!

 

[ladyhart]

Anthem, I will definitely check out Fish Safari. Thanks! I have started the hyposalinity and have the water down to 1.015 right now. I havent lost any more fish but my flounder and my tang are breathing pretty heavy and the flounder wont eat. But at least it seems to have slowed the process down some already or they propbably would have been gone already like my boxfish and grouper. Thanks again!!! I am so glad I found this resource!!!

 

[ladyhart]

Terry, he stopped eating after I started dropping the salinity but he did finally eat one piece of krill this afternoon. And I also read in the marine book I have that they easily adapt between salt and fresh water. I hope that is true!!! <img src="graemlins//confused.gif" border="0" alt="[confused]" /> The flounder and the tang also seem not to be scratching so much. I've got my fingers crossed anyway!!! Thanks, I will keep you guys posted!! My flounder is my favorite he is really fun to watch!!

 

[ladyhart]

I have another question.. I also posted this in the reef section but I figured I would try here too. I realize I screwed up when I put the fish in the tank too early and triggered my ich case. I have been reading alot here and I am wondering what I can do to insure that the tank cycles now as it should. Should I go ahead and add a sump and protein skimmer. Also when and how should I get rid of my c/c and add a dsb and some l/r. The tank right now has 2 damsels, 2 clowns, a yellow tang and the peacock flounder. No inverts, coral or l/r. Thanks!

 

[ladyhart]

Ed, Again thank you so much for the help! I think I will go ahead and let the fish heal and over the next 30 days I will buy the new stuff over that period of time instead of all at once. I've got to get new lighting too! Have you had any experience buying from ----? I am starting my QT tank today with "the basic" spares I already have. So I guess when that cycles I can use that to cure my rock right? Again thank you so much!!
ps- when I do start adding l/r and the dsb should I put my fish in the Q/T tank and just start the 55 over and allow it to cycle properly since thats where I screwed up the first time?