mystery disease

[coldjd]

Hey for all the fish docters out there. i resently put a 2.5 inch mandarin dragonet loose in my 125 gallon reef tank wich has 75 pounds of live rock. i tried this once before and the dragonet with in about 12 hrs had visible signs of ich, so this time i came propared. i had preventatives for most diseases in the tank and was ready to add strong ich medicine. so i put this guy in and like i predicted he got ich so i imeadeatly treated and it turned out great he ate great and looked ich free. i finished the treatment. but something wasnt right he was swimming weird and started eating copeopods less and less, today i found him swimming sideways and had a glassed over look and when he settled it was for hrs at a time and i would think he's dead them try to get him out and he would hop a few inchs and stop moveing for a few more hours. i dont no if the ich is just invisible or if there is something less common that my preventatives didnt stop
tank info.
125 gallon round front corner tank
salt- 1.023 spesitis gravity
nitrate- between 0 and 5 mgl
amonia- closs to 0 could be ready alittle higher than that but less then .25 ppm
temp-between 72 and 78 cant remeber were after i walked to the computer
im have a refugium
the tank it nearly a year established
if theres anything else you guys need to see just let me know and i can run a sample to lfs to get a more percise test

 

[teresaq]

Mandrines dont normally get ich. They have a slime coat that prevents it. what you are seeing is prob just sand

 

[coldjd]

i thought the same thing but at the time he was very active and no matter how much he would swim around nothing would fall of so that led me to thing if couldnt be sand. but now that its gone im more worrid about whats makeing him act up now

 

[beth]

As the responses above indicate, mandarians typically do not get ich. Grains of sand sticking to their slimecoat, however, can be mistaken for ich.
It is not advisiable to add medications to display tank. My bet is that doing so is causing problems.

 

[coldjd]

i would agree that the medicine could be doing it but none of the other fish i have and added at the same time are reacting like he is

 

[beth]

That does not mean that the medication is not effecting this fish. Anyway, if you are trying to use reef safe meds in your display, it would be a waste of time, since they are all ineffective.

 

[mr. limpid]

What are you using, if it didn't kill your pods then it won't kill ick. If you truly have ick in your DT then all your fish are effected. You need need to QT all fish treat with copper or hypo and leave DT void of fish for 6-8 weeks. Other wise the ick will never go away.

 

[flower]

Hi,
What I don't understand is that you said you felt prepared if the fish was sick...purchasing all kinds of medicines to be available if you needed it. For the money you spent, you could have gotten a little 10g tank and set up a quarantine tank, the ONLY way to be truely prepared. What Beth was trying to explain is that medicines affect different fish in different ways and maybe your strong medicine was too much for the mandarin. All fish are stressed when they arrive to a new place, thay have been chased and bagged, bounced around and then had to acclimate to a whole new SG, lighting and tankmates....for them they have been moved to another world, that stress makes a fish susceptible to disease.
I am not trying to flame you, or hurt your feelings...sometimes new folks think I'm being mean. See my smile

Welcome to the site, and I hope you stay and learn some important things to make your SW tank the joy it was meant to be.

 

[coldjd]

i do have a qt tank but it have know wat to feed the mandarin in the tank since it has no live rock or substrate for pods to live in. I kept the tank recidents to be very docile carefully selecting what fish to put in and i used a good drip method time, i know were your coming from but its more just alittle disipointing setting up a huge and expensice system like 1-2 years ago and keep failing. i even tested and charged the peramiters of the water befor time to match the water in my tank while he was at the lfs near my house. they hated me for bugging them about peramiters but the first time i left too much to chance and had to be sure this time. but i do indeed understand what your talking about.

 

[beth]

I would suggest doing a water change in your display to dilute out the meds. Then do an assessment on the mandarin. Highly unlikely this fish has ich.

 

[coldjd]

the meds bio degrate in about 3 days but i plan to do water change this weekend and mandarine disapeared. looking for a spike in nitrates soon to see if he died.

 

[egmont33]

here i am sharing a true story about fighting a mystery disease..
Two years ago, actress Kellie Martin's 19-year-old sister Heather suddenly began to suffer from fatigue, an odd skin rash, and a slew of unexplainable health problems. Her symptoms stumped doctor after doctor. The physicians diagnosed her with one illness, then a different one, then yet another, as Heather's friends and family watched the formerly healthy teen become gravely ill.
The doctors couldn't reach a consensus on Heather's ailment. "They would stand out in the hall and argue about what the best way to treat her was," says Martin. "In the meantime, Heather was getting weaker and sicker. It was infuriating." Finally a physician diagnosed Heather with systemic lupus erythematosus, also called simply "lupus."
With lupus, like other autoimmune illnesses, the patient's immune system goes into overdrive and mistakenly attacks the body it is designed to protect. In Heather's case, her body was killing her own kidneys and other vital organs, mistaking them for foreign objects.
Though Heather's disease might seem unusual, 50 million Americans -- 75% of them women -- suffer from autoimmune disorders, according to Virginia Ladd, president and founder of the American Autommune Related Diseases Association, Inc.(AARDA). Because of the threat these illnesses pose to women's health worldwide, the AARDA is currently working with both the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and the World Health Organization to have autoimmune disorders declared a major women's health concern.