Need Help!

[shawna1972]

Hi Everyone,
This is my very first post and sad to say it's a sad one

I started my 125 gallon reef in october of this year. I had a total of 4 fish ,2 percula clowns
1 yellow tang and 1 long nosed butterfly>>which I just added about 3 weeks ago <<No QT >>>I could kick myself now !!!
anyways all the fish were in my main display when my long nosed got sick, he developed white spots >> not ick I don't think it was like a flour coating and spots were very tiny then my clowns developed the same spots but they also had stringy stuff on their fins then last my beautiful big yellow tang developed the spots then cloudy eyes with looked like a fluffy cotton over them then red ulcers on his body he was last seen hanging out directly in font of my power head before he went to the bottom and died
I called every lfs and went online night after night trying to figure out what this was and everyone told me it was ick so I purchased chem marins stop parasite tried it in my main display and lost a snail so that went in the garbage then ran carbon water change ect...
someone had said try kick ich so I did >>didnt see any results except for my long nosed died
so then someone told me to treat them for bacterial "first" because that would kill them before the ick so I did and I got something called melafix<<<, brought a qt tank and put the tang in their with the 2 clowns and treated with the melafix. >>>all fish dead!
I am not knocking any of these products I mentioned above Im just upset that they didnt work for me. Im mostly upset at myself because I was not aware i should be qt <<<as I didnt know you were sapose to up until my fish were sick . I am now being told it doesn't sound like it was ick that they had more like brook or velvet and they developed a secondary infection from the parasite. uggg Im so upset

I got so attached to all my fish and tried my best to cure them from what my lfs was saying they had .I also was treating them with fresh galic ,selcom formula foods everything I can think of. So I quess my question now would be how do I go from here?
Is 6 weeks long enough to let the tank be with no fish or should I wait longer? do I up the temp ? my tank is at 80 now? i have inverts in their as well as corals. any help would be greatly appreciated! Ive learned a valuable lesson about qt and I will now and evey time use one I wish I would have known this sooner! also does anyone have a suggestion of a good book on disease that I can turn to if this ever happens again?
Thank you
Shawna

 

[mcbdz]

Welcome to SWF.
Sorry about your troubles. Just take it as a well learned lesson. We all end up with some of those.
^ weeks going fallow will be good. Make sure for now on you QT all fish.
If you have any questions on diseases go down the boards to the Disease forum. You can get lots of goos info, and lots of help.

Good luck

 

[granny]

I doubt it was the Chem marin that killed your snail. They dont take 80 degree temperatures well and the fact that the rest of your inverts survived.
Your fish also contracted a bacterial infection. There are many excellent books out there on fish diseases. I have one upstairs, but am too lazy to run get it.
You can also search on line as well as check this web site, but the books give you photos for a better id and list all the options for treatment.
Dont raise your temperature any more. 80 is high enough. It is during the treatment cycle for ick that you might want to raise it as it speeds up their life cycle.
Once there is not a host, they will die off.
6 weeks is probably fine but have you done a few water changes since then and checked all your water parameters again?
I would suggest you put a small, inexpensive fish in for your first one. Not that we should consider any fish expendable, but if we are afraid of losing one, better a 2.99 damsel than an expensive butterfly, which are difficult to keep by the way and are not good starter fish. Tangs are also more susceptible to disease. Usually clowns are pretty darn hardy as they have a thicker slime coat and are able to fend off things that might do in more delicate fish.
Good luck in the future!

 

[shawna1972]

Thanks fo the reply,
I have checked on line for days up all night doing nothing "but reading" tying to find an answer problem is these diseases all sound alike to me, maybe its me don't know. My tang had swelling in his belly also which could be dropsy or could be a couple of diff things I guess im just frustrated because I still do not know what killed them.
I just had my water checked by lfs yesterday and doing my own readings
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
ph 8.3
nitrate .5
alkalinity was tested by lfs and they said it ws high 180mg/L ppm
calcium 320<<trying to get this up as we speak
been using 2 part bionic so im just adding the calcium part right now w/out alk Ive been in the 400's
I have done 2 big water changes since then.
I hope I am replying right <<<first time on message board if not im sorry just tell me where to reply

 

[alan1]

How long can a fish be sick before they display symptoms? If your fish looked good when purchased, but didn't display symptoms for weeks afterwards, I half wonder if there is a "hidden" problem with the tank which is the culprit.
Does your tank temp stay pretty constant 24/7?

 

[shawna1972]

Thanks for the welcome
I need all the help I can get! Bang Guy if you see this post >>"Thank you sooo sooo much for taking the time to come down and help us out it was greatly appeciated! Im just so sad you seen my fish they all looked healthy >>one good thing Im happy about is that my trigger is with you and he didn't get infected with what ever took my fish. Thanks again
ps: got our sump going just needed to replace the single overflow with a double.

 

[shawna1972]

yes

 

[1journeyman]

Shawna, welcome to the forums.
Wow, you got ot meet the infamous Bang Guy in person?

Please take a look at thread and give us an idea as to which afflciton your fish were suffering with.
80 degrees for your tank is fine. Don't raise it. That method for treating ich is primarily for freshwater ich. Marine ich is a different parasite and it's life cycle is not sped up that much by temp. Also, warmer water causes other water quality issues. As with everything Marine Aquarium related, stability is the key. Keep your temp steady. Anything from a permanent 78-82 degrees is acceptable, but you don't want your temp fluctuating at all, even if it fluctuates in this range.
Let's ID what your fish died of and go from there.

 

[shawna1972]

Thank you Journey,
And yes he's been very valuable to us as we are very new to salt water and he's been my only outlet
"poor guy" lol but yes he's amazing! anyway he was just over helping me set up my sump and I mentioned to him I thought my fish had ick and he said it did not look like ick and just to keep feeding them high quality food ,garlic ,vitamins and I was doing that up until the spots were more evident
then I jumped the gun and got the "reef safe chemicals" stop parasite,kick ich and tried them.
but I did the whole 5 days of stop parasite and the spots got worse? so the best I can explain all 3 fish >>2 clowns, 1 yellow tang, were great........then came along a fish we have been wanting for a long time 1 long nosed butterfly.
I got him home acclimated him for about an hour , he didnt eat for 8 days! I tried everything to say the least down to the live clam. On the 8th day he ate .....I was never so happy .....day 9 white spots started to appear on his fins only,he still eating ,healthy ect.. gave him a fresh water dip buff ph temp
aerated it for an hour before i put him in all went well. Day 10 more spots now on his head and fins ....another fresh water dip....... Day 11 hes eating picking at rocks ect... but hes more covered on his body now so now he is covered fins ,head and body breathing a bit harder "whats odd though is the spots were not as visible until night time"......Day 12 purchased stop parasite went 5 days with med .....it was then day 17 he is totally covered cant hardly see any more yellow hes fading in color, still eating but now he has cloudy eyes and so does my tang now I went out and got kick ick treated the tank butterfly was dead next moning on day 18.
so now 18th day I got a qt ,took tang and 2 clowns who today were not eating out put them in it because at this point I thought get them out to a cleaner tank with no sand and I will vaccume any parasites out it will be better so i put some melafix in for the cloudy eyes,fins ect...clowns at this point have stringy stuff hanging off their fins and mouth and yellow tang also has some red sores today left them in it until next morning....... Day 19 tang is still alive but he cant breath hes hanging in front of my powerhead and has clumps of white stuff on his top fin his skin is looking like its peeling and hes covered in spots clowns now look like tang with white spots "not like sugar though more like a sprinkle of flour ..... needless to say tang died on this day a few hous later and cllowns were right behind him an hour after that. so this went on for 19 days ...... I basically feel like I had 19 days to diagnose and treat but I didnt know what I was treating for I was going on advice of the lfs ect going online night after night trying to find out what this was and to no avail and I feel like what am I doing in this hobby if I cant even figure out what they have to treat them properly,Its our responsability I guess Im just going to wait out the 6 weeks maybe longer and find out all I can about disease and parasites so that when I do feel like were ready Ill be able to care fo them better. Honestly I feel like a piece of crap after this happened and after you watch 4 fish slowly die ,you feel helpless ,discusted,angry ect... so it was an experience I never want to encounter again
which brings me to my next question what does this sound like that they had and also will me qt every fish and dips for corals i should never see this again right? even if they get stressed?

 

[alan1]

I had a similar experience with freshwater Discus once. I know how frustrating and draining it is to watch fish slowly suffer and eventually die. I sure am sorry you had to experience that. However, once it is determined exactly what happened to your fish, you as well as the rest of us will all benefit from the knowledge, so at least there is a small silver lining.

 

[shawna1972]

Thanks alan1,
Yes it really is. I got into this hobby because I love fish, I have an acre pond stocked with koi who I love even more , they eay right from my hand and all have their own personality.I know a lot of people had made a remark " not on this board " but another site and said "whats the big deal just get new ones" To me it's not the money although I know how expensive this hobby is! but some people don't get it.
So yes I agree we all benefit from knowledge and I hope to find out what exactly what "just the spots were" I pretty much knew about the bacterial I wish I was told to use antibiotics instead of melafix but I personally think they were so far gone by this point nothing would have helped them
so I guess we all live and learn and try to correct our mistakes by gaining knowledge and what a better site to do it on ! but thanks for the kind words and sorry to hear about your discus as well.
Take care
Shawna

 

[bang guy]

After pondering for a couple weeks I am convinced that Amyloodinium is the culprit.

 

[shawna1972]

is that velvet? and if so is velvet like a coating of some sort like a white film? because at the end guy that were just covered in spots ?

 

[bang guy]

Yes, it's very similar to Ick though. It's a parasite that produces Tomonts and spots. The spots are usually smaller than Ick and more numerous.
It could also have been multiple diseases. That makes diagnosis difficult.

 

[shawna1972]

I see.
Im just wondering whatever it may have been do you think 2 months is a long enough time to let the tank go fishless? even if a bacterial infection was involved ?and also is 4 weeks enough for new fish to be in qt? and what should i do before putting them in qt? freshwater dip? Also I have lowered my tank temp down from the advice of members on here so Im around 76-78steady I lowered it over a few days not in one day also.
I just want to be sure my new fish are not going to be infected all over again once I put them back to the main display.

 

[bang guy]

These are my opinions but like I've said before, I don't have a lot of experience with sick fish.
1. If you leave your display idle 4 weeks at reef temperatures if will no longer have Ick or Velvet parasites. The cooler the water the longer that takes. 5 weeks should be fine at 78F.
2. Fresh Water Dip - I don't see the purpose. If there are visible cysts on the fish then a fresh water dip will make them fall off. However, don't ever buy a fish that has visible cysts on it, that's just a really bad idea. A dip will not ever cure the fish of parasites.
3. Quaranteen time - I suggest adding all new fish to the quaranteen tank for 4 weeks. The first 2 days of quaranteen should be lowering the Salinity to 14ppt. Then 3 weeks at the low salinity. Then 5 days raising the salinity to match the display tank.

 

[shawna1972]

Thanks,
I only have a swing arm hydometer though is that good enough?
and what is 14ppt and what would that read on my hydrometer?
Shawna