Sick Powder Blue

[andy1130]

Sorry this is a bit long. Yesterday I recieved an order from SWfish.com which included a powder blue tang i planned to add to my 100g reef. I know these fish are difficult to care for and often have serious health issues but had previous experience ordering a powder blue from the site which arrived in great shape, showed no problems through qt and after 2 years is still alive and thriving in a friends tank (I moved across the country and had to give away my live stock) Unfortunatly the new A. leucosternon arrived in much worse shape.
Upon arrival he had large white clumps on his right pectoral fin, which I believe are fungal but really am not sure, and is showing serious fin rot/decay in both percotral fins as well as his caudal fin. He also has a pale, elevated patches on the right side of his body that resemble welts, (although looking at the pictures they remind me of photos i have seen of HLLE but the spots are deffinatly elevated) Ive attached a phtot but with my old camera it isnt very clear. I have a few more but im not sure how to resize them to a size i can attach. The symptoms appear only on his right side, except for the fin decay which is occuring on both pectoral fins (although it appears more advanced on the right)
Upon arrival he was drip acclimated for 3 hours and given a 15 minute freshwater dip with methyl blue (both temp and ph were matched) before arriving at his home in a 20g qt tank. Today completed his 3rd day in qt, he has not shown interest in any foods offered but remains active, although he has remaind in the open the entire time and avoids the pvc pipes placed in there for cover. I have not attempted any medications yet and would obviously like to try to pin down what he has first. Water conditions in the tank are 79 degrees, 0 ammonia/nitrite, 5-10 nitrate, SG 1.024. My initial instinct was to treat for a fungal infection for a week and see how he responds but was advised at my lfs to treat with antibiotics first. Any advice would be great, im really trying to get this guy healthy and help him pull through.

 

[granny]

Just a comment about your quarantine tank. Its scary looking. You need to wrap black paper or paint(which you cant do now with the fish in it) around 3 sides and the bottom. That reflection is stressful, too stressful, as is the stuff you can see around it, like that basket. I would also suggest some fake coral to make it look a little homier.
My poor old eyes cant see anything on your fish, but fin rot is usually caused by poor water conditions, and some damage due to rough handling during capture and shipping or other fish it was housed with. If this is the problem, it will heal under optimum water conditions.
Are you feeding fresh seafood, chopped up with garlic juice? This is usually irresistable. Also place some seaweed in a clamp for him to graze on. There is a small pelleted food that has garlic in it and all my fish love it.
It is a medicated food has a +A on the label.
You can also put some zoecon in the water, or garlic juice in the water to stimulate your fish's appetite. Keep in mind though that if this fish was wild caught using cyanide, he will not recover.

 

[myerst22]

Well I'd hate to see any fish die so I'll give a suggestion. The first aliment sounds like Lymphocites( spelling is not right) but this is viral and can be compared to herpes in humans and can't be cured except for good water quality and proper nutrition, atleast as far as I know. I had a Juv Emp that had it at first and I actually scraped it off its fins and has not returned since. That angel is now starting to change and very healthy.
The other ailment sounds like velvet but difficult to tell by the pics. I would SLOWLY bring the salinity down to about. 09. Copper really isn't an option because PBT are quite sensitive to it. You could use about 5ppm at the most. Also freshwater dips with proper temp and ph adjustment won't hurt. Also Formalin and Malechete could be used as well. Also I have used Ruby reefs's products which are rather mild and won't stress out the delicate tangs scales to some success. Most importantly make sure you keep really well fed with enriched food soaked in zoe and garlic, heavily oxygenated water with strong current, as well as water with very low nutrients. I hope this helps. I would be on the phone in a rage to SWF about this issue. There is no way a fish shows up at your doorstep with these conditions while in transit. Good Luck. Regards, Tim

 

[andy1130]

Thanks for the quick replies, i appreciate all the help i can get on this, i really take great pains to keep all my fish healthy and hate the idea of watching this poor guy degenerate and die when i have the potential to help.
I never thought about painting the qt, and now i dont know why i didnt, it will be one of the first things i do after i get through this. Its kept in the corner of the room, with only light from the nearby window and several pcv 'caves' for hiding. I use a solid top and the curtains to block light for new arrivals and reduce stress. It isnt normally so bright but I had extra light on it for the picture, but ill be painting the tank as soon as i can get this poor guy healthy and out of it.
He still has not eaten, he has an algea buffet floating/clipped around the tank that includes 'san francisco bay brands seaweed salad', chaeto, sargassum, and green and red graciliaria. Ive also tried flakes (formula 1 and 2) and frozen brine and mysis on the hope they could enduce feeding. Ive syphoned out uneaten foods and soaked most of the items in seachems 'entice' to help encourage feeding, with no luck. I know cyanide could be a possiblity, but I have ordered and recieved many healthy fish from swf.com over the last few years without issues in the past.
The spots on the side of the fish do actually look like velvet, i never had any experience with the disease and hardly considered it as a possibillity because his gills look clear and from what ive heard that is one of the first areas to show symptoms, but ill do some more research. Would it cause the white growths on the fins or does that sound like a different infection? (perhaps one is an opportunistic infection caused by the other?) My biggest concern is simply that he seems to be showing symptoms of several infections and Im really at a loss as to the root cause and which to try and treat first. I know ammonia burn and rough handling in transport could open the door for many types of infection, but the severity of these symptoms makes me think its more then just a rough trip to my door.

 

[sleazalino]

i had got one from here 2/14/08 along with koren angel,angel had whites spots on him he died three week later. powder blue had fin rot after talking to everybody on here i put him in 20gallon qt tank for two weeks. put him in my main tank got him to eat fin rot was gone went to work friday morning he was flying around the tank got home at 10;00 that night he was dead. the only thing i could think of was him and my hippo fought all day long which the sales person here told my wife that was fine to do. i have three tangs in a 125 i done with powder blues maybe try one more time they are hard to resist good luck people have luck and some don't. but i can relate to what you rgoing there just happened to me

 

[myerst22]

The most important thing right now is to get some food in that fishes stomach. Even if its live brine. I would start hypo and malechete and formalin. Have you contacted SWF.com. Was this PBT one of the ones on special????????

 

[sleazalino]

mine was 49.99 is that the special any i little upset but what can you do

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by andy1130
http:///forum/post/2520077
Thanks for the quick replies, i appreciate all the help i can get on this, i really take great pains to keep all my fish healthy and hate the idea of watching this poor guy degenerate and die when i have the potential to help.
I never thought about painting the qt, and now i dont know why i didnt, it will be one of the first things i do after i get through this. Its kept in the corner of the room, with only light from the nearby window and several pcv 'caves' for hiding. I use a solid top and the curtains to block light for new arrivals and reduce stress. It isnt normally so bright but I had extra light on it for the picture, but ill be painting the tank as soon as i can get this poor guy healthy and out of it.
He still has not eaten, he has an algea buffet floating/clipped around the tank that includes 'san francisco bay brands seaweed salad', chaeto, sargassum, and green and red graciliaria. Ive also tried flakes (formula 1 and 2) and frozen brine and mysis on the hope they could enduce feeding. Ive syphoned out uneaten foods and soaked most of the items in seachems 'entice' to help encourage feeding, with no luck. I know cyanide could be a possiblity, but I have ordered and recieved many healthy fish from swf.com over the last few years without issues in the past.
The spots on the side of the fish do actually look like velvet, i never had any experience with the disease and hardly considered it as a possibillity because his gills look clear and from what ive heard that is one of the first areas to show symptoms, but ill do some more research. Would it cause the white growths on the fins or does that sound like a different infection? (perhaps one is an opportunistic infection caused by the other?) My biggest concern is simply that he seems to be showing symptoms of several infections and Im really at a loss as to the root cause and which to try and treat first. I know ammonia burn and rough handling in transport could open the door for many types of infection, but the severity of these symptoms makes me think its more then just a rough trip to my door.
Velvet is a gold dusting, not welts. It sounds like typical tang stress marks to me. It does sound like lymphocystis on his fins which is common. How long have you had this fish? Does the stomach look sunken in at all?

 

[andy1130]

I put in some live brine yesterday to see if i could get him to eat, but still no luck. When I got home from work last night the elevated welted area on his right side had nearly trippled in size and reached the his gills, which worried me. His stomach didnt look sunken at all, infact if you looked at his left side he looked healthy (except for the finrot which obviously is very unhealthy) but he had good color and a full frame. At some point unfortunatly he died in the night. Thanks to everyone for all the help. I think ive learned that when Im going to buy finicky fish with common health issues like tangs ill put up the extra cash to get them from a lfs where i can take a good look at them before bringing them home. I suppose putting up 100$ for a healthy fish is better then 45$ for one in mysterious condition when it comes to powder blues.

 

[redman1221]

Originally Posted by andy1130
http:///forum/post/2521809
I put in some live brine yesterday to see if i could get him to eat, but still no luck. When I got home from work last night the elevated welted area on his right side had nearly trippled in size and reached the his gills, which worried me. His stomach didnt look sunken at all, infact if you looked at his left side he looked healthy (except for the finrot which obviously is very unhealthy) but he had good color and a full frame. At some point unfortunatly he died in the night. Thanks to everyone for all the help. I think ive learned that when Im going to buy finicky fish with common health issues like tangs ill put up the extra cash to get them from a lfs where i can take a good look at them before bringing them home. I suppose putting up 100$ for a healthy fish is better then 45$ for one in mysterious condition when it comes to powder blues.
Sorry for your lost, I know what you mean because I thought about getting a Majestic Angelfish from here but I decided to go to my lfs and paid more, because I really like to see my fish before I buy them and I didn't want to take a chace of it being dead when it arrived.

 

[rcreations]

Sorry for your loss and shame on SFW.COM for sending out a fish with obvious pre-existing conditions. Don't they look at the fish before they ship out or is a quick buck more important?

 

[myerst22]

Have you contacted SWF? If so what happened? Do people who own this site look at the boards? Well what say you SWF? There is no way a fish didn't have these visible signs before being shipped. Why is there only a limit of one PBT?

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by RCreations
http:///forum/post/2521941
Sorry for your loss and shame on SFW.COM for sending out a fish with obvious pre-existing conditions. Don't they look at the fish before they ship out or is a quick buck more important?
This isn't really fair to SWF. Their stock is usually in excellent condition. I am sorry about your loss Andy.

 

[redman1221]

Originally Posted by sepulatian
http:///forum/post/2522356
This isn't really fair to SWF. Their stock is usually in excellent condition. I am sorry about your loss Andy.
Jmo I would never order any fish from this site because I heard too many bad stories about this company. I would rather pay more at my Lfs and see that my fish are healthy then take a chance on losing money by ordering here. Btw there money back guarantee is a joke. You have to order 79 dollars worth again before you could use the money that you already spent on a fish that arrived dead, I think that is highway robbery. JM2cents

 

[myerst22]

I never have dealt with this company but in the last 2 days I've gotten a bad vibe. First the poor PBT that was in ill health and secondly forbidding me to recommend a fish id site that doesn't sell fish or anything for that matter. Just a great site that every informed fish keeper should know about. By suggesting the site the thread was shut down. Though i can't judge one person's fish experience as the norm of their product but my latter complaint bothers me. Tim

 

[reefmate75]

i just got a PBT from SWF.com and it was in excellent condition untill i put him in my tank and my yellow beat up on him for about 2 hours

 

[reefmate75]

Originally Posted by redman1221
http:///forum/post/2522523
Jmo I would never order any fish from this site because I heard too many bad stories about this company. I would rather pay more at my Lfs and see that my fish are healthy then take a chance on losing money by ordering here. Btw there money back guarantee is a joke. You have to order 79 dollars worth again before you could use the money that you already spent on a fish that arrived dead, I think that is highway robbery. JM2cents
that is not true at all it is quite fair i beleve as if the fish comes to you dead report it dead right away and then your can get your money back right away, but if you wait after 5 hours of delevory you can only get the credit, which is still fair