Breeding setup infection!! Please help!

[jacob30]

I just recently added a couple of onyx clowns to my breeding setup (1 week ago Iknow....I know QT) and I have had two deaths in the past 24 hours of juvenile black ocellaris clowns. The symptoms I am seeing are a few maybe 4 juveniles at the bottom of the one of the tanks breathing rapidly and not eating. I have also seen one of the growout tanks with about 30 juveniles in it with some unusual swimming patterns. They are swimming near the surface with their heads up slightly. Most of the tanks show no symptoms at all. Iam running UV and added ozone yesterday. I believe I have narrowed it down to one of two things:

Toxic tank syndrome described in Joyce Wilkersons book

or

Brook


I am preparing large quanities of fresh salt water now and plan on removing all fish from the system.


Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

Jacob

 

[David M]

80 g breeding system for Cards and Black Ocell

Is this the system? If so it is certainly small enough to just pull all the fish and concentrate them in something you can treat and/or do massive water changes while you sterilize the system IF you decide it's disease. Unless you are seeing something physical I'm betting it's not.

Advanced brook is pretty hard to miss, the new onyx would probably be dead by now if that was it. Are the ones at the surface gasping for air? Have you checked the ammonia level?, maybe you crashed your bio-filter. 80 gallons is not much volume if you have a few pairs of adults and lot of juvies growing out. I'm thinking low 02 or high ammonia is the problem.

juveniles at the bottom of the one of the tanks breathing rapidly and not eating

>> Sounds like ammonia poisoning to me

swimming near the surface with their heads up slightly.

>> Sounds like they are struggling far oxygen.

Of course it could be anything but I'd definately consider water quality as opposed to disease.

Oh and I just can't resist giving you a good spanking, have you learned anything from this? QUARANTINE IS ESSENTIAL, not optional :smokin:

 

[Luis A M]

Toxic tank syndrome does (or did) exist,I suffered it once.But it happened in the old days of the UG filter,and I haven't hear of it in the last decades.
If I must guess,I'd say you have brooks.Recent introduction of WC fish points in that way.You should see some whitish cast on the skin.
IME (short on this) you should try formalin baths.Granted it is a pain with a tankful of babies.
I'd also check if the UV is really working...
Good luck

 

[jacob30]

I spent the better part of last night breaking down the entire system, sanitizing with bleach and setting up a few temporary holding tanks while I put the system back together. Minimal losses have occurred so that is good news. I sure hope this erradicates the problem.

Luis and David thanks for the feedback!

If this does not work I am going to formalin baths.

 

[jacob30]

One of my concerns in the near future is going to be the biological filtration of the growout system. Right now I have about 175 residents for the growout system. Besides water changes and monitoring Ammonia and nitrite are their any other approaches I could take? For instance some of the so called "cycle" cultures or prodibio etc. Are these worth looking into?