Thanks; honestly I hope you never have need to know what I am learning!
Brooklynella, velvet or uronema in microscope
- Thread starter mattcoug
- Start date
Thanks; honestly I hope you never have need to know what I am learning!
I am a little OCD, so I looked at just about everything before forcing myself to settle on this one. For the price range I don't think it can be beat, and it is amazingly better than the cheapies that I played with as a kid. Of course, I don't really know anything about microscopes, so my opinion may be different if I were a pro.
Longish update on the situation - I found a local source for formalin 37% to share, on Tuesday night. It is rumored to be illegal in CA, so not sure why Amazon is still shipping the other bottle to me.
But in any case, glad that I got it, I proactively did a dip of all the fish in the second QT tank on Thursday night even though they were not showing obvious symptoms. I used 2 gallons of clean water, with 2 ml Formalin, with a large airstone with tons of bubbles.
I did a first round for 30 min that contained 5 baby/small fish, a majestic angle, golden angle, fathead antis and a lined rabbitfish, and a blue dot rabbitfish. Once, back into QT, all the fish except the lined rabbitfish were happy and didn't seem any worse for the wear. The lined rabbitfish however was not ok, it freaked out, literally bounced around the QT tank a couple times then suddenly died within seconds. I wonder if fish can have heart attacks, or if his gills were compromised enough that he didn't have enough oxygen, and he burned the last bit freaking out.
Using the same dip bucket, I dipped a 7 inch chrysurus angle for 30 min, he went back in the QT unaffected and as ornery as ever. As a side note, I thought the chrysurus angle is supposed to be timid...but this guy is the meanest angle I've seen, much worse than my dead passer angle.
Again, using the same dip bucket I dipped a parrotfish for 30 min. The parrot went back into QT hiding and playing dead, but otherwise seemed normal.
Finally I dipped a tuskfish, I had to abort at ~12 minutes as I notice he stopped breathing. Oddly he would still swim around. In any case he went back to QT, and still wasn't breathing.. after a min he started floating around with the current so I thought he was a goner. I used the net to hold him in a high flow area, and after a few minutes he took a breath...but it was only one per minute. After a while I let him go, and he floated to a corner, but at least he continued to breath.
Based on the death on the rabbitfish and the near death of the tusk, I decided to not dip again unless there were obvious symptoms.
Fast forward to this Thursday night - everyone is fine but the tusk and parrot had not recovered their vigor.
Fast forward to Friday morning, the tusk parrot and bluedot rabbitfish looked close to death, the tank smelled of death. I also noticed the tusk fish eyes looked like his brain disappeared and sucked in his eyeballs. They were much further in than just sunken and I could literally see the eyeball rolling around inside the eye socket, I guess this is dehydration, his body appeared to loose half his weight overnight. He was also covered in extreme heavy slime. Much worse than any brook photo I've seen. The tank was fouled with his slime, I think this is want made it smell like death. Also, the water was covered with bubbles. I took these three fish, the tush, parrot, rabbit, and put them into the dip bucket with fresh clean water at 1.13 salinity(down from 1.20 QT). I gave them an airstone but left the heater out, so it would naturally fall to ~71 and give the fish more oxygen. I also put in .5 ml of formalin.
Tonight, when I got home from the office, the second rabbit in the dip bucket was dead, so I pulled it out with tongs. This freaked the Tusk out and he tried jumping out of the bucket. I think he used his remaining oxygen, because when I went to check on him 15 minutes later, he was dead.
I then spent the night getting all the remaining fish into individual buckets in the garage, each with 5 gallons of fresh water at 1.13, an airstone and .5 ml of formalin.
At this point, I have a few lessons learned:
1) all in/all out qt is crazy expensive, i could have bought a lot of extremely nice independent QT setups with the money lost on these fish alone.
2) Whatever this is, copper does nothing, my CP does nothing, metro does nothing. If it is brook, then my CP is useless or CP doesn't work for brook.
3) formalin dip may have stressed the tusk out too much and opened him up for infection - maybe it removed his slime coat? Maybe the oxygen level was too low after multiple dips or a large fish used it all; not sure how to validate.
4) 2 rabbits were the first to die after exposure to formalin, this makes me think they are very sensitive to formalin and may not be the best fish to dip
5) counterintuitively, all the angles are still perfectly fine - it is odd to me that they will be the last ones standing.
6) I'll think of something else once I get some sleep.
But in any case, glad that I got it, I proactively did a dip of all the fish in the second QT tank on Thursday night even though they were not showing obvious symptoms. I used 2 gallons of clean water, with 2 ml Formalin, with a large airstone with tons of bubbles.
I did a first round for 30 min that contained 5 baby/small fish, a majestic angle, golden angle, fathead antis and a lined rabbitfish, and a blue dot rabbitfish. Once, back into QT, all the fish except the lined rabbitfish were happy and didn't seem any worse for the wear. The lined rabbitfish however was not ok, it freaked out, literally bounced around the QT tank a couple times then suddenly died within seconds. I wonder if fish can have heart attacks, or if his gills were compromised enough that he didn't have enough oxygen, and he burned the last bit freaking out.
Using the same dip bucket, I dipped a 7 inch chrysurus angle for 30 min, he went back in the QT unaffected and as ornery as ever. As a side note, I thought the chrysurus angle is supposed to be timid...but this guy is the meanest angle I've seen, much worse than my dead passer angle.
Again, using the same dip bucket I dipped a parrotfish for 30 min. The parrot went back into QT hiding and playing dead, but otherwise seemed normal.
Finally I dipped a tuskfish, I had to abort at ~12 minutes as I notice he stopped breathing. Oddly he would still swim around. In any case he went back to QT, and still wasn't breathing.. after a min he started floating around with the current so I thought he was a goner. I used the net to hold him in a high flow area, and after a few minutes he took a breath...but it was only one per minute. After a while I let him go, and he floated to a corner, but at least he continued to breath.
Based on the death on the rabbitfish and the near death of the tusk, I decided to not dip again unless there were obvious symptoms.
Fast forward to this Thursday night - everyone is fine but the tusk and parrot had not recovered their vigor.
Fast forward to Friday morning, the tusk parrot and bluedot rabbitfish looked close to death, the tank smelled of death. I also noticed the tusk fish eyes looked like his brain disappeared and sucked in his eyeballs. They were much further in than just sunken and I could literally see the eyeball rolling around inside the eye socket, I guess this is dehydration, his body appeared to loose half his weight overnight. He was also covered in extreme heavy slime. Much worse than any brook photo I've seen. The tank was fouled with his slime, I think this is want made it smell like death. Also, the water was covered with bubbles. I took these three fish, the tush, parrot, rabbit, and put them into the dip bucket with fresh clean water at 1.13 salinity(down from 1.20 QT). I gave them an airstone but left the heater out, so it would naturally fall to ~71 and give the fish more oxygen. I also put in .5 ml of formalin.
Tonight, when I got home from the office, the second rabbit in the dip bucket was dead, so I pulled it out with tongs. This freaked the Tusk out and he tried jumping out of the bucket. I think he used his remaining oxygen, because when I went to check on him 15 minutes later, he was dead.
I then spent the night getting all the remaining fish into individual buckets in the garage, each with 5 gallons of fresh water at 1.13, an airstone and .5 ml of formalin.
At this point, I have a few lessons learned:
1) all in/all out qt is crazy expensive, i could have bought a lot of extremely nice independent QT setups with the money lost on these fish alone.
2) Whatever this is, copper does nothing, my CP does nothing, metro does nothing. If it is brook, then my CP is useless or CP doesn't work for brook.
3) formalin dip may have stressed the tusk out too much and opened him up for infection - maybe it removed his slime coat? Maybe the oxygen level was too low after multiple dips or a large fish used it all; not sure how to validate.
4) 2 rabbits were the first to die after exposure to formalin, this makes me think they are very sensitive to formalin and may not be the best fish to dip
5) counterintuitively, all the angles are still perfectly fine - it is odd to me that they will be the last ones standing.
6) I'll think of something else once I get some sleep.
Newsmyrna80
Active member
Sorry for your loss. Sucks when you try so hard and still lose them but at least you tried. To your points:
1. Yep, unfortunately some of us have had to learn the hard (and expensive) way.
2. IME CP does nothing for brook. But it could have been the stock quality.
3. More than likely that us what happened. Unless you let the water reoxygenate for at least 30 minutes there was probably no more oxygen left.
4. There are certain fish that are sensitive to formalin and they can be dipped at a lower dose. IME formalin was too harsh on my angel. He hid for 2 days and I thought for sure he was a goner. The next dip I went back to Quick Cure and he was eating an hour later.
1. Yep, unfortunately some of us have had to learn the hard (and expensive) way.
2. IME CP does nothing for brook. But it could have been the stock quality.
3. More than likely that us what happened. Unless you let the water reoxygenate for at least 30 minutes there was probably no more oxygen left.
4. There are certain fish that are sensitive to formalin and they can be dipped at a lower dose. IME formalin was too harsh on my angel. He hid for 2 days and I thought for sure he was a goner. The next dip I went back to Quick Cure and he was eating an hour later.
CoralsAddiction
Active member
Sorry about your losses. QT is expensive no doubt. The thing about formalin dips that was the hardest (other than watching my fish suffer) is doing 20-30% water changes every day for 5 days. That's a lot of time spent.
CoralsAddiction
Active member
Yes it does. I am running hypo at 1.009-1.010 and haven't seen mucus/slime discharge on my surviving clownfish since it completed formalin dip treatment. If I am not mistaken, slime discharge is at least partially due to dehydration.
CoralsAddiction
Active member
Brooklynella, velvet or uronema in microscope
But you have to be careful as some fish can't tolerate hyposalinity. If that's the case you can run it at 1.015-1.018 which is ok because the goal is to prevent dehydration as opposed to eradicating cryptocaryon.
But you have to be careful as some fish can't tolerate hyposalinity. If that's the case you can run it at 1.015-1.018 which is ok because the goal is to prevent dehydration as opposed to eradicating cryptocaryon.
Status update: all the Angles have been though formalin treatments and have never showed symptoms of infection. They were placed in buckets with 5 gallons of water, and given .5ML of formalin per day, 5 days in a row. I stopped two days ago and they all appear healthy so far. Also a Christmas wrasse got a similar treatment and is doing well, although he was initially suffering, but I think the suffering was caused by intolerance to the CP and copper I dumped into the QT tank. The tusk, rabbits, and parrot died; perhaps I caught it too late or the first dip just pushed them too far.
Now I plan to get them back into the QT tank, but I need to make sure that tank is clean. I plan to move filter media(MarinePure block) to the first QT tank, and let that tank sit follow for another 4 weeks(is it long enough?). Then for this QT tank, I will drain the water and dry out - then refill with fresh water. (is 100% dry sufficient? or does it need to be sterilized?)
I will likely be using purigen+prime+water changes to control ammonia since I am effectively restarting the tank's cycle.
Now I plan to get them back into the QT tank, but I need to make sure that tank is clean. I plan to move filter media(MarinePure block) to the first QT tank, and let that tank sit follow for another 4 weeks(is it long enough?). Then for this QT tank, I will drain the water and dry out - then refill with fresh water. (is 100% dry sufficient? or does it need to be sterilized?)
I will likely be using purigen+prime+water changes to control ammonia since I am effectively restarting the tank's cycle.
Oops, the wrasse didn't like being in the 5 gallon qt. He rubbed his nose off, and now his teeth are poking out and it looks like he has huge human-like lips! I gave him a container of sand that he slept in, but I guess it wasn't enough. He is now back in the newly-cleaned large qt filled to 65 gallons, hope his nose grows back. I wonder if the formalin made him crazy to do this.
Great thread. I wish I had seen it earlier. I've seen most under the scope and I believe that you are looking at brook. Not with confidence though. It is the one pathogen that I have been unable to test with chloroquine. I think you are correct with formalin treatments though a prolonged immersion is usually required IMO.
For the future - I posted this salvage protocol for very sick fish a while back. It works.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2240378&highlight=salvage+protocol
For the future - I posted this salvage protocol for very sick fish a while back. It works.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2240378&highlight=salvage+protocol
Just an update, the angels and wrasse have survived 26 days so far after ending the formalin treatment, hopefully this is the end of it for that tank.
The bad news is that I found it affecting a fish in my 200G FOWLR(skin scrape under microscope). I tried to add formalin to this tank directly at the dosing on FishVets formalin bottle(10ml every other day for 200G) but is appeared to make all the healthy fish suddenly get sick. I supposed the formalin at low doses might remove the slime coat and let healthy fish get sick.
Because all the fish got sick once I started dosing, I decided to change tactic and I've been pulling each fish out and taking them though formalin dips then isolating them in my garage - which now looks like a fish war zone. I went out and got 11 5-30 gallon tanks to re-QT/treat every fish. I suspect this is also in my reef tank and must have been there for months/years, but the fish have been happy enough to fight it off.
My question is now, how long must a FOWLR tank remain follow to ensure everything is dead? Will formalin in that tank hasten the timeline?
Also, would a follow reef tank need an identical follow time?
The bad news is that I found it affecting a fish in my 200G FOWLR(skin scrape under microscope). I tried to add formalin to this tank directly at the dosing on FishVets formalin bottle(10ml every other day for 200G) but is appeared to make all the healthy fish suddenly get sick. I supposed the formalin at low doses might remove the slime coat and let healthy fish get sick.
Because all the fish got sick once I started dosing, I decided to change tactic and I've been pulling each fish out and taking them though formalin dips then isolating them in my garage - which now looks like a fish war zone. I went out and got 11 5-30 gallon tanks to re-QT/treat every fish. I suspect this is also in my reef tank and must have been there for months/years, but the fish have been happy enough to fight it off.
My question is now, how long must a FOWLR tank remain follow to ensure everything is dead? Will formalin in that tank hasten the timeline?
Also, would a follow reef tank need an identical follow time?
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