Diseased Tank - Please Help

[Rog7]

About 10 days ago I woke up to 6 dead fish:
4 x purple chromis
1 x long nose butterfly
1 x regal tang

The long nose got over bad white spot a week ago and since then has been very active and was looking healthy and swimming last night. The regal who is the hog of the tank eats 60% of the food I feed. The regal was healthy and hadn't had white spot in 4 - 6 weeks. The chromis, not sure what they are usually like cause I only got them on friday.

This is what is still alive in the tank:
2 x Clowns
2 x Zebra Gobies
2 x Flame Gobies
1 x Fire Goby
1 x Green Clown Goby (got last friday)
1 x False Grammer

2 x Cleaner Shrimp
1 x Flame Shrimp
1 x Coral Banded Shrimp
2 x Harlequin Shrimp
3 x Hermits
10 x Snails

1 x BTA (green)
12 x Corals ( Softies & LPS)

Other info:

1000l Display
330l Sump
Large DSB
30kg's bio rock
6kg's LR
System been running for 4 and a half months

 

[Rog7]

This is over the last 2 days:

Since then I am fairly certain it is not velvet. As I found the regal tang alive a week later and only died a week after I found it. So 2 weeks after the initial velvet diagnoses. The fish are breathing rapidly and look like they have swam through a spiders web. This may or may not have been from my last shipment because I do remember my coachman (6 - 8 weeks ago) that died looked similar. So maybe this disease has been in my tank for a while and something effected the fishes immune system and the disease took over my tank. Both the regal and clown died in my QT (separately) when I found the rega is was discoloured white with purple spots and the clown had like a white slime/web over it as the regal did. Both looking like could fall apart.

Another thing that I noticed that was quite weird with the sick fish. They seemed to be blind but none of the white stuff was growing over the eyes and they eyes looked fine but when I fed, they could definitely smell the food and would swim up to eat but kept missing the food?? Very weird??

I have 3 fish left in my tank (all gobies), they have no signs of heavy breathing or anything growing on them. They are looking healthy and eating.

Now for the questions:

I'm thinking about not adding any for 3 months, is this to much or to little?

Is there another way to get rid of the disease sooner without harming the corals?

With the 3 living fish in my tank, is it possible that they can keep the disease and not die and keep the disease in my tank?

If I QT every new fish coming into my tank can I keep my display disease free for good?

Any other ideas or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[Rog7]

 

[Chris27]

The pictures look like Brook - do a little reading on it, it's a quick killer.

To eradicate it from your DT, you'll need to remove all fish. Gobies and hearty fish, and can withstand most flesh attacking ailments because they have a heavy slimecoat, but they can still be a host, so they should be removed and treated in a QT.

 

[1geo]

Are you sure your fish have Ich or do they have Brooklynella? To tell them apart you have to take a tissue sample and examine it under a microscope. The treatment of choice for Ich is copper but copper will not cure Brook. For Brook you have to use 37% Formalin. Formalin will also cure Ich. So if you are treating for Ich and your fish are not getting better they may have Brook. To treat with Formalin you give your fish Formalin baths. Where you put 1 cc of 37% Formalin (Formaldehyde) in 1 gal of water and dip your fish for a minimum of 45 minutes up to 60 minutes. You do this five times once every other day after 5 dips your fish are rid of Ich and Brook. I also put Formalin in the QT tank. I put 1 cc to 10 gals of water every day during the period I give the baths. Formaldehyde evaporates out of the water within two hours and is not accumulative. It does deplete the oxygen in the water so you need vigorous aeration with air stones in the bath water. Do not use Formalin on fish that have open wounds, it will kill them. After 10 days of Formalin dips, once every other day they are cured of Brook and Ich. The tank the fish came out of has to be fallow, fishless, for at least 8 weeks. The eggs of Ich are in the bottom of your tank and can lay dormant for up to 8 weeks. When they hatch they have to find a host within hours or they will die. Brook's parasite divides and the new cell becomes a free swimmer looking for a host. The swimmer can persist up to four weeks without finding a host before it dies. So a eight week fishless tank can say it is free of Ich and Brook. IF ONE FISH IN YOUR TANK HAS A PARASITE ALL HAVE THE PARASITE EVEN IF THEY SHOW NO SYMPTOMS AND MUST BE TREATED. Don't go through this in the future, QT all new arrives for at least 4 weeks. One more thing, Formalin has a short shelf life so use fresh product and ONLY use 37% Formalin, 15% will do you no good.

 

[Rog7]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Do I need to take out all shrimp, hermits and snails from the display for the disease to die off?

 

[1geo]

The only animals that carry Brook or Ich are fish so you do not need to remove any thing else from the tank. My advice is to IMMEDIATELY start Formalin treatment, read my last post. The will cover BOTH Brook and Ich. Go to your local pet store and buy 37% Formalin, 15% is useless. Check the expiration date on the Formalin, it does not have a long shelf life and you need the freshes product you can buy. 1cc in a gal of the tank water will be sufficient for the first treatment. Make sure you have vigorous air supply to the gal of water as Formalin depletes the oxygen in the treatment gal. Put your fish in for 45 mins to an hour. Only remove the fish if they show extreme distress. Remember is you return them to the contaminated tank they will die anyway. When you remove them put them in a QT tank. A QT tank can be anything from a rubber maid bucket to an aquarium. Just make sure it matches the salinity and temperature of the main tank the fish came out of. You give them this treatment every other day for 10 days (that's 5 treatments). The only difference from the initial treatment is you use 1 gal of the QT water to set up the treatment bath. Formalin dissipates quickly in water so after 2 hrs, it has been said that the treatment water is reef safe. I dump the water and make a fresh batch for each treatment. I also put 1cc per 10 gals in the QT once a day. What this does is help to kill free swimmers in the QT tank. Keep the fish in the QT for 14 days and carefully observe them after the 10 days of treatment. If they show no further signs of the parasites then transfer them to a cleaned, cycled tank. The tank the fish came out of has to remain fallow for up to 8 weeks. If you don't wait the full 8 weeks then you will reinfect your fish and have to do it all over again.

 

[Rog7]

I have read through the this http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm and it also sounds familiar to what I have experience. My regal was nearly all white when it died. And this scares the hell out of me, "but may be acquired and passed on invertebrates, live rock, algae... most anything wet).

Do I bleach my tank and start over?

I had some around to look at me tank who had Amyloodiniumiasis and have been told it looks exactly like what I have?

 

[Rog7]

Think I read that wrong, think it says it can be passed into your tank in those means but still needs fish to survive?

 

[Chris27]

A fallow period should remove any concern - while the parasite may come in on an invert or coral, the lifecycle will eventually end without a host.