Fish treated w/ copper is showing bladder distress

LakeGirl

New member
Aquired these fish a week ago. They've been in a 20g QT with sponge filter. Day 1 and 2- no lights per advice from lfs. Noticed ich on day 3. Immediately began treatment as prescribed with cupramine.

These are two new flasher wrasses (McCosker's and Blue). The copper reading is 0.5 units. Ammonia is zero. Sg is 1.020. pH is 8.2. Temp is 76. I have been wanting to increase temperature (to speed the ich cycle) but opted not-- so as to maintain as much stability as possible for now.

Both fish are still showing healthy appetite, however, one seems to be having trouble managing his swim bladder. When he swims to strike food, he occasionally loses control of his swim direction. I.e. seems to accidentally flip upsidedown etc... much like other fish I've observed with early issues.

I've reduced the number of lit hours in the day to reduce stress. What else should I do? Would it make sense to reduce the copper concentration or better just to hold steady?

I wasn't as anal as normal with acclimation... did the temp acclimation for 20 minutes floating the bag. Then did three water additions to the bag over a period of about 10 minutes each add. (usually I would do a drip line into a bucket for 45 minutes, but I was nervous about potential jumping. Then got hurried at the end due to other things going on in the house). I am worried I did not acclimate the fish properly.

Any suggestions... other than the obvious for next time?
 
If you have a heater with precision control I would slowly bring up the temp. 1 degree per day (should be slow enough not to stress your fish) As far as the Copper goes I have not used that method as I have used Hypo salinity of 1.009 4-6 weeks to treat Ich without the harsh chemicals.

Good luck,

Robka
 
There was nothing wrong with your acclimation method, and copper treatments do not cause gas bladder problems in fish. Check the normal depth range for the fish that has the problem. If it is a deep water species, and if it was recently imported, there may be an infection at the site where the fish was decompressed (needled). Look for a tiny red spot on one side of the fish or the other. The problem is that I cannot recall if wrasses are physoclistous or physostomous, and that has a bearing on how easily the fish is to decompress. I believe that most physoclistous fish are perciformes (including wrasses) so they need to be properly decompressed.

Jay
 
I read that raising temp does nothing to the life cycle of ich in saltwater. So just maintain your normal tank temp. Test the cupramine regularly to make sure you are still at .5 and keep it there for 4 weeks...Monitor ammonia daily and have plenty of water made up just incase...
 
Thanks, everyone. They both had a great appetite this morning, but then after eating, seemed stressed again. Heavy breathing, flittering dorsal fins, "dazed" swim movements (at least not sideways or upside down). Immediately turned the lights out.

Hopefully continued rest will help.
 

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