Have an unknown disease in my tank

[philter4]

In my main display (mixed reef) I have a disease that I don't know what it is. Fish shimmy, have off colored eyes, and color fades to very light. They still eat and otherwise act normal, but occasionally scratch. No motile inverts seem to be affected, I have several species of shrimp, hermit crabs, soft corals and anemones so I can't treat the main tank. I removed all the fish (several prs and trios of pygmy angels, atlantic longnose butterfly, several species of wrasse) to QT, and within a day the color was back, eyes were normal and three days the shimmys stop with just copper and lower (1.018) salinity.

My question is this, how long do I leave them, and is there a general reef safe medication I could put in to the display while the fish are in QT? In the display I have used Ich-Attack by Kordon, but it didn't do anything to help fish or hurt inverts. I also have some Tech M by Kent Marine, but it has all sorts of warnings when using with inverts on the bottle and since I removed the fish I'm hesatent to use it. Any experiences with either of these meds or any others for that matter would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading and any thoughts would be helpful.

 

[kevin2000]

Depends on what (if any) fish disease your dealing with.

Color loss can be attributed to many things often induced by stress - over crowding, conflict, water quality etc.

Not sure what fish shimmy means ... but if its not scratching but the fish staying in place and shaking that can be nothing other than a sign of aggression pehaps do to compatibility issues, overcrowding etc.

Might double check overcrowding and compatibility issues first. Not sure how large your tank is ... having more than one dwarf angel in a std size tank would be considered a "no-no" by many.

Assuming your fish have/had a disease like ich ... then you would need to continue treatment with copper for about 3 weeks ... if you leave your display tank without fish for about 6 week the parasite should naturally die off.

Reef Safe medications will deplete your wallet but are unlikely to have any positive impact on your display tank.

 

[mustang2021]

sounds like maybe velevet which is usually a pain to look for or spot on fish if indeed it is velvet you need to treat asap with copper as this disease usally claims lives with in a matter of days good luck

 

[philter4]

The shaking isn't from stress or overcrowding, there are only 11 fish, 110 gal tank and the biggest fish are a small atlantic longnose butterfly and a flame wrasse. Water parameters are all good, I use natural sea water so there is no issue with tap water type problems, The tank is chilled and the temp is in the mid 70's. The fish were just sitting in one place and shaking like they wanted to swim, but were not moving, and occasionally they would scratch. That part is over now, like I said in the post, it took only 3 days with copper in the QT to get rid of all of the symptoms.

The question remains though, is there anything I could or should add to the tank during the time there are no fish in the tank? Would something like Ick Attack help remove parasites looking for a host? Is there a better or other medication that anyone would recomend? Or should I just continue tank maintenence and water changes and then just add the fish back after 6 weeks?

 

[kevin2000]

If copper is helping then it maybe one of many parasites that don't like copper. However aggression issues should not be discounted if you have multiple dwarf angels in that size tank.

There are no meds that will eliminate parasites from your tank while your fish are in QT. Most parasites will die off on there own without a fish if you keep the tank without fish for about six weeks.

If this were my tank I would continue the copper treatments for about 3 weeks. I would then remove the copper and treat the QT tank with something like prazipro which should remove flukes (common problem that may account for the shimmy but isn't always effected by copper).

Hope this helps.

 

[mustang2021]

there are very few to anykinds of meds other than copper based ones that will ensure the eradication of the ick or anykind of parasitic life cycle imo i would leave the tank fallow for 6-8 weeks and although this methode is not really guarranteed to do much it might help.....I have tried many meds that claim to be reef safe and not one has worked for me the best results i have had with a reef safe med was malichite green i used this med a few yrs back on a tank crash due to velvet and it worked for me i also had a full blown reef with mainly lps the tank was a 120 i continued skimming and dosed for 2 weeks and after i did a 50% water change and all remaining fish were well again with no signs of infection.... by what you have described above it sounds alot like flukes in which case i dont think malachite green will help if the fish were removed from display and have been cured and the problem is flukes you will need to treat the display for the flukes cause once the fish are back in the dispaly the chances of them being rienfected are 2nd to none

 

[philter4]

I thought about flukes, but none came off when I fresh water dipped the fish. All of the fish were also collected by me and never in a system other then the ocean, or while in HI a holding tank in my room, so there should not have been any exposure to flukes from an outside source. Is there a reef safe fluke remover?

 

[kevin2000]

I am unaware of any reef safe fluke remover ... but like ich if you leave your tank without fish for about 5/6 weeks the flukes should die off. there is another post concerning gill flukes running right now where I asked a similar question. Since your fish are in QT and seem to be comfortable there leaving the DT fallow for six weeks maybe your best option.