I NEED HELP! Multidiseased Fish

[bigbris1]

I have a 55 gallon tank with:

Yellow tang
Two Spot Tang
Firefish
2 Skunk cleaner Shrimp
1 Fire Cleaner Shrimp
Purple reef Lobster
Misc snails & hermits
50lbs live rock
60lbs oolite sand
5lbs GARF grunge

temp 82F
PH 8.4
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Phosphate 0.5
Silicate 1
Calcium 400
Alkalinity 6 meq/L

My tank has been up for about two months & doing very well. I recently bought a Copperband Butterfly & two false percula clowns which died of what looked like marine ich shortly after introducing them (I know, I will now quarantine anything I add to my tank from now on)

My yellow tang has the white spots like Ich. My two spot tang has some spots as well as the dusted appearance like oodinum. I began feeding garlic & they both are eating well but no improvement as far as the spots.

Now the yellow tang has black spots in addition to the white spots (salt grains) & one of his eyes has swollen up to the point that it looks like its gonna burst over a 1 day period. He can not see out of that eye.

The firefish seems unaffected. This has been going on for a week & I'm about to break down, rip the tank apart to catch all of the fish & put them in a seperate tank & try to nurse them to health.

Is it possible for a fish to have more than one disease at a time? If the two spot tang has oodinum, shouldn't he be dead already? What do you recommend?

Thanks!

 

[SAT]

Yes, that does sound like multiple diseases, and yes it's very possible but fortunately somewhat unusual. I don't know if I believe the Amlyoodinium diagnosis or not... but there's no reason to take a chance (this mean you need to use copper rather than hyposalinity). The black spots sound like turbellarians, or "black Ich".

I suggest the following:
1. Set up that quarantine tank. You really don't want to be treating these diseases in your display tank. Use the display tank water to fill the quarantine tank. Get a sponge filter or bio-wheel. The filter won't do much good for a week or so, but you'll eventually be glad you have it. Get ready to be changing lots of water (50% per day or more) because that will be the only way to control the ammonia levels in this new tank unless you can scare up an already-conditioned filter. Also get an ammonia test kit if you don't have one already... use that to guide your water changes. Don't tolerate ammonia levels above 0.1ppm.

2. Get hold of some formalin. As you transfer the fish to the quarantine tank, use it as a bath. Here are some directions:
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/formalinbaths.html

The formalin bath should knock off most if not all of the black Ich. If you see any recurrance, just keep repeating the bath every 3 days until they are all gone. If you can't get formalin, you can try a freshwater dip, which works at least some of the time:
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/freshwaterdips.html

With any dip or bath, be very careful with the procedure. It's very easy to do more damage than good. And try to minimize that handling as much as you can... nets can be very damaging.

3. For the Ich and/or marine velvet, get some Cupramine and a SeaChem copper test kit. You have about 3 days after the transfer before the parasites can possibly reproduce, so it's OK to take that long procuring the medication. Use the test kit to tell you how much copper is in the water -- that's the only safe way to use copper.
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/cupramine.html

If you see any signs of physical trauma (skin abrasion, etc.), I suggest adding some Maracyn-Two to the water.

You can termininate the copper treatment after 2-3 weeks, but don't return the fish to the display tank for at least 6 weeks. It can take that long for all the parasites to die out.

Note you should treat all the fish, not just the ones showing symptoms.

Good luck!

 

[bigbris1]

Thanks for replying with such a wealth of info. I got home today & the yellow tang has expired. Also, the two-spot tang looks like he's about to go. I guess now I'll have to do reading on whether or not shrimp, lobsters, hermits & snails can harbor any of the diseases, as I will not buy fish again for at least 2 months.

Thanks again!

 

[SAT]

Sorry to hear that. The good news is none of your inverts can sustain those diseases.