mandarin gasping

[jsrtist]

I've had my mandarin for 2 years now and she is in an established 75 gallon reef tank. As of this evening, all parameters are normal: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0, pH 8.2, calcium 450, KH 12. Water temp stays from 79-81º.

This week we lost our powder brown tang and pink skunk clown to ich. The tang was the newest addition, about a month ago, and the skunk has been with us several months. The tang stressed himself to death and a few days later the skunk followed.

I see the mandarin regularly and tonight noticed that she has a white film on her eyes and some strange white patches on her skin and her breathing is labored. Please help as she is a very special fish to me.

The only thing that has changed in recent months is that my boyfriend has added about 3 times more buffer (Kent superbuffer) to increase our KH which was staying at about 6 ppm.

 

[jsrtist]

Here is a pic from tonight. You can see the white on her. My first thought is ich but I know they tend to be more immune to it because of their slime coat.

 

[andrewsmart]

are you sure it was ich that killed the other fish.

looks more like velvet to me.

look it up.

it causes laboured breathing as well.

formalin dips are the answer and quickly but i dont know if you can use those on a mandarin.

 

[jsrtist]

Thank you for your quick reply. I thought it looked somewhat like velvet as well. I am sure our tang and clown had ich but it may have been velvet also.

Anyone know if formalin is safe for mandarins? If so, at what strength?

 

[kevin2000]

Copper is the most common method for treating amylo (aka velvet)

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/amyloodinium.html