need help please with yellow tang it's urgent!

[stantheman]

Hey guys I have had a yellow tang in qt now for a month all params are good. Anyway 3 days ago lost my coral beauty to a phantom disease and now my yellow tang appears to have same thing. He is getting lethargic and rubbing on the glass and twitching just like my coral beauty did. I have been researching and think my coral beauty had gill flukes and I think the yellow tang does as well they are going crazy. Yellow tang is still eating good however starting to breath harder and this is one of 3 fish left out of 5. Has not been going well. Any way is this gill flukes? I have tried a fresh water dip today and if anything the fish is doing much worse twitching and rubbing all the time now I dipped for 5 min. Please help me out here

 

[Newsmyrna80]

Did you see anything come off in the dip? Do you have any Prazipro on hand? Sometimes it takes a few hours for the fish to calm down from the dip but if it is done right it can be very beneficial.

 

[stantheman]

Can you like tell me how to do the dip then? I just took an ice cream bucket and filled it with ro water same temp and put it in for 5 min then dropped it back in qt. Couldn't see anything that really looked like flukes I guess but I have never seen them. I will post a video of it and no I don't have prazipo never needed it before.

 

[stantheman]

Also I did the dip early this morning

 

[stantheman]

Does this tang have flukes?: http://youtu.be/TfkDaGu0O6s

 

[stantheman]

Symptoms are 100% identical to my coral beauty only hours before it dies so I need to do something else I will have lost 150 dollars worth of fish in a week and that is absurd

 

[stantheman]

Any ideas please??

 

[HumbleFish]

If he has flukes, you should have seen tiny white worms fall out of his gills during the f/w dip. Or at least be at the bottom of the container after the dip. If not, something else must be affecting his gills such as Ich or Velvet. I would probably start copper i.e. Cupramine treatment ASAP.

Also, have you tested for ammonia lately?

 

[stantheman]

That's why I am totally baffled I am up to .4 with cup ravine right now.

 

[stantheman]

I have ammonia badge doing water change now and adding more copper cuz ammonia just hit .02

 

[HumbleFish]

I have ammonia badge doing water change now and adding more copper cuz ammonia just hit .02

Any ammonia can have an adverse affect on fish. Might be the immediate problem.

 

[stantheman]

Well I just did a 50% water change. About ready to throw all the fish back in the dt and see if they can fight off ich because this whole qt thing is getting to be worse for the fish than the ich itself I have never had such terrible luck with anything ever

 

[stantheman]

Yellow tang doing much better: http://youtu.be/JZviZTqh0rE

Good news fish appears much more normal and is eating nor like a mad man!!!

 

[HumbleFish]

Looking good! Be sure to keep testing your Cu levels. You want to maintain .4 for one solid month.

 

[stantheman]

Yep I have been there now for 1 week this my second and this week I went from .4 to .5 they're gonna come out squeaky clean. Now I'm gonna take a wack at another coral beauty after this is over and my dt is ichless. Any idea on how to run cupramine with a coral beauty because I will not chance having inch in my dt again

 

[stantheman]

Wondering because I heard coral beauty are very sensitive to copper

 

[HumbleFish]

Wondering because I heard coral beauty are very sensitive to copper

It can be done if you ramp up the Cu very slowly (5-7 days), and pay close attn for signs of copper intolerance (fist sign, the fish stops eating).

However, tank transfer (for Ich) and Chloroquine phosphate are good alternatives to copper IMHO.

 

[stantheman]

What is tank transfer how do you do it I only have 2 tanks 2 sets of filters and heaters and skimmers one set being my dt

 

[HumbleFish]

The sticky above (highlighted in blue) gives all the details.

I personally use two 10 gal tanks to do TT. Each tank has it's own heater, thermometer, airline tubing (I just use discardable airstones), and PVC "caves" that I thoroughly sterilize in-between transfers. So, not a huge $$$ investment tank/equipment-wise. Every 3 days the fish is transferred to a new tank with freshly mixed s/w, as outlined below. This process eliminates Ich because it outruns the parasite's life cycle. However, you still should treat for flukes ( with Prazipro), and observe the fish for another month after TT has completed to watch out for Velvet, Brook, Uronema, bacterial infections, etc.

Day 1 - fish in QT.
Day 4 - in AM, but before tank lights come on (8-9 AM EST), transfer fish to new tank, matching temp and salinity. Transfer as little water as possible.
Day 7 - repeat.
Day 10 - repeat.
Day 13 - repeat and done.

After transferring, I sterilized all PVC, heaters, filters/powerheads, thermometer, etc with a mild bleach colution. Rinse well. Let dry before next transfer.