New Green Chromis getting red on sides. help!

B

Bladeslinger

New member
A few months ago I bought a school of 6 green Chromis... And one by one they develop what looks like a red rash on their sides and then they died one by one. I had one survivor out of the 6. A few days ago I bought 9 Chromis and 2 have developed the same redness on their side.
I really want a school of Chromis and it seems each time I try to they all just die off :(

I have never had this issue with any other species, my water peramiters have remained consistent for the past 3 years, lighting (T5) is 6 months old,and filtration is cleaned out and phosban and chemipure are changed out every few months.

The Chromis were all perfect when I bought them. They get these red areas on their side where it looks like their scales are missing. I really would like advice as I want to keep my school of Chromis. Btw it's a 75 galon reef tank.

Pics:
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It sounds like it may be sort of some kind of bacterial infection or the chromis may be attacking each other.

I would put them in a QT if you can and treat them with an antibiotic. I, however, do not know which antibiotic to recommend so I'll let others comment (I may try Marcyn or somehing... but to be honest... I'm not sure if that is even a good choice in this scenario). I'm going to tag along as well to hopefully learn something new.

Good luck with the fish!
 
Thanks for the input. I woke up this morning to one of the ones that had the redness dead on the bottom :(
The other one that had it seems like its getting worse. Pic:

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I just don't understand how this exact thing happened with Chromis I bought several months apart. No other fish I've introduced to the tank ever got sick. It's only Chromis. I dunno?
 
There is a name for the condition of the fish in the pic (starts with "eu..."., I think.) ; but I sure can't remember it right now. Maybe someone will chime in. Chromis used to be bullet-proof beginners fish; but it seems that our forum is a constant stream of them being real problems. I have no idea why.
 
MrTuskfish said:
There is a name for the condition of the fish in the pic (starts with "eu..."., I think.) ; but I sure can't remember it right now. Maybe someone will chime in. Chromis used to be bullet-proof beginners fish; but it seems that our forum is a constant stream of them being real problems. I have no idea why.
Click to expand...

I believe you're thinking of uronema. I have no experience with the disease, although I remember it from my research. Bladeslinger: you might want to google "uronema" and see if it resembles what you have.
 
Thanks muffsabby!
I googled it and the treatment seems to be unclear. Is there any treatment I can do keeping them in the display tank? Also, what exactly is the cause?
 
None of my fish have ever had uronema, so I have no experience in dealing with it. I looked it up in the book "The Marine Fish Health and Feeding Handbook" by Bob Goemans, and it states that fish exhibiting advanced stages of this disease are usually terminal. The only treatments the book suggests are either formalin or hypo, both of which would need to be done in a QT/HT (and are only successful in fish that appear non-infected or are in the early stages). Perhaps someone with more experience than I will be able to give you better advice.
 
I work at a LFS and we have always had some problems with the chromis we got in. We have changed distributors and they all eventually get this. our display tanks are well maintained. Same thing, it looks like the start of a bacterial infection on the sides, and then it reddens and they drop one by one. We have tried all sorts of treatment but nothing seems to work, I will def look up uronema, never heard of it. Would love to know how to treat this!!!
 
I work at a LFS and we have always had some problems with the chromis we got in. We have changed distributors and they all eventually get this. our display tanks are well maintained. Same thing, it looks like the start of a bacterial infection on the sides, and then it reddens and they drop one by one. We have tried all sorts of treatment but nothing seems to work, I will def look up uronema, never heard of it. Would love to know how to treat this!!!
 
Update:

I fed the tank and noticed my sick Chromis didn't eat at all. I caught him with the net effortlessly. Put him in a container and dosed with copper safe. I noticed he seems to be breathing heavily. Maybe it's too late to help the little guy but at least I'll find out if copper safe works or not.

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I agree with Uromena. A formalin dip may help. It could also push it into its grave. headed there anyway though. It is very difficult to rid your DT of this. Mycobacterium protocol is what is needed. Bake the rock, bleach, isopropyl, etc.... Chloroquine will help protect the fish, but the mechanism of action won't allow it to eradicate the organism from the tank. Copper reportedly will.
 
Just had another fatality. And it wasn't event eh sick one that I separated. It's was in the DT and had no visual blemishes at all. ????
 
i don't think copper works at all. i had the same issue and tried different things from antibiotics, fungals, methenlyene blue, fresh water dip, etc...

This disease affects anthias also. I suddenly lost a bunch of my anthias and chromis and started researching on this.
 
Just a final update:

The chromis I separated died. I had a total of 3 chromis fatalities. :(

Good news is the other 7 chromis are doing fine. Eating and very lively!

I guess there is still no known cure for this common redness on chromis, but as advice I'd say to separate the sick looking ones from the rest in case this does spread. Of the 3 that died, only 2 showed redness on their sides, the other looked perfectly healthy.
 
I would love to know what's the deal with Chromis these days. As someone said above, these fish used to be bulletproof. I used to keep large schools and rarely lost a one. I would keep them until they got too big and then traded them to someone with a bigger reef. But nowadays I can't keep one alive. Neither can anyone else I know. ***?
 
My reply to a very similar thread a couple days ago.

Chromis are shipped in small groups in small bags. They tend to get beat up in transit. I often saw a high mortality rate from them when they first came in to the stores due to this method.
You will see a lot of physical damage on them, which then leads to other problems.

I do not recommend people buying chromis, espesially to keep in groups as it just doesn't work long term.

When my 1200 gallon reef was still up, I put 25 chromis in it at once, within a year I was down to 1.
 
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