Please Help! Fish are very sick.

Jbackphx

New member
Hello, I am a newbie to this hobby but feel that my knowledge is getting much better due to constant research. I did post this in another forum, but was told the experts are here. I am very worried about my fish. I currently have a vol. lionfish, a harlequin tusk, dogface puffer, and chainlink eel. I had a clown triggerfish, but died yesterday:( (he was my favorite). I have had them all about a month to a month and a half. They are all pretty small (about 2-3", and the tusk is about 5") They are currently in a 75 gallon that I turned into a quarantine tank which has a 20 gallon sump used for water circulation, volume, and O2. I am in the process of setting up my 200 gallon. The symptoms of the clown trigger and tusk are as follows: White spots (some raised) all over body, even on eyes, clowdiness around eyes (looks like cataracts), slow erratic swimming, laying on sandbed, heavy breathing, heavy slime layer on skin, pale coloration, and loss of appetite (which is very evident considering they were all very good eaters). The lionfish doesn't show much signs of anything, but is not eating. The puffer has white spots on him, but seems to be doing well. The eel is hard to tell... he keeps escaping out of the overflow syphen tube so I imagine thats pretty stressful in it's own, but does have the white spots. I spoke to my LFS and they said it might be ich and told me to dose the tank with .5ppm copper, so I did. It's been 3 days since adding the copper and their symptoms seem to be getting worse (hence the clown trigger's death). I am willing to try ANYTHING to save my fish. When I setup my quarantine tank, I removed a lot of the rock and frags/mushrooms and put them into a 40 gallon breeder so they wouldn't be harmed by the copper. The sump for the 75 gal. was also used as a refugium with live rock and algae, pods, snails, and crabs, but removed all of it due to the copper. Readings include: ammonia-0, nitrite-0, nitrate-20ppm, pH-8.2, copper- .5ppm. Any help would be much appreciated! I would hate to lose anymore of these guys. I have been reading about flukes and parasites, but not sure if that's what I have. I have not noted any worms on the fish, but have seen tiny wormlike things crawling on the rocks. I also have tiny white bugs all over the glass, but was told by the LFS that was a good thing... I just noticed little white spots (about the size of a needlehead. with 6 little legs. Don't know what that is. Thanks!
 
WOW....

You dosed copper right in your main tank? Do you still have rock and inverts in it? .5 is the correct level if you are using Cupramine but you should not have added it all at one time......Sounds like crypt (aka saltwater ich) Are the fish still eating? You said you made your 75 a treatment tank right? Did you remove corals, rock and inverts if you had any? All of those good things you have crawling around will be killed by the copper and will cause an ammonia spike in your tank.
 
Hello RBU1. I converted my 75 gallon to a quarantine tank. I am in the process of setting up my 200 gallon as we speak. I moved 90% of the rock to a 40 gallon tank and all inverts. The only thing in the 75 gallon tank is the fish, about 10-15lbs of live rock, and the 20 gallon sump for water circulation. I am not running carbon filtration either, just a canister filter with floss pads. The fish stopped eating. Last fed on Mon. when even the trigger (who died yesterday) ate. I really need to know what to do. I'm at a loss... I really want to add these fish to my 200 gallon, but fear they might contaminate that also... Any help is much appreciated! Thanks.
 
Well I am not familiar with that copper power....Copper also can work as an appetite supresent. Here is what I would do......Get that copper power out of the tank by doing a 100% water change. I would then see if the fish start to eat again without the copper in the water. If they start to eat then I would give them a few days to settle and then use Cupramine as a treatment. Cupramine is the most safe copper treatment out there. You really should not be using copper on scaless fish but Cupramine is the safest. I would not take disease treatment advice from that fish store any more either.
 
Ok, I'll try that. Hopefully I can find cupramine locally so I don't have to order it. If so, I will have to wait until it gets here.
 
Hopefully getting that copper power stuff out of the tank will get the fish eating again. Just make sure you have plenty of saltwater made up for water changes.
 
The cloudy eyes sound like a secondary bacterial infection, which is common in the company of ich. I've had good results with using Maracyn 2 and Bifuran+.

Agreed with RBU1 on using cupramine with an eel and puffer in there. I'm not sure about Copper Power, and many coppers are too strong for eels and puffers. Also, if anyone recommends hyposalinity treatment because they're scaleless, that, in my experience, is a bad idea at least for the eel. My eels did not handle hypo well at all, while every other fish was fine. The eels were not even showing symptoms of being sick but were very stressed by the hyposalinity.

The only part where I disagree is about letting the fish have a chance to get their appetite back... They have cloudy eyes and are full of parasites- I'm not so sure they're going to be hungry. Delaying treatment could be a mistake.
 
The cloudy eyes sound like a secondary bacterial infection, which is common in the company of ich. I've had good results with using Maracyn 2 and Bifuran+.

Agreed with RBU1 on using cupramine with an eel and puffer in there. I'm not sure about Copper Power, and many coppers are too strong for eels and puffers. Also, if anyone recommends hyposalinity treatment because they're scaleless, that, in my experience, is a bad idea at least for the eel. My eels did not handle hypo well at all, while every other fish was fine. The eels were not even showing symptoms of being sick but were very stressed by the hyposalinity.

The only part where I disagree is about letting the fish have a chance to get their appetite back... They have cloudy eyes and are full of parasites- I'm not so sure they're going to be hungry. Delaying treatment could be a mistake.


You are correct in the delayed treatment comment....Its a gamble. My thought is by doing the 100% water change hopefully you are removing any crypt in the water colum greatly reducing its numbers. The new clean water should help and hopefully it helps enough to get the fish eating. Its the posters call what he/she wants to do. But I would do the 100% water change and then he/she can decide how to proceed. Just make sure you follow the directions on the bottle.....I usually add it slower but I am not normally faced with fish in the condition yours are.
 
By any chance is the Maracyn 2 and Bifuran + ok to use with the copper treatment? Or will it just be too much for the fish to handle. Thanks a lot for your input!!
 
Yes you can use the antibiotics with cupramine, but only use one of them. I just gave two names in case you couldn't find one of them. :) If you get to pick, go with Maracyn 2 as the treatment is easier to follow.

RBU1, I didn't take into account a reduced parasite load. The op will have to decide what to do there.
 
I disagree with you about mixing antibiotics with copper. I don't mix anything with copper. If you call Seachem they will also tell you not to mix anything with copper. If it is a bacterial infection caused by the crypt, then it will clear up on its own when the copper and water quality gets good with the 100% water changes.
 
And I disagree with that. The company says that to protect themselves just in case, but plenty of people mix it with antibiotics and prazipro without issue. On infections clearing up later, if it gets a good hold before the parasite is eradicated he'll have a big problem. Clearing up the eyes could also help them start to eat.
 
OK we can agree to disagree on this one. I don't like mixing any treatments. If I need to use prazi I will use it before my cuprmaine treatment. I recently had an issue with a goldflake angel. Had the cuprmaine up to .5 and the goldflake started to get cloudy eyes and stopped eating. I did a 100% water change did a Prazi treatment and now the angel is back to normal eating and looking fine. After another week or so I will start the copper treatment again.
 
Sounds like a serious mess we have cooking here. I've never heard of a 100% water change ever being recommended. Why not use carbon to remove the meds? A simple 10 minute FW dip will tell you if you have flukes. If you do, FW dip all your fish and hit the tank with prazipro.
 
OK we can agree to disagree on this one. I don't like mixing any treatments. If I need to use prazi I will use it before my cuprmaine treatment. I recently had an issue with a goldflake angel. Had the cuprmaine up to .5 and the goldflake started to get cloudy eyes and stopped eating. I did a 100% water change did a Prazi treatment and now the angel is back to normal eating and looking fine. After another week or so I will start the copper treatment again.

At the same time you don't know what would have happened if you had just added in prazi. But whatever works for you is fine, just going by what I've done. I'm glad the little goldflake is doing well! As an aside I've treated butterflies and angels with a mix of copper and prazi multiple times with 0 losses so we'll just agree to disagree, and the op can do whatever he wants in the end.

Bean, I don't think the OP is actually dealing with flukes in this case. I only brought it up because it's another med that can be mixed with cupramine (imo). Sorry for the off topic-ness!
 
I've used Copper Power and it works great. It claims, unlike other copper medications Copper Power is approximatey 60 times less toxic to fish. Treat tank once, it doesn't precipate like other meds. That's why I tried it and I will keep using this before putting fish in my DT. It also treats Ododinium & Fungus.
 
Bean, I don't think the OP is actually dealing with flukes in this case. I only brought it up because it's another med that can be mixed with cupramine (imo). Sorry for the off topic-ness!

Some of the symptoms sound a little flukey to me. A fluke infestation can be the route cause of all of the OP's trouble. Plus, it wouldn't hurt a thing to do a FW dip. IMO if the fish DO have flukes, the flukes should be eliminated first.
 
Some of the symptoms sound a little flukey to me. A fluke infestation can be the route cause of all of the OP's trouble. Plus, it wouldn't hurt a thing to do a FW dip. IMO if the fish DO have flukes, the flukes should be eliminated first.

Oh okay, glad I didn't confuse things.
 
Ok, what is prazipro and what does it do? I did do a freshwater dip for about 3 min. about an hour ago. They didn't like it at all!! I was scared to go longer. I did use straight RO/DI water warmed up to 80 degrees and used a pH buffer to bring it up to 8.1. Should I do this for 10 min. and see what happens? I know if I do, I should wait at least till tomorrow, right? The lionfish started looking pale this morning. Then the eyes started to cloud. Now their bulging and milky white! He's acting drunk. This sucks...
 
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