probably a goner but I'd like to at least know why my favorite fish is dying HELP!

Marshall

Marshall

Premium Member
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I drained my reef tank and caught them all last night. The regal was looking 5/10 last night today he is 0-1/10 on my scale (80% of that tail fin rot came over night). This entire visible demise has happened in < 1 week more like 4 days. He is certainly going to die. You have no idea (well, maybe you do) how much it pains me to write this. I am considering leaving the hobby over this. I love that fish ... I drove 4 hours to get him from a hobbyist that had him for 2+ years so I know that his doom is entirely my fault.


Anyways, I removed the regal angel to a separate aerated 20gal hospital tank, today I dosed with recommended dosage of maricyn 1 and maricyn 2 (box said it was ok to dose together and he looked no better after just maricyn 2). I did not FWD the regal angel.

I dosed only maricyn 2 to the tank with the foxface/clown and I also FWD'd those two fish although they are in that hospital tank with fish that were not FWD'd pulled from the same system.

I just want that regal angel to survive even though I am 99% sure he will not if there is anything I can do to save him I will. I acted as fast as humanly possible to get that hospital tank setup and get him treated today. I did not FWD him because I fear the stress may kill him. He is breathing rapidly, laying on his side, refusing food and well, looking like he is going to croak.

I have not tested the hospital tanks' waters but it was pulled from my main system which is 78 F, 1.025, 8-8.2 pH, 11-12 alk, 1320 Mg, 420 Ca. I have sps corals in that tank that are ****ed from the draining last night but were doing very well before. Some of them have lost some color from the stress today but I must attribute that to the air exposure for approx. 1 hour.

Thanks so much everyone, if for no other reason than to explore the post-mortem and offer advice.

Cheers,
Marshall
 
that does not happen for no reason, and sorry for what is going on, did you add something without qt? and you got the new fish that was in sombodies tank for 2 years, what about ammonia and nitrite,
 
I added a fish (PBT) that was in a copper tank for 2 weeks. He got ich and died a week or two ago and I removed his dead body. My regal angel died tonight. I froze the body tonight maybe I'll look at it more closely later. Any ideas what disease that was???
 
Velvet or brook. Not ich. This tragically is what can happen when one does not QT all their new arrivals. Sorry
 
He was not a new arrival Ive had him two months. The PBT was copper qt'd two weeks all the other fish were there before. Not sure how it got in there.
 
Was anything else added? Anything at all? QT should have been AT LEAST 4-6 weeks if not longer.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8277582#post8277582 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by phrawd


I have not tested the hospital tanks' waters but it was pulled from my main system
Click to expand...

sorry to hear about your issues.

but why would you use the water from main tank where these fish were infected with god knows what, to fill the hosp tank?

that's some nasty looking infections there.. more than likely the pbt brought in some goodies to share.
yes,,quarantine needed for min of 4 weeks for observation alone,, however,if treatment is needed 6-8 weeks would be min.
 
I didn't think I had any other option since I didn't think I could put in aged artificial sea water straight from my mixing cans since it was not 'cycled'. Stephen Pro says this is how he sets up his hospital tanks and then changes with fresh water 50% each day or something which is what I was going to do.
 
thats the same thing that wiped out my tank last month. i bought a cortez angel from a wholesaler in LA. no QT. the angel died in 2 weeks. then over the course of a month this disease killed 1500 dollars in fish. i broke down the whole tank and now going fallow for a while. i emailed my friend your pictures. he owns a fish store hopefully he will know what it is. if any one else knows i would like to know too. copermine didnt help in QT later
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8282821#post8282821 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Triggerfish
i dont think he was referring to using diseased infested water though.
Click to expand...
Tell me what you would have done differently? I have one aquarium, I know that I can't put fish into fresh 100% aged saltwater, and I wanted to get them out of the tank asap.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8284308#post8284308 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by phrawd
I can't put fish into fresh 100% aged saltwater
Click to expand...

what is fresh aged saltwater?

do you mean newly mixed water that has already been aerated to use for water changes?

if so, why can you not use it?
 
Let's talk about the disease. As I can figure out from what I'm reading---correct me if I got it wrong---whatever it was didn't respond to copper. The stress on the system from copper [liver and kidneys as the filters of the body get it worst] probably actually worsened the situation. So probably liver and kidneys were in trouble.

If it were a parasite, such as ich or velvet, it should have responded to the copper. So it very possibly wasn't either.

Meanwhile the disease went on its course. Fin rot is a gram negative bacterium, as I understand it. Maracyn [erythromycin] is a 'broad spectrum' treatment, but if you read the fine print, it has 'demonstrated some effectiveness' against gram negative bacteria. It is primarily effective against gram positive bacteria.

The most common lethal infection in the tank involves gram negative bacteria, and there are not that many medications that treat it. If anyone knowledgeable can recall which ones are gram negative specific it would be helpful. If you get into the fine print of the 'broad-spectrum' antibiotics, it states that they are somewhat effective against 'some' gram negative infections. [As I understand it, the difference between gram negative and gram positive bacteria is the way they uptake stain on a slide, ergo, the way they uptake, period, but my biology has been a long time ago.]

Anyway, gram negatives are hard to treat. The first thing to realize is which disease are parasitic [ich and finrot [oodinium]] and which are fungal, and which are infective. Copper is good at killing things, and kills small ones faster, which is why it works on parasites. An anti-fungal works on what is essentially like a 'plant,' ie, a fungus growing on the internal or externally exposed tissues of the fish, while a bacterium is your common germ, an animalian kind of creature, which come in those two varieties, gram positive [lots of commonly available medications treat it] and gram negative [much narrower range of medications treat it.] Unlike the parasite, the bacterium is in the bloodstream where it's difficult to get at, and therefore the copper won't kill it: the better choice is the right antibiotic.

This is my understanding of the classes of disease, and treatments, for what it's worth.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8287878#post8287878 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
---correct me if I got it wrong---whatever it was didn't respond to copper.
Click to expand...

he didn't treat the fish removed with copper.
or are you referring to the pbt's copper pretreatment prior to entering his tank? assuming the tang infected the tank.

good write up on basic bacteria infection treatment. it is hard to identifiy correct bacteria to treat and exactly which medications could possibly be most effective.

it's indicated that Maracyn-Two treats towards gram-neg infections.
Maracyn - gram-pos
Trisulfa - both
 
Whatever it was it acted really fast and some of the fish are still alive and others are completely unaffected (the ones I could not catch in the display tank, namely a goby and a blue damsel). The maroon clowns also seem to be fine. I figured using my tank's water was putting fish into uncycled water that would cycle and cause serious problems. I figured doing water changes would be better as long as I got the bacteria, etc in there with some seed water. The whole situation sucks.
 
IME..using established water will have no difference on cycling a new tank.
all the nitrifying bacteria has established on the gravel,media ect...

but until recently,,i was thinking upon the same lines as yourself..until i recently experienced it made no difference..

hopefully some of your fish will recover.
gl
 
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