QT/Hosp Tank Needed

Pufferpunk

New member
I hate to admit this, I haven't had a sick fish since before I can remember... but my baby burrfish is pretty sick. I've had him for months, haven't added any new fish or corals to his tank, yet he developed crypt spots about 2 weeks ago. I do not have a SW hospital tank, nor anywhere to put one. OK, if I have to, I could set up a 12g nano in the basement but I don't even have a heater or any way to filter it. Anyway, I've been adding vitamin C according to this article: http://www.livingreefs.com/forums/saltw ... min-c.html & doing 1/2 hour FW dips every other day. Today he started getting very frayed fins & cloudy spots on his body & eyes. HELP! The lil fella is quite precious. I have no idea how to set up a SW hospital tank for him or what meds to use for him. I'm stumped as to where he could have even gotten this parasite from. In all the years I've had this tank, there has never been any whitespot in there. None of the other fish are affected.


I was actually wondering if anyone has a cycled hospital tank available that knows how to treat a fish like this. I'm really new at keeping SW fish & have never had to medicate a FW fish past Melafix.
 
Sorry to hear that! I have a 20 long and a 70 gallon that can house this guy....can you post a picture of him?

Have you seen anything fall off of him after the dips? Is he still eating? How's the respiration?
 
Here's little Devlin:
DevlininToadstoolcopy.jpg

How can you not want to help him? FW dips only helped a little. Yesterday, I forgot & left him in for an hour--he didn't look so good after that... Still eats like a pig though. Quite the adept beggar.
 
Puff, anything that shows the white spots you are referring to?

So nothing comes off in FW? Is he housed with anyone that would pick on him? I think copper is too tricky with these guys so hypo would be your best bet.

Did you post in the disease forum?
 
I've got a PM out to Kelly Jedlicki--she's a Mentor at my puffer forum. Unfortunately, my expertise does not include the disease end of things. It's so weird that no one else in the tank is sick. He's the biggest fish in the tank.
 
A 20L makes a great QT/Hospital tank. A few pieces of PVC provide places to hide. An emperor filter works out pretty good for the filtration system, particularly when doing hyposalinity as you are constantly removing and adding water to first get down to 1.009 then to keep it there. A small heater and powerhead and you have a QT tank.
 
I agree with SlowCobra.. Tons of threads on QT tank setup as well here on RC. Kelly was a speaker I think at the frag swap at oceans floor last year talking about disease, treatment and qt too.
 
I understrand all that. My problem is, I don't have an extra tank or the room for one. With all the WC I do here, I've never dealt with a fish as sick as this before.
 
When I had a breakout I bought a 90RR the same day I noticed the breakout. I setup both the 90 and the 20 and removed all corals and rocks from my 210 so that I could catch all of the fish. You do what you have to do to keep the fish alive... or accept the alternative.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11682138#post11682138 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pufferpunk
Someone at my pufferforum suggested I hypo him in my BW tank that is at 1.008.

You can not just immediately bring them down to hypo, the safest way to be done is over the course of a few days.
 
I wasn't going to just drop him in there. I was going to try to do a drip over about 8 hours. think that would be OK/ My other option is to just continue to do the Furan 2/Melafix dips for an hour, 2x/day. He seemed to respond well to his 1st one. anything else I should add to that?
 
Hello
If indeed your combating Cryptocaryon irrritans, with out long term Cu treatment I'd try some formalin baths. Take out some tank water and add 2 drops per gallon, add a air stone and bath/watch the fish for an hour or so. I'd also add UV light to the aquarium the fish came from to help eliminate the free floaters!
 
Hello
1) Their are many variables when dealing with C. irritans! Their life cycle can be as short as a few days to many weeks, hence the (28) days of quarantine.
2) Anything is possible, but I'd get ready for a full frontal attack!
Diatom filtration, UV, extra water changes and a little O3 can't hurt,
 
oh no devlin is sick! if there is anything i can help with let me know. it might be that the tank hes in is so small hes really stressed even more. poor guy. i have a 39gal you can have, its really dirty. i was going to trow it out.
 
Puffer, do not put him into 1.008, 1.009 is the lowest you should go for treatment. If you can raise that brackish tank then it may work.

Yes, one fish can be affected before others. The longer you wait, the more will show up. Others may have it and you wouldn't know if it's in the gills. (that's why I asked if there was heavy respiration)

EDIT: There are some instances where crypt has survived a wider range of salinity treatment. If you don't need to expose those other fish than I wouldn't. The best thing is to keep him separate and treat in a bb tank.
 
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