Recovering from something that rapidly wiped out nearly all fish

[BraenDead]

About 10 days ago I came home to find that 4 of the fish in my tank were covered in white dots and had died (well - one was near death, but not quite dead at the time I saw them, it died shortly thereafter). Prior to this, the fish had looked quite healthy - the day prior the fish were not acting weird, not scratching on things, showed no dots or other signs or symptoms, and all were eating very well. Lost fish include: pair of flame angels, purple tilefish, and splendid pintail fairy wrasse.

I suspect that this is Amyloodinium or a similar fast-working parasite. The one oddity is that I have a longnose hawkfish in the tank that was not affected in any way - he is still in the display tank and has not shown any symptoms at all. My biggest concern currently is I only have the longnose hawkfish in my display tank. Will keeping the hawk in the tank allow the parasite to remain in the system, or should I be fine keeping the hawk in the tank and keeping it otherwise fish free for 6-8 weeks to let the parasite cycle die off? If it's not ideal to keep the hawkfish in the DT, I suspect I will need to remove most of the corals/rock to remove him to get him into QT.

If I do need to get the hawkfish into QT to help eradicate the parasite from the display tank, what will be the best "treatment" on the hawkfish to use? Given he is not showing any active symptoms, I prefer to avoid any traumatic treatments if possible.

Any thoughts and opinions are greatly appreciated.

 

[ThRoewer]

My guess would be Amyloodinium or Brooklynella.
Fish can develop immunity against both, which would explain why your hawk survived unharmed. He may or may not be still a carrier of the disease. So to be on the safe side I would recommend to treat him with formalin baths (kills Brook and Uronema) followed by a tank transfer and Chloroquine Phosphate (kills Amyloodinium and possibly Cryptocaryon as well) and let the tank go fallow for a minimum of two months.

 

[BraenDead]

Thanks - I was afraid I'd need to remove the hawk as part of this.

Are there any good sources for getting Chloroquine Phosphate in the US? It sounded like you may be able to get it from a vet - in which case I may need to ask my vet for some help with this, if I cannot find another source.

Thanks!

Bob

 

[ThRoewer]

NLS Ick-Shield Bath/Powder is CP and you get it at amazon.com or a good LFS.