Royal Gramma dead in QT - What about others?

[dankoos]

I have a 20 gal QT going with a Royal Gramma and a yellow tang. They were both eating and swimming just fine and then last night I find the Gramma dead with big white blotches on him..like square in shape. This did not appear to be ich, but some sort of bacterial infection. The yellow tang is still swimming find and eating like a champ. Should I be worried about the tang?

This same QT just hosted a damsel and a strawberry pseudochromis for 30 days...the same looking disease seemed to kill the pseudo, even after treatment as I saw his blotches before he actually passed...didn't see anything on the Gramma until after he died. The damsel stayed healthy and has been in the DT for several weeks now with no issues. Both groups of fish purchased from separate locations.

 

[Mishri]

did you clean the QT after the pseudo died? I'd bleach it... could be some nasty stuff in there, like Mycobacterium Marinum which requires bleaching to kill it.. even dried tanks can still have it, and can infect humans and other animals.

How big exactly were the blotches and how many? salt grain sized? rice? pea sized? dime?

What did you treat the psuedo with? You said even after treatment..

How long have you had the Gramma/Tang? How long since you had last looked closely at the Gramma? General idea of time elapsed between symptoms/death might be handy.


pics might help.

 

[dankoos]

I did not clean the tank...in hindsight, would have been a good idea. I guess since the damsel survived, I didn't figure whatever the psueo died from was infectious from fish to fish.

I was also an idiot and did not take a pic of the dead Gramma. The white spot was probably the size of a pea, but square/rectangle in shape..not circular. I had been keeping a good eye on both fish and did not notice anything wrong with him the day before...and he was eating the day before.

The fish have been in QT for one week...he died on day 8. I have been doing small water changes every 4 days or so.(last QT and this QT).

I forget the med I dosed last time, I am at work and will post once I get home. The pseudo died the day after I started dosing so it probably didn't have time to work.

I have cuprimine ready to go for ich with the tang, but I don't see any signs of that.

 

[dankoos]

Kanaplex is the med i used previously...should i dose this just in case?

 

[Mishri]

kanaplex is a good strong antibiotic.. probably wont hurt to dose it... but somethings there are no cures for.. I'm not familiar with anything that causes a square/rectangle shape.. sounds odd unless you have a square/rectangle shaped powerhead opening it's getting stuck to.

usually bacteria and fungus just forms in patches...


in the future tear it down and bleach it when fish die.. a lot of people say vinegar but that wont get rid of some of the really nasty stuff. Even if you don't have a fish die in QT it's a good idea to drain it and let it air dry just in case.