Sick mandarin?

[jmstukey]

We added a beautiful pair of green mandarin's to our 110g tank yesterday that we bought from reefs2go. The female is breathing rapidly with her mouth open and not eating the hundreds of copepods right in front of her. She can swim, but isn't choosing to very much. The male is doing great and definitely hunting (and catching) lots of pods. These are the first fish we have added to the aquarium in well over a year and we did not quarantine due to the difficulty with feeding them.

We also had our smallest clownfish die last night/this morning (after the two new fish were added). It was also breathing rapidly, its stomach looked swollen, and it was swimming irregularly. We had for 2 years and 3 months and it looked fine the day before. We did have it with two other clowns as a result of the rupture of our smaller tank in May 2013. It was either put them together or leave fish to die on the floor. Anyway, everyone seemed to get along since they were put together almost two years ago and I had not noticed any aggression toward the smallest one.

All other fish are acting normal and healthy at this point.

The tank is 110g with two refugiums (one below and one above) and a total water volume of about 140g. It was set up in January of 2013 so is over two years old now. Tank parameters

Salinity: 1.0235
Amonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: .2 (we have been trying to bring this down for over a year with carbon dosing and GFO, guessing it is leaching from the rocks because we haven't been able to make much of an impact).

Surviving Tankmates:

2 clownfish
1 pj cardinal
1 coral beauty
1 engineer goby
1 neon goby
1 one-spot rabbit fish
2 green mandarin
1 cleaner shrimp
4-6 pep shrimp
several frags of zoa's and mushrooms
CUC of hermits and snails

Any idea about what could be bothering the female mandarin? Is there anything we can do to help her?

 

[Dmorty217]

Possibly flukes? You could treat with prazipro or do a FW dip to confirm. What was the last fish added prior to the mandarins

 

[jmstukey]

The last fish added before the mandarin was the neon goby which was added about a year ago. There was no excess moucous or any blemishes on the skin of either fish. The mandarins both arrived in treated water From reefs2go. They made it sound like all of their fish come in treated water?

 

[jmstukey]

If the mandarin's brought in flukes, would it have caused the clownfish to get sick within 6 hours of the new fish being added to the tank? Could flukes have already been in the system somehow even though there hadn't been a new fish in a year?

If it is flukes, is it safe to treat the entire tank with the prazipro? We have a QT but there is no way all of the fish in our 110g can go into the qt at once.

At this point, the female mandarin looks about the same. There are no visible blemishing, she is not shaking her head or having spasms. There is no good way for a freshwater dip without tearing the entire aquarium apart. But, she is still not actively swimming or eating.

All other fish (including the male mandarin) are acting/eating normal.

 

[jmstukey]

We did manage to get her out and do a freshwater dip in temp matched RODI water for slightly less than 4 minutes. I did not see anything in the fresh water that looked like flukes in the leftover freshwater. I did save it in in a closed container in case I need to re-examine later.

The dip did not seem to help her breathing at all. When we put her back in salt water she was laying on her side but she is upright now. We have her in an an unused overflow box attached to our main display because it was loaded with pods (unlike the QT tank), protected from the crabs/other fish, and we can still get to her easily if she needs more treatment.

 

[ThRoewer]

From what you describe that mandarin is on its way out. Especially if you still have no idea what to treat against.

Normally mandarin fish are quite resistant against Cryptocaryon, Anyloodinium, Brooklynella and the like - they just slime them off. On top of that their slime is toxic and not the most hospital feeding ground for parasites
For them to get infected with them it needs to be bad or the mandarin fish needs to be in a very poor condition.
I have only seen very few mandarins like that at stores and they looked like they were dissolving, so much did they slime.

I would also say your clown must have been sick before or at the least severely weakened. Six hours or even a day is just too short for a so far healthy and fit fish to catch an infection and die from it - even velvet and brook are usually not that quick. Sometimes they may even need a couple of weeks to kill a strong and before healthy fish.
Flukes would need even more time.

The only thing that can kill that fast would be a toxin but I would expect that to affect all fish in the system.

 

[snorvich]

That mandarin may have been collected with cyanide and you are seeing the "remains of the day" for that fish. Mandarins are somewhat resistant to parasites but not immune.

 

[jmstukey]

The mandarin was still alive this morning but didn't look good :/ We will see what happens with her. I am afraid she is passed the point of no return. We had planned to get a pair on mandarins for over a year and a half and have worked hard/been patient to make sure we had enough food for them. So it is a little frustrating to loose one right after adding her. Is there anything we can do differently next time?

It seemed odd that the clown died just after the new fish were added. But as they drilled into us in research classes, correlation does not necessarily equal causation. Our female clown did have a spot of blood (or at least that is what it looked like) on her late last night, but she is looking and acting normal other than that (no scratching against rocks or anything). I am wondering if we had a crab go rogue or something on the clowns? Frustrating to not know what is going on.

I rechecked parameters this morning. Salinity was down some to 1.0225 because our sponges in the overflow needed to be cleaned so the ATO put in a bit too much extra water. However, the ATO drips in the water so it would not be a quick change. The extra water will evaporate out over the next few days. Amonia and nitrate were still 0.

 

[jmstukey]

Engineering goby is now acting strange and was swimming frantically. I only have a few frags of zoa's and mushrooms. Can I remove them and treat with Prazi? What does it do to inverts?

 

[Deinonych]

Prazi is "reef safe" and shouldn't harm your inverts. If you decide to dose the DT, turn off the skimmer and remove carbon.

 

[ThRoewer]

Yes, that fish being caught with cyanide is also an option, especially if it came from the Philippines.

Though if other fish start acting infected now it may have brought some hitchhikers with it.

Prazi is "reef safe" and shouldn't harm your inverts. If you decide to dose the DT, turn off the skimmer and remove carbon.

Prazi will kill all worms, good and bad - so I wouldn't call it reef safe.

In fact, I don't think there is any reef safe treatment that is actually effective against parasites.
That's why you should put new fish into a separate tank first and check if they brought unwanted presents.
I didn't do it with every fish for a long time, but when I started over with saltwater here in the US after a 10 year break I had to learn the hard way that quarantine practices at stores here are less (if at all existent) than what I was used from Germany.

 

[jmstukey]

Starting to wonder if we might have a problem with current. We did just put in a new heater about three weeks ago. It seems like it could have accounted for the sudden death of the clown as my husband did have his hands in the tank putting in the new fish. I will have my husband check with his meter as soon as he gets home since he is the expert there. I do not do voltage/current or plumbing!

We did loose the female mandarin

 

[Deinonych]

Prazi will kill all worms, good and bad - so I wouldn't call it reef safe.

Fair enough. It won't harm corals, shrimp, echinoderms, etc. Regardless, it's best administered in a QT, but can be dosed into the DT with relatively minor implications.

 

[ThRoewer]

Fair enough. It won't harm corals, shrimp, echinoderms, etc. Regardless, it's best administered in a QT, but can be dosed into the DT with relatively minor implications.

I really like my worms, especially the little hard tube feather duster worms and would really be upset if they got killed off by a "reef safe" medication.

 

[jmstukey]

Thanks for the clarification about the "reef safe" medication. Unfortunately, there is no way I can put all of my fish in the QT tank so if they all have to be treated I will just have to pull out as many of the rocks that have the little feather dusters as possible. My husband also realized he never unplugged the old heater that went bad. Since the symptoms look like they match a voltage issue more closely than a parasite, we are going to rule that out before treating the tank (and killing the poor worms).

 

[Deinonych]

I really like my worms, especially the little hard tube feather duster worms and would really be upset if they got killed off by a "reef safe" medication.

Understood. I'd be more upset if it killed my SPS.

 

[Deinonych]

Thanks for the clarification about the "reef safe" medication. Unfortunately, there is no way I can put all of my fish in the QT tank so if they all have to be treated I will just have to pull out as many of the rocks that have the little feather dusters as possible. My husband also realized he never unplugged the old heater that went bad. Since the symptoms look like they match a voltage issue more closely than a parasite, we are going to rule that out before treating the tank (and killing the poor worms).

:thumbsup:

 

[jmstukey]

Well, the tank was no more than 11 volts when we checked it this evening with the meter. I realize that current is the issue, not volts, but the volts do seem to be within acceptable parameters.

At this point, all of the fish seem normal and all ate when we fed tonight other than the male mandarin (but we didn't expect him to eat the mysis and he seems to be feeding happily on pods). At this point, I am not going to jump to treat just for the sake of treating but will watch carefully and see what happens.

 

[ThRoewer]

... other than the male mandarin (but we didn't expect him to eat the mysis and he seems to be feeding happily on pods).

Give him some time, sooner or later he will discover the frozen foods you feed your other fish and start going after them.
My mandarins are by now the second to arrive when I feed frozen foods and they outcompete my gobies and even the (very stupid) percula clowns who prefer pellets over any other foods.

... At this point, I am not going to jump to treat just for the sake of treating but will watch carefully and see what happens.

I think that's really the best you can do.

 

[NMSREEFER]

I have a question related to this post. I recently added a Mandarin and purchased 2000 pods from Reefs to Go. Going on a recommendation, I set up 7 quart jars with chaeto, tank water, and pods as a sort of pod farm. When I added the first pods to the tank today it looked like some were dead.

What is the likelihood the op pods caused the clown and the mandarin to get sick? How long had the pods been in the tank? Were any added just a few days before the Mandarins? I hope I don't introduce any problems to my tank with my DIY pod farm.