Sick regal and Moorish idol

[fishfreak2009]

So I received 3 fish yesterday from an online source. A purple tang, a Moorish idol, and a regal angel. The purple tang looks absolutely perfect, but the other two have some issues. The Moorish idol is covered in ich and the regal angel has flukes, a bacterial infection in the dorsal fin, the pectoral fins, and a cloudy eye. While all the fish are fat and surprisingly all 3 are even eating, obviously they need some work. I have the three of them in a 40 gallon breeder right now. I freshwater dipped all of them after arrival, matched quarantine salinity to that of water in the bags, and began copper sulfate treatment, erythromycin, and praziquantel. Anything else I should be doing? I plan on getting them through whatever they have, and once they're healthy they will go through 8 weeks of observation in the quarantine before going in the new display (upgrading from a 180 to a 340 this week).

 

[Dmorty217]

Sounds like you have a solid plan. Hopefully the fish will make it thru treatment for you. Can you name the place you received these from?

 

[fishfreak2009]

The regal came from LaBo's Aquatics. The Moorish idol came from Mermaid's Cove. And my purple tang came from Eric Bushrow. They were all vendors at the Michigan Coral Expo yesterday. The only fish I was actually able to see well was the purple tang, the others were already prebagged.

 

[fishfreak2009]

Well, the seller of the regal got back with me and said it was news to him that the fish was sick. Said he had the fish for 2 weeks and it was eating well. I started prazipro this afternoon and did another freshwater dip. It looked like the regal angel was making it snow... Very disappointed.

 

[fishfreak2009]

Regal died overnight. Continuing treatments for everyone else in quarantine just in case... So frustrating. I sent pictures and videos to the vendor who says all he can make out is a red spot in the pectoral fin. He claims he has had the fish for the past 2 weeks, and that it was the picture of health and eating in his store.

 

[kmbyrnes]

Bummer. I hope the others survive. Seems like you have a solid plan though.
Congrats on the upgrade.

 

[Dmorty217]

Sorry you lost the regal. News to him it was sick?? I would avoid getting things from them in the future. 2 weeks is the perfect amount of time for a fish to come out of a low dose of copper and show what disease it had been carrying the whole time. The guy you purchased the Regal from is uneducated and shouldn't be selling marine fish

 

[MrsReefK]

Was he the stand across the aisle from mermaids cove? I didn't purchase from mermaids because they had fish bagged laying on their sides. The fish weren't able to move. I fixed the bags so the fish could move and they giggled about it. I felt horrible for the little guys.

 

[fishfreak2009]

Yeah... He was the stand across from them. As for the fish from Mermaid's cove, I got the idol because it looked OK in the bag, didn't see the ich. At least ich is an easy fix in quarantine. The fish bags at Mermaid's cove were standing up when I went through.

 

[fishfreak2009]

Well I just got home and my Moorish idol from Mermaid's Cove cannot balance in the tank. I checked copper level it's at 0.2mg/L. Temp is 77degrees F. pH is 8.2, salinity 1.023, ammonia is 0, nitrate 5ppm and no nitrite. Any suggestions?

 

[ThRoewer]

As a first aid measure I would lower the salinity to 1.016 to help the fish osmoregulate and save energy.

It wasn't a good idea to put them all into one tank - now everyone has everything.
Treating with copper is the next issue.

How much was the Zanclus covered with ich? Was it dense?
Has the ich already come off or is it still on the fish?

As for the seller of the regal - either he is a liar or he doesn't care about his fish or he doesn't know what he is doing. A fish with that many flukes will show symptoms for quite a while. I guess there was a reason why those fish were sold in the bags...

 

[fishfreak2009]

Came downstairs this morning to find the Moorish idol and the purple tang dead as well. So bummed. So very bummed. Don't know what happened, all the water parameters checked out fine.

 

[Dmorty217]

Came downstairs this morning to find the Moorish idol and the purple tang dead as well. So bummed. So very bummed. Don't know what happened, all the water parameters checked out fine.

Sounds like they got brook or velvet with the timeline of deaths. Sorry for your losses, I would avoid buying fish from those sources in the future. Was probably brought in with the regal which in turn killed everything else

 

[ThRoewer]

Sounds like they got brook or velvet with the timeline of deaths. Sorry for your losses, I would avoid buying fish from those sources in the future. Was probably brought in with the regal which in turn killed everything else

+1

That's why you shouldn't gang up sick fish from different (and rather shady) sources - cross contamination is not just likely but pretty much certain.

Also, I can't stress enough how important a formalin dip is on new fish - before they go into any of your tanks.

 

[fishfreak2009]

Sounds like they got brook or velvet with the timeline of deaths. Sorry for your losses, I would avoid buying fish from those sources in the future. Was probably brought in with the regal which in turn killed everything else

Yup. Never buying from those sources again. Only buying fish from my 3 trusted LFS. And of course I had sold my other tanks I could have used to quarantine them separate so that I could by my new 340. Normally I do formalin dip them, just ran out of formalin and didn't have a chance to grab any from work. At least I made 1000000% sure that nothing cross contaminated with the established fish in the display. I even put the quarantine on the opposite end of the house.