Surgery!!!

[boulderman1]

i just had to perform surgery on my true percula clown, i just got him today and noticed after a while that while in my tank had acquired a red leech or anchor type worm, i netted him (finally) and wet my hand to hold him while i carefully removed the worm from the left side of his body near the front of his body, wow, that stressed him out, is there anything i can do now to calm him down/help him recover and prevent future infestations?

thanks

 

[dc]

[welcome]

You could turn out the lights for a day. Hopefully he won't have more. If more show up I'd do the hyposalinity route. Check the diseases forum for that.

 

[boulderman1]

now he's got another one just like the first on his head near the corner of his mouth, i added a cleaner shrimp but he didn't do anything about it, and won't the fresh water dip stress him out too much? what should i do???

thanks

 

[dcombs44]

hyposalinity is not "fresh water" dip. It's lowered salinity.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/Trevor-Jones/hyposalinity.html

from my understanding it won't work on parasites already attached to fish.

 

[Reef4Fun]

yeah, do the hyposalinity, it has worked for several things for me.

 

[boulderman1]

i can't do that, my tank has live rock and inverts

 

[Mrseptember15]

Why not take the L.R and the Inverts and put it in a bucket?

 

[TOURKID]

??

A fresh water dip will make the parasites fall off.

It will not stress the fish TO bad if its done properly.

1. bring the fresh water to the SAME temp as your reef

2. by a ph rasier from the lfs (few bucks, it a powder)
raise your ph to exactly the same as your reef

add your fish, watch it very closely. Ill give it a nudge if it stops swimming.

Ive never went longer than 5 minutes. you can go up to ten or so (but read up on that and dont take my word for it)

After the dip id highly recommend putting all fish in a quarentine and leaveing your reef fish free for a 6 weeks at least.

If you need info on that, theres good stickies at the top of the forum.

 

[bluerug]

Agreed^

 

[Reef4Fun]

I did the hyposalinity due to a purple tang I purchased getting a very bad case of ich. I lowered it, kept it there for about a week and slowly raised it back, all done in two weeks total. I have inverts, anemones, xenia and some other softies, and everything did great with no side effects whatsoever. Maybe I have just been lucky, but my tank is doing perfect, is very healthy, and have over 120 lb of beautiful live rock with all sorts of beautiful things growing from it.
If you do the fresh water dip, it will help get things off of the clown, but it wont do any good for what is in your tank now.

 

[Reef4Fun]

but, forgot to say, there is a warning against doing this with your inverts, but it didn't hurt mine in anyway at all.

 

[TOURKID]

I learned my lesson the hard way, and you are too. quarentine every single thing you add to your reef. because now, if you want to do things the right way... you cant have ANY fish for at least 6 weeks anyway.

If your interested Ill tell you how to set up a good qt.

Never do hyposalinity in your reef. Its a bad idea. and the parasites your talking about need a bigger shock

reef4fun... next time youe tang shows signs of ick (it probley will) try feeding it garlic. donno why, but it'll be ick free the next day. everything my tang eats is treated with garlic

 

[Reef4Fun]

yes, that is also a perfect thing to do, I feed her garlic, lots of garlic, for a few weeks, and now I feed flake food with garlic once a day and the other meal they get mysis. I have had her now for over 8 months without any other outbreaks, as well as a yellow tang, a maroon clown, and 3 damsels. I dont think that my tang would have lived without the garlic feedings, she had a serious outbreak, luckily non of the others got it. I was very stupid and did not qt her when I brought her home, and she showed signs the very next day from stress. I am very lucky. I do not plan on adding any other fish, but if I ever do, I will qt them for sure.