The cost of brooklynella

I have rarely if ever seen a fish recover from an illness using medication and a "sterile" tank, but there's people all around making that claim. So, it must be possible. I figure it's best to provide a stabile environment and let nature decide if it will live or die. At least that way I know it wasn't the meds.
But for God's sake I'll never again let that environment be one that will jeopardize my other livestock.
 
IMO, you will continue to see losses of WC clowns if you choose not to use meds. There is a great stress placed on these fish when caught, bagged, shipped, rebagged, reshipped, and so on. Their naturaly immunity can no longer hold off the disease/parasite that may already exist, as you have found out. Are meds successful 100% of the time, no, but I have seen them bring back clowns that would have otherwise died. Your 'stable' environment isn't nature, you have no way of precisely replicating the environment in which these clowns come from, so they need a little help.

Not bashing you, I just think that line of thinking will continue to cost you more clownsfish in the end.
 
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Not sure if you knew this or not but a freshwater dip for 15min with the same pH as your tank will tend to kill brook. You then careful remove the fish without "grabbing" and cysts and then put it into a 1.0085-1.0095 QT tank. Repeat the dip every day or every other day.
 
Update
The female A. leucokranos (Lucy) is still looking wretched and not eating anything discernable, but to my surprise was still swimming when I woke this morning. I tried adding 3 crushed pills of vitamin B12 Monday and 6 more yesterday in hopes of stimulating her appetite.
The male A. leucokranos (Leuc) seems no worse for the wear but over the last 2-3 days he began hosting in the RBTA again.
I dropped the SG another point yesterday to 1.014 I'm still not technically at "hypo" levels yet, but should be at the top of the hypo range (1.013) by tomorrow.
The corals aren't at their happiest, but I do have good polyp extension. The one LTA that didn't go through the CL has reinflated and seems to have adjusted to the new SG fairly well.
I do have a heavy dusting of diatoms and green algae on the glass, but that is to be expected with the dead anemone and the pods that probably died off as a result of the hypo treatment. I've also been feeding a little heavier than usual.

I now have hope for Leuc. I'm not going to get too excited about Lucy unless she starts looking and acting normal.
 
Re: The cost of brooklynella

I have cost myself a lot of grief and a lot of money.
Click to expand...

Misery loves company my friend. Take this exact experience and apply it to a koi pond where the cheapest fish cost $100 and many were much more than that. Then imagine going to a small fish store and buying a couple cheap koi because your kids fell in love with them. Drop them into the pond without quarantining first, and within 2 weeks you have 10 dead koi, including several show-winners that were 2' long and worth $1,000+.

The best lessons are often the hardest to learn :(
 
It's day five of hypo. I'm at 1.013 SG. The female leuc still has a film covering her. As of this morning she is still swimming, but not eating anything substantial as far as I am aware. The male leuc seems to have made a full recovery and is eating like a pig.
I have lost some several table coral frags and some other corals look stressed. I am convinced that this is a result of the pollution from the clean up crew die off and the anemone that went through the closed loop. I did a 50G WC last night and will likely do another 100G WC this evening or tomorrow morning. If the corals perk up, this will be an indication that the hypo has little or no effecton the corals in and of itself.
Please no arguements on what you've read, this is a real world experiment. So far it looks like everything I've read on this subject is complete BS.
 
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1.0013 is doing NOTHING for you or brook. Go to 1.0085-1.009. Failure to eat is not a good sign.

Drop the salinity and keep them in QT a good 6weeks. Also turn up the temp if you can to speed up the parasite hatching and thus dying.
 
Thanks for the tip.
Is this something that you read or something you've personally done to compare results? Consider that I ask because I was told that SPS in hypo would die almost instantly....

I'm reluctant because they're not in quarrantine, they're in the main display.
I have no interest in ripping the reef apart. Either the corals will die or the fish will die or both but I won't be ripping the reef apart to catch them.
My logic may sound flawed, but I am a firm believer that the added stress would kill the fish within hours and I will have ripped apart my reef and stressed the rest of my fish for nothing.

I was thinking of raising the temperature a little to speed up the life cycle of the paracite. I don't know that a 0.004 difference in SG will make that big a difference.

If I lower the salinity any more it will only be at one point per day.
If I remove the fish it will be because an opportunity persented itself that prevented me from having to chase them. I don't even know where they are when they sleep. So, I can't even try the 3AM lights on trick. If you have a good trick up your sleeve, by all means, LMK.

Again thanks for the tip. I may try that.
 
Oh you need to get them in a QT asap. I thought it was a QT tank.

Brook would be uneffected unless u drop the salinty under 1.010.

Even then it good to give freshwater dips with the same pH and temp as the tank water.

Srry to tell you if you don't get them into lower slanity they have no hope =/ they're going to die.
 
I was under the impression that Hypo didn't really do much for Brook at all. I also think that freshwater dips will do much more harm than good, as much of the reason that brook causes health problems in the first place is stress.

Here's a great link http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/brooklynella.html

However, if your fish seem to be improving, I'd say stay the course and continue what you've been doing. I would have to agree that the added stress at this point could make things much, much worse.
 
hypo has effect on all parasites to some extent. Due to the osmotic pressure change that they arent designed to handle.
 
I have been fighting off Brook with one of my new wild caught clowns in a 10gallon QT tank using the methods discribed in the link that slakker posted for the past 2 weeks. I have used the form bath methods in the past, however this time it seems to go away then come back, go away then comeback....My salinity is at .019 and I'm dropping it currently....All visible signs of brook are gone...however the true percs rapid breathing has me looking at the tank every 10 minutes. At this stage do u think he just has gill damage from the parasite or is he still suffering??

wet,
u need to get them into a QT no matter what ....its not worth damaging all your corals, although they are amazing clowns..... Go to your local sporting goods store and by the smallest hook that you can find and go fishing...lol that'll get them out ..jk
 
Bones - 2 weeks may yet be too early to say, but it's possible you're dealing with more than one demon. If it's whatever my clowns had, which had them laying on the bottom breathing rapidly and literally laying on their sides nearly motionless, but without any sort of visible indicators on the fish themselves, Hypo might work. Mine seemed to start to improve within a few days of reaching 1.009.

Wetsleeves - after thinking a bit, it might be better to move them to a QT...I know you don't want to tear your whole reef apart, but I'm concerned that if the salinity begins to affect the corals that you'll have a bad situation on your hands. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if an anemone or coral were to die in the middle of the night, your entire tank could be dead by morning...sure it'll be stressful for the fish to move them, but it seems like it'd be worse for them to be in a tank full of dying corals.
 
I don't know if any of you understand that it would be nearly impossible to catch these fish in a fully stocked 210 gallon reef tank. The dynamics are different too. This is about a 375 gallon system. If a coral, anemone or large fish dies in there, there is little more effect than an algae dusting on the glass.

Slakker, you appear to be one of the few who is basing your comments on practical experience. The link you provided is pretty much in keeping with my thinking except that stress is the root cause. I can prove this wrong because no fish were added to the main display. The mistake I made was in adding the blackfoots to a 60 hex that's tied to the same sump. Otherwise the link is in keeping with what I'm finding.

As of 30 seconds ago, the female has no visible signs of the paracite. I honestly do not care about loosing a few corals if it means saving these two fish. The first one took me 7 years of inactive searching to find. The second took four months of active searching to find.

I really would appreciate it if some of you would actually read what I'm saying in this thread before you make a suggestion based on what you read somewhere. I have already listed all the fish that I have lost in the last two weeks. I have tried formalin. All those fish DIED. All other anemonefish that got exposed to this illness were dead within 72 hours with or without formalin dips except for two pairs that seem to be immune.
If you consider that I've been trying this hypo for a week now it becomes obvious that something about this method is working. Why should I change?

Freed,
If you think you feel bad, try standing in my shoes for five minutes. Comments like yours do nothing to even attempt to help. The RC community would be better served if you kept them to yourself. I care about my animals, but I am also a human being who makes mistakes. I am trying to choose the lesser of two evils here. Hopefully you will be more considerate of others in your future posts.

All that said, I do appreciate all of those who offered up suggestions because it is obvious that you are trying to help.
Even if I don't do exactly what you suggest, I am taking all this into consideration and use bits and pieces as it fits the application.
 
Cool down folks, such a situation is stressful enough.

Personal attacks will not be tolerated on Reef Central, by anyone.
 
So, I removed half my reef and caught both fish. The female is now laying on her side.
Apparently this was not the best idea. Perhaps i can save the male.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10062713#post10062713 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WetSleeves
So, I removed half my reef and caught both fish. The female is now laying on her side.
Apparently this was not the best idea. Perhaps i can save the male.
Click to expand...
Don't toss in the towel yet, if she still has body weight and the breathing is not at an uncountable rate, she may not be done yet.

Best of luck and in my humble opinion, pulling them out for a targeted approach is the best path.

Good luck.
 
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