Think my Kole tang has Velvet or Brooklynella, what do I do?

muppet

muppet

Misanthrope
I haven't got a QT or a hospital tank. I know that everybody should have a QT, and I haven't followed best practice. I've gambled and lost with this last fish.

He's still behaving mostly normally, and still eating, but he's very pale looking, seems covered in a gauzy white film that isn't quite uniform, and is looking distressed in his breathing.

I could probably set up a dark 10G tonight with a 50W heater and try treating with Cupramine or whatever is appropriate, but is a 10G going to be sufficient space for him to recover? I wouldn't be able to put any filtration on the tank, I guess I'd just have to do large changes on a daily basis. I'd worry about sharing tools because frankly I don't have the budget right now for all new stuff. I guess I could just get a cheap pitcher for water changes and then there wouldn't be anything to share.

My biggest concern is probably catching him out of the 75G...

Any pointers? Anything I should do different besides the stuff I should have already done before this happened? :(
 
So, I've set up a QT using an old wet/dry sump, a 50W heater, and some egg crate to keep other pets from sticking their noses in.

I haven't been able to catch the Kole, though. My rockwork is mostly tonga, and very open with lots of hiding places. I've tried corralling him into a bottle (filled with food for good measure) using a sea squirt and a net, but no dice, he's way too fast and smart.

I guess tomorrow I'll have to remove all of my rockwork to get at him. I'm really not looking forward to that, the rock is sitting on the glass through 4" of substrate that's been piled up to 7" in places by the engineer goby.
 
Easy way to catch it is with the lights off room dark point a flash light at it and scoop with a net :) works well need a bright light
 
suicideissleep said:
Easy way to catch it is with the lights off room dark point a flash light at it and scoop with a net :) works well need a bright light
Click to expand...

I've caught more fish this way than any other method. Only catch is they need to sleep in the open water, it doesn't help if they hide under a rock at night to sleep haha
 
Thanks guys I'll give it a try. He stays pretty active immediately after lights out, so maybe this will work.
 
I caught Mr. Jack West. I'm assuming it's velvet because he's not dead yet. I hope PC has some cupramine. The local place near my house (corporate owned) didn't have any.
 
The battery powered air stone I've got is called the "Silent Air B*10". Ha. Those guys are hilarious. This thing sounds like a belt sander.
 
Well, Jack didn't make it through a night in QT. :(

The QT was on the kitchen floor between two windows, and it got down to 14 degrees outside last night, maybe the 50W heater wasn't enough to keep up, or maybe turning the air stone off for the night did it? I've read that the dosing instructions on SeaChem Cupramine are aggressive, maybe it was too much too fast for him?

Or maybe the second day of symptoms is too late to treat?

I'm not sure I'll try tangs again. He was in the tank like 5 or 6 weeks before he showed a problem, so even if I'd QT'd I'd have had him in the main tank by then, although maybe people treat with copper in QT just as standard practice?

I feel bad, wasn't out to torture any fish. :(
 
Cup famine is for ich and external parasites... Para guard (similar to prazi) treats for external fungus' etc...

QT all your fish properly from the get go... Your problems down the road will be drastically reduced... It's amazing what a couple days with paraguard will do and eliminate...
 
Sorry. It happens. At least you tried to help it. There seems to be so many ich and velvet stories lately that I'm afraid to even buy new fish.
 
I found a few sources that said treat velvet with cupramine, brook with formaline.

I think even had I QT'd him I'd have had this problem as I wouldn't have treated him just by default (but probably would now). It's the only fish my littlest daughter named, so I'm feeling pretty guilty about it.
 
I caught him the second I saw stuff on him, and he seems WAY stronger and healthier than Jack did by the time I caught him, so I'm optimistic. I've got him in QT with 0.5 mg/L cupramine. The salinity of the QT is 1.023 vs 1.025 in the DT. I didn't want to waste any time balancing them. Maybe the slightly (barely) hyposaline environment (relative to DT) will have more effect on the parasites than on the goby. He's a pretty big dude.
 
I'm curious, why are you using cupramine as opposed to paraguard or prazi ?

Copper (cupramine) I find is more so effective on ich, and I myself bring my concentration up to a minimum of 1 ppm... .5 won't achieve much IMO...
 
Honestly because a round of google searches showed Cupramine most often. I was also told to use cupramine by sleepydoc in the Newbie forum on RC.

I'm not sure if changing treatments now is a good idea, I'd be worried about interactions.

The label on the Seachem cupramine I have says not to exceed 0.6 mg/L. I assume mg/L and ppm are different units..?

My wallet is running on fumes this week. I guess I can take a look for paraguard and see what the price is like, but I'd still be worried about trying to do a 100% water change in the QT and making sure there was no copper left, and stressing the goby, and etc...

What would you do at this point?
 
Maybe I was thinking mg/L... My bad... I'm not gonna tell u what to do as far as that, but I found those levels to be too weak... Either way, I was jus saying about ick in that regards... Brooks is a different thing...

I was only asking why cupramine as opposed to the others, I'm not 100% sure what the best method is... But I have had encounters with brooks before... It can get real ugly, really fast...
 
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