firstlight10
New member
Sorry for your loss.
Think my Kole tang has Velvet or Brooklynella, what do I do?
- Thread starter muppet
- Start date
muppet
Misanthrope
Well, I've managed to save the female clown, the flame angel, and the e-goby so far. So, at least it's not a wipeout. If I lost that huge engineer goby I'd be seriously bummed instead of just pretty unhappy.
One of the damsels died yesterday. With the storm I had no time at all to empty the rock out of the tank for another attempt at catching them. It's weird how they seem to get sick sequentially instead of all at once. Now one more damsel is sick but the last one still looks fine. My wife is working tonight which means I probably won't have time to try to catch them today, either.
One of the damsels died yesterday. With the storm I had no time at all to empty the rock out of the tank for another attempt at catching them. It's weird how they seem to get sick sequentially instead of all at once. Now one more damsel is sick but the last one still looks fine. My wife is working tonight which means I probably won't have time to try to catch them today, either.
davesolo29
New member
any updates?
muppet
Misanthrope
I'm down to one damsel in the DT, the other two died. I still can't catch the last one. He looks completely fine, no symptoms at all.
Everybody in QT looks totally fine.
DT is still not fallow because of remaining damsel. I'm gonna have to really go after him tonight, which means tearing up my tank again. Last time I did it I nearly crushed my knobby red sea star. Not looking forward to it.
Flame angel was seeming kind of wonky so I put a carbon in the QT filter to bring the copper level down. I need to pick up a test. I'll keep an eye on the QT and see if any symptoms come back but right now everybody looks good.
Everybody in QT looks totally fine.
DT is still not fallow because of remaining damsel. I'm gonna have to really go after him tonight, which means tearing up my tank again. Last time I did it I nearly crushed my knobby red sea star. Not looking forward to it.
Flame angel was seeming kind of wonky so I put a carbon in the QT filter to bring the copper level down. I need to pick up a test. I'll keep an eye on the QT and see if any symptoms come back but right now everybody looks good.
triggreef
New member
In the DT? I'm pretty sure you cant see ich without a microscope so those are probably pods.
muppet
Misanthrope
I'm much more worried about trying to keep the 3 fish in QT alive for 2 months. I'm not confident at all about that.
It's alot easier than alot of folks make it out to be... Jus keep temp stable, make sure there is alot of water and air mixing for oxygen levels, vacuum out detritus when visible, don't over feed (but you don't wana under feed either) and don't over dose... Though I find most meds require a slightly higher dosage than said on bottle...
Another nice thing to have is an ammonia test... If its very low or nothing registers, water changes aren't necessary, IMO, and IME...
Jus my thoughts and suggestions...
Another nice thing to have is an ammonia test... If its very low or nothing registers, water changes aren't necessary, IMO, and IME...
Jus my thoughts and suggestions...
muppet
Misanthrope
OK, so, lesson learned. 4 weeks in QT with a damsel still in the DT was not sufficient to stop the parasite. I reintroduced my e-goby to the tank today because a month in QT was making me nervous. The water params in QT are good but it's got to be stressing them all out, especially him because there's no substrate.
One night is all it took for spots to show back up on him, but two new ocellaris (I think) clowns I picked up are showing nothing at all, and neither is the damsel that's been in there all along (two other identical damsels died). Maybe the parasite is in the substrate?
SO... I've got to redouble my efforts today to pull everyone from the tank, and now it's even more important to find a home for my adult perc clown, because I can't QT the ocellaris with her. I guess I'll bag her up and head to an LFS.
Dumb, dumb dumb (of me) but I was getting frustrated with the whole thing, especially with the remaining damsel not caught and the tank not really being fallow anyway. I took his continued health as an indicator of safety but clearly it was not.
One night is all it took for spots to show back up on him, but two new ocellaris (I think) clowns I picked up are showing nothing at all, and neither is the damsel that's been in there all along (two other identical damsels died). Maybe the parasite is in the substrate?
SO... I've got to redouble my efforts today to pull everyone from the tank, and now it's even more important to find a home for my adult perc clown, because I can't QT the ocellaris with her. I guess I'll bag her up and head to an LFS.
Dumb, dumb dumb (of me) but I was getting frustrated with the whole thing, especially with the remaining damsel not caught and the tank not really being fallow anyway. I took his continued health as an indicator of safety but clearly it was not.
muppet
Misanthrope
On closer inspection I think he may just have sand and detritus stuck to his face from a very busy night of re-digging all of his old burrows. I'll keep an eye on him. I know that I didn't do the fallow period correctly, but I'm guardedly optimistic.
He seems to have buried one of my fighting conchs.. I can only find one in the tank, and they're not exactly small.
He seems to have buried one of my fighting conchs.. I can only find one in the tank, and they're not exactly small.
muppet
Misanthrope
OK, so, e-goby looked awesome for a week. The stuff I saw at first really was sand, and not ich, it later turned out.
My flame angel was starting to show stress coloration in QT despite decent parameters (0.25 ammonia but that's the only concerning number), so I decided to move her, too.
When I got her under the lights in my DT I saw that her entire face is pale and excoriated, like she'd been rubbing it on the airstone in QT or something. Within a few hours, my e-goby was showing ich symptoms again.
I'm not sure if the flame angel is still carrying ich, or was stressed by the copper, or both, or whether the relapse of the goby is a coincidence or not. The whole thing also coincides with 6 weeks since initial infection, which matches the lifecycle of the ich parasite (3 weeks), so... there's a lot of variables.
I came to think of the damsel I couldn't catch as my canary in a coal mine, but obviously he's just resistant to ich and is no indication of safety whatsoever. Now I have to recapture everybody again (ugh) and get them all into QT including that very difficult to catch damsel.
After doing a lot of reading about Paraguard it seems it's 50/50 in terms of opinion on whether it's safe in a reef tank. Getting frustrated and not wanting to get all of my livestock out of the tank again, I decided to try a half dose and see if my softies tolerated the stuff.
Nope, everything shriveled up within an hour. I've got my skimmer skimming wet and hopefully the corals will recover. The shrimp, crabs, snails, and nems look fine. I won't try that again. Paraguard: NOT safe in the DT, just don't do it.
Now my only outstanding concern is the flame angel who clearly was doing very poorly in QT (the other fish all recovered very nicely in there.) Cupramine is supposed to be safe for flame angels, but maybe not for the duration (5 weeks) I had her in there? I'm pretty well resigned to the fact that I'm going to lose the angel.
My flame angel was starting to show stress coloration in QT despite decent parameters (0.25 ammonia but that's the only concerning number), so I decided to move her, too.
When I got her under the lights in my DT I saw that her entire face is pale and excoriated, like she'd been rubbing it on the airstone in QT or something. Within a few hours, my e-goby was showing ich symptoms again.
I'm not sure if the flame angel is still carrying ich, or was stressed by the copper, or both, or whether the relapse of the goby is a coincidence or not. The whole thing also coincides with 6 weeks since initial infection, which matches the lifecycle of the ich parasite (3 weeks), so... there's a lot of variables.
I came to think of the damsel I couldn't catch as my canary in a coal mine, but obviously he's just resistant to ich and is no indication of safety whatsoever. Now I have to recapture everybody again (ugh) and get them all into QT including that very difficult to catch damsel.
After doing a lot of reading about Paraguard it seems it's 50/50 in terms of opinion on whether it's safe in a reef tank. Getting frustrated and not wanting to get all of my livestock out of the tank again, I decided to try a half dose and see if my softies tolerated the stuff.
Nope, everything shriveled up within an hour. I've got my skimmer skimming wet and hopefully the corals will recover. The shrimp, crabs, snails, and nems look fine. I won't try that again. Paraguard: NOT safe in the DT, just don't do it.
Now my only outstanding concern is the flame angel who clearly was doing very poorly in QT (the other fish all recovered very nicely in there.) Cupramine is supposed to be safe for flame angels, but maybe not for the duration (5 weeks) I had her in there? I'm pretty well resigned to the fact that I'm going to lose the angel.
muppet
Misanthrope
Things I did wrong:
1) tank was not totally fallow, I left a yellow-tail damsel assuming it would die like the other two did. It did not. I did try to catch him for a total of about 6 hours combined, and finally gave up.
2) My "fallow" period was not long enough even had the damsel been caught, at only 5 weeks. I should have done at least 8, possibly 9 weeks.
3) I tried ParaGuard in my DT. Don't do that, kids. It's not reef safe and I don't care how many people claim they had no trouble using it in their DT.
1) tank was not totally fallow, I left a yellow-tail damsel assuming it would die like the other two did. It did not. I did try to catch him for a total of about 6 hours combined, and finally gave up.
2) My "fallow" period was not long enough even had the damsel been caught, at only 5 weeks. I should have done at least 8, possibly 9 weeks.
3) I tried ParaGuard in my DT. Don't do that, kids. It's not reef safe and I don't care how many people claim they had no trouble using it in their DT.
muppet
Misanthrope
So tonight is the night I dismantle my tank rock by rock and get every last fish out, even if it takes me all night and I go to work in the morning covered in sweat and brine.
Right now the only sick fish is my engineer goby, which I think is because of his constant direct contact with the sandbed. Does this possibly shift the suspicion to some other parasite than ich? I'm pretty sure that the lifecycle of ich has it in/on the sandbed just before "hatching" and infecting fish, right?
Ironically, aside from the sick fish, my tank has never looked better. I finally got my skimmer and my sump in general all sorted out and working well. My wavemakers are positioned just so after lots of trial and error, and the water is like quartz, man. The fish look like they're floating in air. It's the most pristine my tank has EVER been. Even the sand is gleaming white thanks to the conches I added. How frustrating that with as beautiful as everything looks I have this 2 month drag ahead of me.
Oh well here goes.
The thing to take from this thread for guys like me who learn things the hard way: don't mess with ich. Don't get comfortable when the fish look healthy. Do the full fallow period even though it's long and painful and the fish "look fine." Test your copper level and re-titrate doses when you change water in the QT. By the book, everything.
Ugh.
Oh, I tested the QT for ammonia last night and it was hovering near 0.25, which might explain the distress of my flame angel. I did a 50% water change which exhausted my saltwater supply for the day, will do a 10% change daily until the end of the week, and re-titrate copper each time in the buckets so that the levels don't jump around.
Ich is no fun. I'm QT'ing every fish from now on.
Right now the only sick fish is my engineer goby, which I think is because of his constant direct contact with the sandbed. Does this possibly shift the suspicion to some other parasite than ich? I'm pretty sure that the lifecycle of ich has it in/on the sandbed just before "hatching" and infecting fish, right?
Ironically, aside from the sick fish, my tank has never looked better. I finally got my skimmer and my sump in general all sorted out and working well. My wavemakers are positioned just so after lots of trial and error, and the water is like quartz, man. The fish look like they're floating in air. It's the most pristine my tank has EVER been. Even the sand is gleaming white thanks to the conches I added. How frustrating that with as beautiful as everything looks I have this 2 month drag ahead of me.
Oh well here goes.
The thing to take from this thread for guys like me who learn things the hard way: don't mess with ich. Don't get comfortable when the fish look healthy. Do the full fallow period even though it's long and painful and the fish "look fine." Test your copper level and re-titrate doses when you change water in the QT. By the book, everything.
Ugh.
Oh, I tested the QT for ammonia last night and it was hovering near 0.25, which might explain the distress of my flame angel. I did a 50% water change which exhausted my saltwater supply for the day, will do a 10% change daily until the end of the week, and re-titrate copper each time in the buckets so that the levels don't jump around.
Ich is no fun. I'm QT'ing every fish from now on.
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