Thoughts and Help

K

KevinsHVAC

Member
I have a 265g tank and have been losing random fish. All parms are fine. Salinnity is 1.027. I have spoken to my LFS and they think I have Ich. I have a powder blue that is about to die as I type this. I just did a 10min fresh water dip and he laid on his side almost the entire time. I put him back in the tank and he swam around for a little and is now propped up against a rock. I have a black tang that I won from the LFS, and huge puffer, a niger and Picasso trigger, hippo tang, koran angel and two small springeri damsels. The hippo, powder, black and puffer all appear to have tiny white spots on them and the puffers eyes. At first after reading on the forum I thought it was flukes so that's why I did the freshwater dip for 10min to see if I saw anything fall off. I did not see anything in the bottom of the bowl so that's leading me to believe its ich. My LFS is telling me to use herbtana and prazipro. Everything that I have read on here says it doesn't cure ich.

I do have a spare 55g tank I can set up now. My questions are do I put the little bit of coral I have in the 265 now in the 55 and drop salinity to 1.008 in the 265 or try and gather all the fish and put in 55 and lower salinity in that to 1.008?
 
I also need someone to help me with the salinity calc going from 1.028 to 1.008, 265g tank with 30g sump. Roughly 280-290 all together with sand and rocks. If you think I should keep the fish in there and drop the salinity.
 
If you do a google search for "salinity calculator" it'll give you a site with a calculators for adjusting salinity with a series of water changes. It's very precise.
 
I would not do hypo. I would let the tank go fallow for 72-74 days. Coral and inverts can stay, but all fish has to be removed. TTM will be the most effective method.
 
If this is moving rapidly and causing fish deaths quickly after infection I would add marine velvet to the suspect list. In which case prazipro, hypo, and TTM would all be ineffective. CP would be the treatment of choice but you'd have to move quickly if this is indeed velvet. Have any pictures? Any other odd behavior you notice? Such as fish swimming into the flow of powerheads.
 
Khazmodain said:
If this is moving rapidly and causing fish deaths quickly after infection I would add marine velvet to the suspect list. In which case prazipro, hypo, and TTM would all be ineffective. CP would be the treatment of choice but you'd have to move quickly if this is indeed velvet. Have any pictures? Any other odd behavior you notice? Such as fish swimming into the flow of powerheads.
Click to expand...

Today is day three, I have spent the last three days i n utter panic mode. Hardly any sleep trying to save all the rest of the fish. I set up my 55g tank, threw the corals back in the 265 and started cupermine three days ago. Yesterday I went to LFS to get Formalin to do a dip and they didn't have any so I got seachem para something....was told it is the same/safe alternative to formalin. I did the dip to the puffer, black tang, picasso trig, and hippo tang. I could not get the niger trig and 2 damels which I could give a rats butt about. The issue that I have now come across is i found my koran angel dead, I am guessing the picasso chewed on him a little and I just figured he was hiding in the rocks but in fact he was under rotting. So now I have a huge ammonia spike. I did a 5g water change last night and will to another 10g today. My LFS said I need more good bacteria in the tank so I took a filter sock from my 265 and hooked on the tank rim so that s sitting in there. All I can do now is sit back and keep an eye on parameters and try and keep the copper at .05. I did a test yesterday and was showing next to no signs of copper in the tank so I did per instructions and did second dose after 48hrs. I will test again tonight.

My other question is if the copper still isn't at .05 tonight how much more should I add to get it to where it needs to be? Also should I continue freshwater dips? The LFS is getting me some formalin today I just didn't know how many more dips I can and should do. The puffer appears to be in worse shape but I thought the dip would definitely help him out last night. His fins are covered in this junk. Please let me know if you think I need to do or not do anything from the above. I really do not want to lose anymore fish but I def don't want to lose my black tang or puffer.

Thanks!
 
Black tang has spots on top fin, cloudy eye, and some tiny spots on its sides, puffer is covered!
 

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I'm confused about what you are doing.

Did you put the fish in a 55 gallon tank?

Is there anything in the tank other than fish? (I see rocks and sand in your pictures).

If you are treating with copper and there is rock and sand in the tank it will absorb all of the copper and you wont be able to keep the levels high enough.

You've only seen white spots for 3 days? never saw any spots on any of them before? I'd lean toward velvet, as ich usually doesn't kill that fast..

if your fish have open wounds formalin dips can kill them. (only mention this because you said one of your fish had bit another)

Any treatment method for Ich will kill corals, so you'll need to leave your display tank empty for 72-90days+ you might need additional aquariums to keep aggression down during that time. (all of those in a 55 gallon seems too much to me)

That many fish at once TTM can be difficult. I'd probably use Chlorquine phosphate to treat. (New Life Spectrum Ich Shield - Powder. not the food).. Hyposalinity would be my 2nd choice, others prefer hypo... Copper I don't like to use-really tough on fish, especially if they are already heavily infected. And if it turns out this is velvet, then CP is your best bet, while hypo will do nothing.

As far as if you should continue freshwater dips, I wouldn't bother, if it is ich it wont help. The formalin dip can help, but I've read mixed reports on that. (I'd use it on severely infected fish for some temporary relief)
 
Last edited:
Mishri said:
I'm confused about what you are doing.

Did you put the fish in a 55 gallon tank?

Is there anything in the tank other than fish? (I see rocks and sand in your pictures).

If you are treating with copper and there is rock and sand in the tank it will absorb all of the copper and you wont be able to keep the levels high enough.

You've only seen white spots for 3 days? never saw any spots on any of them before? I'd lean toward velvet, as ich usually doesn't kill that fast..

if your fish have open wounds formalin dips can kill them. (only mention this because you said one of your fish had bit another)

Any treatment method for Ich will kill corals, so you'll need to leave your display tank empty for 72-90days+ you might need additional aquariums to keep aggression down during that time. (all of those in a 55 gallon seems too much to me)

That many fish at once TTM can be difficult. I'd probably use Chlorquine phosphate to treat. (New Life Spectrum Ich Shield - Powder. not the food).. Hyposalinity would be my 2nd choice, others prefer hypo... Copper I don't like to use-really tough on fish, especially if they are already heavily infected. And if it turns out this is velvet, then CP is your best bet, while hypo will do nothing.

As far as if you should continue freshwater dips, I wouldn't bother, if it is ich it wont help. The formalin dip can help, but I've read mixed reports on that. (I'd use it on severely infected fish for some temporary relief)
Click to expand...


I posted pictures of both tanks, the fish are all in the 55g right now, there is two large rocks and some small rocks in there now because the niger and hippo were in the rocks and I couldn't get them out, plus the rocks have good bacteria from my 265 so I was told that would help with cycling since the copper will kill a lot of good bacteria.

I started seeing spots about 5 days ago but before that I was losing fish randomly. Water parms were perfect, so the only thing I can think of is velvet or some other form of parasite or bacteria.

Picture 1,2, and 5 are from the 265. I posted them up too because they show the spots.
 
Yeah, CP stands for Chloroquine Phosphate. Not Copper.. they are quite different.

With rocks in the tank your chances of keeping the copper levels high enough to treat it is very low.

CP Will kill any algae and most organisms on the rock(corals, inverts), but will keep the beneficial bacteria intact.

-I'd recommend hitting amazon for the New Life Spectrum Ich Shield Powder and get the fastest shipping you can... Or visit a veterinarian, they can prescribe it to you, get the powder, the pill form isn't as good from reports I've read, less pure. I'm not sure how quickly you can get that filled, that might be faster than ordering it online.
 
If it's velvet 25mg/l should kill it within 24 hours, 10mg/l takes 48 hours... lethal dose is 200mg/l I wouldn't go above 25mg/l though. Just keep lights/skimming off and you shouldn't need to dose again. There is no way to test for CP(Chloroquine Phosphate)...cupermine is copper, a very different thing. You'll want to leave your 265 without fish for about 3 months.. the longer the better. 72 days is a minimum.. 90 is safer.

You'll want to use a scale to measure the dosage, not the scooper that comes in the NLS ich shield powder.
 
Last edited:
Mishri said:
Yeah, CP stands for Chloroquine Phosphate. Not Copper.. they are quite different.

With rocks in the tank your chances of keeping the copper levels high enough to treat it is very low.

CP Will kill any algae and most organisms on the rock(corals, inverts), but will keep the beneficial bacteria intact.

-I'd recommend hitting amazon for the New Life Spectrum Ich Shield Powder and get the fastest shipping you can... Or visit a veterinarian, they can prescribe it to you, get the powder, the pill form isn't as good from reports I've read, less pure. I'm not sure how quickly you can get that filled, that might be faster than ordering it online.
Click to expand...

This is the information right here
 
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