Whats going on here? 2 Anthias dead, 1 Tang slowly dying

[jimrawr]

Not sure what is causing this. Basically I had two Anthias die without any warning something was wrong. They were both eating good, swimming normally, come home from work and one is dead. The other is then in hiding, and also dead by morning.

Now my tang has entered into hiding under the rocks. Hes out an about once in awhile, then goes back into hiding. Hes lost considerable weight over the last 3-4 days. He comes out to eat, but hardly eats anything. He swims around the food as if hes interested, but will only grab one or two pieces of mysis from a whole cube. He will pick at hanging nori, but not eat much at all.

On his body you can notice two red spots, and on his face you can notice what seems to be 'holes' around his eyes.

Water tests good

SG - 1.026
Ammonia/Nitrites - not detectable
Temp 78-80
PH 7.9-8.1

Thoughts?

 

[Newsmyrna80]

How long have you had them? Have you added anything to the tank recently?

 

[jimrawr]

I have had them all about one month purchased from live Aquaria. Nothing new added to tank, it started same day as a 15% water change but nothing abnormal about salt and not a new bucket

 

[Newsmyrna80]

As long as it was RO water and the salt was allowed to mix for awhile I don't think that was the problem. Did you notice any heaving breathing, head shaking, twitching, racing around or flashing? A month is still in the window for a disease to manifest.

 

[jimrawr]

Water is RODI 0 TDS. Salt was mixed about 30 minutes before putting into tank, seemed completely dissolved.

Yeah I looked at my email for shipping information and I received the fish Sept 27th so a month + one week ago. I noticed the tang was breathing fast, nothing else that you mentioned. The anthias really showed nothing at all as being different except that they went into hiding really shortly before they died.

Crossing my fingers but the tang is doing a lot less hiding now and seems to be eating a bit more, though still not nearly enough. He did grad some Nori today and seemed interested but still looks very malnurished and not out of the woods.

 

[tilo]

When I mix salt I don't go by the clarity of it. I mix it, lets say 30 minutes per se (I usually let it mix a day) and test alkalinity, ph, etc. But I don't think that would impact them if it was a month ago.

When I mix for 30 min my alk levels are tremendously high so I have to wait longer for them to either precipitate in the mixing bucket or any other means of reactions that lower it.

Taking a shot in the dark... Stray voltage maybe..?

 

[Newsmyrna80]

It's so hard to tell what this could have been. It could be anything from the collection process to stress to an internal bacterial infection (red areas on tang). I would make sure the water is mixed for a lot longer than 30 minutes but I doubt that the water would have killed them that quickly.

 

[jimrawr]

With the salt mix I put a strong powerhead in there mixing it for 30 minutes. I've done this 100 times and never seem to have an issue from this process so I dont *think* its that, but could be since it did start within 24h after that water change if I recall correctly.

 

[frnkynlop]

Hey Jimrawr,

I just recently had the same problem. I bought some lyertail anthias from live aquaria. My big mistake was that I didn't quarantine. Anyways after 3 weeks I lost a baby hippo after that a hoven wrasse. Long story short my fish were dropping like flies. Every week a fish would develop the symptom of fast breathing then gone within hours of me noticing the fast breathing. When I inspected the fish no signs of disease. I ended up breaking my tank down and starting all over. Unfortunately out of all my fishes only 5 survived. The only thing I could a tribute the deaths to is the anthias. I hope u have better luck than I did. The only thing I could suggest is get the fish into qt and try to treat with some medication. I treated as if it was a velvet outbreak. I couldn't confirm that it was velvet, but that was the only thing that I could think of that could kill a fish within hours. And now that I started over again I got a qt tank.

 

[frnkynlop]

I just looked at my shipping info for the lyertail and it was on August 20. By the end of September I was breaking down and restarting my system.

 

[jimrawr]

Ouch! Yeah mine are Dispar Anthias, but the only fish effected are the ones from live aquaria... so far at least.. Tang definitely eating more but still a bit skidish and hiding a lot more than normal

 

[frnkynlop]

When it first started the lyertail were the first to go, then the fishes that I had for yrs followed. Hopefully ur situation won't be as severe. Good luck.

Frank

 

[mattberrytr]

jimrawr, PM me if you want to know why I said 'dont get your hopes up' on algae scrubber . net (and was banned)

I can't PM you as I haven't made enough posts

 

[tylersarah]

I see severe dehydration, with the heavy breathing, could be marine velvet. If you see any dusty gold specks, swimming into powerhead, flashing, get that fish into a fw dip then copper! I would continue the dips, daily til you see improvement.

 

[jimrawr]

I see severe dehydration, with the heavy breathing, could be marine velvet. If you see any dusty gold specks, swimming into powerhead, flashing, get that fish into a fw dip then copper! I would continue the dips, daily til you see improvement.

Hmm have not noticed and gold specks as you described. I did notice that one eye no the tang seems to be getting a bit cloudy.. what can this point to?

 

[jimrawr]

I wonder if its flukes and the worm is on his eye making it cloudy looking?

 

[Newsmyrna80]

Flukes can make the eye cloudy.

 

[jimrawr]

Think I should try dosing the DT with prazipro? I wouldnt be easy to catch him for a FW dip

 

[jimrawr]

Couldnt really get a great picture of his eye... but its definitely a bit cloudy on his right eye. The other is just fine

 

[jimrawr]

I was able to catch him and do a FW dip for 2 minutes. The eye is still cloudy, and I did find what looks to be a flatworm in the FW dip bucket, but only one.. and another thing that looks like a pod. Why would a pod be on the fish..? Is it a pod?

Is this a Fluke?

Why was this pod on the tang? Now that I think of it, its possible the pod was dead in the bucket already since I used that bucket last time to do a water change and vacuum the sandbed. Is this definitely a pod though because I found a few in the bucket after FW dip. Could be some other parasite..?