First time with sick fish in a while...help?

[boobookitty]

Hi...

I've had a reef tank for more years than I care to mention, and I've had my 240g tank for about 4 years now. The tank was great for most of that time, but it had a DSB that I believe eventually caught up with me. Over the span of about 6 months I lost a couple of fish and several pieces of coral, and finally bit the bullet to remove the DSB. I did that about 2 months ago, and the first month was rough, but I'm much happier and the tank is starting to rebound nicely.

I hadn't lost a single fish, or even had so much as a case of ich, in the 3+ years prior to the problems, and after putting the fish back in the rebuilt tank (19 hour day, whew!) I watched them closely...they seemed fine. This was a blue tang, a yellow tang, a vlamingi tang (shoot me, I love tangs ) and a couple of clown fish. After a month I bought 2 new fish to replace the ones I lost, a gorgeous powder blue tang and a butterfly fish.

Things seemed fine the first couple weeks, no noticeable health problems, but this last week I noticed two of the fish getting sick. The first was the blue tang, which was not a new fish...enclosed are a couple of pictures.





Looks like he lost some color around the eyes, and on his side there are a couple of slanted white marks. He seems to be fighting it off, but I'm concerned. Not a great pic, but best I could do.


The real problem is the powder blue tang, the last 4 days. At first I thought it was a bruise, but skin is sloughing off one side (and now seems to be spreading to other). Pics:






Any ideas? I'm not equipped for a hospital tank, but I don't want him to die, so I'll do what I have to.

For the record, the tank params are normal: 1.035 salinity, 8dkh, 425 Calcium, Mg 1300, temp stable at 81 degrees. The corals are doing well...mostly SPS, some LPS.

Any help would be appreciated...thanks.

Arthur

[boobookitty]

Any input? It's not ich, obviously, and doesn't match any of the descriptions I've seen. Bacterial?

[janakaybravo]

I bet it's bacteria. I have a problem with my angel right now. It doesn't look like ich, so must be bacterial or fungal. I am no expert though. Terry B. has some good articles in RK magazine you could research. I think you would need to treat in qt though unless you could get them to eat medicine in their food.

[Spracklcat]

Sloughing skin sounds a lot like Brooklynella, which is more common this time of year in new imports. I'd get all those fish out and start treating in QT.

[billsreef]

Protozoan problems are far more common than bacterial. Sloughing skin like that is also a classic sign of brooklynella. While brook is often thought of as a clownfish disease, it is not restricted to clownfish. I would set up a hospital tank, and begin treatments for protozoans. 45 minute to 1 hour formalin dips, every other day. The formalin dip is 1 ml of formalin in 1 gallon of SW, heavily aerated. Keep fish in the hospital tank between dips and use a good antibiotic such as nitrofuran to ward off secondary bacterial infections.

[boobookitty]

Interesting. Removing all of the fish will be problematic...I don't have enough hospital tank space for all of them, and getting them out of a reef tank is a task in and of itself. I was thinking of removing and treating the blue tang and powder blue...how infectious is it?

[billsreef]

It can be very infectious, but not always as bad as ich in that regard. Starting with the obviously infected ones is a good start, and keep a close eye out for any other fish showing signs.

[boobookitty]

Well, the good news I got him out of the tank. The bad news is that it was because he was swimming in a circle near the top. Struggled once netted, but he's not looking good. I started treating with antibiotics. What the hell is this?

[janakaybravo]

Try posting this picture on wetwebmedia. I have never seen anything like that before. I would definitely lower the salinity some for the fish's ease and start soaking its nori in garlic if it will eat. I would follow Bill's advice and get ready to change a lot of water.

Kay

[boobookitty]

Yah, he died about half an hour ago. I'd still like to know why, in case it's related to the blue tang's issue (although he seems to be getting better, eats like a pig).

Interestingly, the guy at the fish store (very experienced) mentioned that it looked a lot like ammonia poisoning when I brought the fish to him, which was surprising for him to say since I hadn't mentioned this fish was relatively new. The other thing that plays into it is that when this fish was shipped, he sat in the delivery service an extra 24 hours due to a screw up on their part, meaning he was in high ammonia-level water for a while. However, that was aboiut 3 weeks ago...could it have taken this long for it to kill him, or was it just a shot in the dark by the fish store guy? The tank, of course, is ammonia-free.

Ah, well...a little Thanksgiving day tragedy...

Arthur

[billsreef]

What that fish went through could have, and would have, stressed the fish to the point of being infected much easier. At this point in time, it was ammonia poisoning that killed the fish, but it is likely a very large contributing factor in the fish getting sick in the first place.