Fish die-off

[dhellin]

We have a 55 gallon tank set up since Aug '08 that housed 2 fire gobies, 2 clowns, a flame wrasse, a yellow-eyed tang, a orange dotty back gobie, and a chromis, plus some corals. The wrasse was the last addition over 2 months ago. Last Weds we realized the tang and one of the clowns had white dots on it and diagnosed the problem as ich. Within 24 hours, we were able to catch all the fish (after dismantling the live rock ) and had them in a QT tank and started treating with copper ions following the instructions carefully. As of today, we're down to the chromis, 1 fire gobie, and the orange dotty back gobie. So far, these guys look okay and we're hopeful we don't lose all of them.

Needless to say, we feel terrible about this whole problem and are second guessing everything we've done so far. What we've learned is that everything will go through a 30 day quarantine before we even considering putting it in our display tank.

But is there anything else we could have done? Anyone else watched their entire fish population get sick and die?

 

[Stimpy]

ouch... Sorry to hear,
Youll get help here. just not me, never got ich on my fish (Thang Gd) in 12 years.
Have had 2 crashes, so I feel for ya.

 

[Behrmon]

Can you describe your QT set-up a bit?

 

[dhellin]

We did a basic QT tank- 15 gallon with powerhead, air bubble pump and sponge filter, a clip on light and a moonlight with a handful of PVC joints & pipes for hiding spots. We're feeding 1X per day with mysid shrimp and 1X per day with flake.

We used Kordon copper ions and are testing it with a Red Sea test kit for copper ions (not chelated copper). I'm testing ammonia levels daily. After two days, I swapped out 1/3 of the water with new saltwater that was temperature matched (we make with RO) and same pH.

I'm wondering if people have had better luck curing ich with hyposalinity?

 

[JohnK]

I'd say your right in retrospect, solid QT protocols are key.

Some prefer to QT and observe everything, some (myself) will do preventitive hyposalinity treatment on new fish.

It's a good idea to also QT anything wet (any coral, invert, rock exct) just in case.

FWIW, from where your at now, I'd suggest finisihing the copper treatment (check that level every day if not twice daily), but also not returning any fish to the display for 6-8 weeks min. This time will allow any remaining ick cysts to hatch out and die off in the dispaly. If you do a 2 week copper treatment then put the fish back, the display will likely still be infected and the fish could get sick again.

On your losses, that's a big bummer. IMO it was probably the stress of being caught, poor water quality in the QT (hard to avoid unless you have it set up and cycled in advance), and or the ick being very advanced by the time treatment started. Also, just to cover the bases, I'd suggest reading up on marine "velvet" as well. It doesn't sound like that was the problem, but if it was it would explain very rapid deaths.

Unfortunately ick is very common, and it often lives in our tanks at low levels of infection for a long time until some stressor causes it to show up with a vengance. In the end there are two kinds of reefkeepers, those who always have ick in their systems, and those who are absolutely obsessive about QT and go to great lengths to keep the parisite out of their systems. (I'm not saying either is wrong). Ick is either eradicated, or managed. Both are valid approaches.

Sorry for your losses.

 

[JohnK]

We did a basic QT tank- 15 gallon with powerhead, air bubble pump and sponge filter, a clip on light and a moonlight with a handful of PVC joints & pipes for hiding spots. We're feeding 1X per day with mysid shrimp and 1X per day with flake.

We used Kordon copper ions and are testing it with a Red Sea test kit for copper ions (not chelated copper). I'm testing ammonia levels daily. After two days, I swapped out 1/3 of the water with new saltwater that was temperature matched (we make with RO) and same pH.

I'm wondering if people have had better luck curing ich with hyposalinity?

I don't think anything is wrong with what you did, but putting fish into a fairly small and more or less sterile tank makes for a lot of stress, often poor water quality fast, and in many cases unfortunate outcomes like what happened with your fish.

IME hypo treatments are quite effective as long as your super vigilant about keeping the SG at the correct/low enough level, and you give it enough time. That said I have heard a lot of others who haven't had such good luck, (possibly because of SG fluxuations, or possibly because it just wasn't kept low enough, who knows??). When I've done the hypo treatment I have kept the fish at no higher than 1.008, measured with a calibrated refractometer, for 6 weeks min.

 

[Stimpy]

During some Q&A's on UV sterilizers, several posts stated it helped a lot to control the ick (not kill it) as it only sterilizes the water through the unit. My 9w was real cheap, like 45-50 bucks (cheaper than most fish) and may help, also helping me now with water clarityand algae problem. its good IME.
Got mine at dr fosters/smith

 

[Blueflu1]

I agree with Hypo. I have done hyposalinty a couple times and have had good results. Just be very careful doing it and make sure you have a refractometer.

 

[JohnK]

During some Q&A's on UV sterilizers, several posts stated it helped a lot to control the ick (not kill it) as it only sterilizes the water through the unit. My 9w was real cheap, like 45-50 bucks (cheaper than most fish) and may help, also helping me now with water clarityand algae problem. its good IME.
Got mine at dr fosters/smith

No doubt UV has the potential to help mange it.

I'd just add, IMO it's very important to be clear on what different interventions do and can't do. I'm always concnerned that people will get confused. There's managment strategies and eradication strategies. UV, garlic, mild hypo, "kick ick" (and similar "reefsafe" treatments), and cleaners are all managment strategies.

 

[Brad S]

I think a QT is important when adding things to a large system, but for something under 100G ich is pretty easy to treat, unless we're talking a massive amount of sensitive corals etc.

Regardless in this situation they'd have been easy to save... Firstly catching them by ripping the tank down was a mistake! This stresses the fish out, obviously feeding isn't going to go well if you've moved rocks around... All it does is leaves them vulnerable to ich.

My recipy for ich eradication from a small reef is as follows.

Increase temp low to mid 80's, if you notice coral suffering slowly decrease temp.

Decrease salinity... as low as 1.016. I do this slowly, over hours... If corals suffer I raise it back up.

Keep these conditions going until the ich isn't rampant, a few spots is ok... Then you can start moving it back to normal temp and SP slowly.

A fish needs to eat and build up its immune system, dose mysis with garlic... Entices the fish to eat, plus kills internal parasites.

At this point ich should be under control, metronidizol is never a horrible idea, that usually can wipe ich out by itself, make sure to turn off the UV and skimmer when dosing with metronidizol...

High temp, low SP, garlic dosed food, and possible metronidizol will always wipe ich out!

 

[JohnK]

That's all good managment, but will it acheive a %100 kill of the ick and not have the ick come back in response to stress?

 

[SharkLover]

We have a 55 gallon tank set up since Aug '08 that housed 2 fire gobies, 2 clowns, a flame wrasse, a yellow-eyed tang, a orange dotty back gobie, and a chromis, plus some corals.

I didn't see anyone touch on this particular detail but tangs in specific are suseptible to ich if they're stressed out. One thing to note is a 55 gallon tank is *not* going to provide enough swimming room for them to glide across after building speed. Tangs swim many many miles per day , they are easily stressed if those conditions are not met and hence are not recommended in anything smaller than a 70 gallon tank.
Just some brain food, something to think about.

 

[Brad S]

That's all good managment, but will it acheive a %100 kill of the ick and not have the ick come back in response to stress?

I wouldn't call it a 100% kill, but a regiment that will certainly save the fish from dying and put you back on track to managing it out of your system in a short amount of time...

Ideally every single thing you put in your tank should be in QT for a month, but that isn't practical for most people.

As long as a fish is still eating you have a good shot at bringing it back. Stellar water conditions are also essential!

 

[JohnK]

I wouldn't call it a 100% kill, but a regiment that will certainly save the fish from dying and put you back on track to managing it out of your system in a short amount of time...

Ideally every single thing you put in your tank should be in QT for a month, but that isn't practical for most people.

As long as a fish is still eating you have a good shot at bringing it back. Stellar water conditions are also essential!

I agree. That's great managment.

 

[Brad S]

I agree. That's great managment.

Thanks! Water changes don't hurt either... Even with good water quality doing a couple large water changes over the course of a week helps a lot since you're physically removing the parasite from the water.