Urgent help needed Help Please!!

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Adrian B

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Hi Guys

Feeling rather desperate.

Moved house and upgraded to a bigger tank 6 weeks ago. My dream tank has turned into a house or horrors.

Moved all my live rock and filter media from the old tank to the new tank. 1st 4 weeks everything settled down fish looked better than ever corals got their mojo back after the move.

Then 2 weeks ago I bought an Angel- within 3 days he broke out with bad White Spot and died soon after 2 days later Powder Brown got it, long story short 2 weeks later I’ve lost 6 fish.

Currently Copperband is sitting up in the corner with a terrible case of Pop eye and White Spot or velvet.

Regal has developed cataracts and is effectively blind along with white spot/ velvet, not coming out of his sleeping hole.

Convict Tang, stopped eating lurking in a cave. Looks fine but breathing heavily. Two wrasse seem fine – last fish that appear healthy.

Seems like it started as White spot and has developed into velvet – no experience with velvet before but the spots have gone from big to fine like they have been rolled in flour.

First thing that comes to mind is new tank syndrome but I moved about 50kg of live rock and about a 5 litre bucket worth of mature ceramics out of my old sump. Plus dosed special blend.

All coral (Monti’s, Acropora, Hystrix, Pocolopora, Brains etc.) shrimps, snails, hermits & Urchin are fine. Corals are radiant and healthy other than my Hystric that has a bit of cyno growing on it. Cyno receding.

Other than the Angel I installed a kalk stirrer and bought a RO unit around the same time of introducing the angel.

My parameters are as follows:
SG 1025
KH 7,5
CA 400 (Yes working on a bigger calcium reactor current one a bit under gunned)
Magnesium 1350
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Po 0,04
PH 8.2
Temp – 25 degrees (2 x STC controllers no fluctuation)
Ts Reading on RO unit 002

So my thoughts are as follows:

Some kind of chemical or toxin in the tank? (Replace Carbon do a 30% water change and see if there is an improvements, seems unlikely considering the corals and invertebrates are fine?)

Introduced a terrible bug with the angel – in which case sit it out and hope for the best? Don’t have a quarantine tank

Have stopped the kalk stirrer for the time being to eliminate any potential issues with that – high PH etc.

Everyday I expect it to turn but it’s just going from bad to worse. Have had mild cases of white spot before, always found well feed fish get over it in a few days.

Have lost 1 fish in the last 3 years, feel like turning my tank into a cactus display.

Watching my pets for the last 3 years suffering agonising drawn out deaths not cool.

Any ideas?
 
This sounds like a case of parasitic infection most probably transmitted by your new angel you introduced without any QT.
Best thing to do in my opinion is take out remaining fish from display and bucket transfer them for 14 days...QT is super important...perhaps invest in a QT set up asap
 
The tank move would not result in disaster. You had 4 weeks with no issues.

Angel carrying the whitespot most likely the cause. Time period to Powder brown, 2 days after angel past on seems to be normal whitespot hatching period. 3 days hatching, that means the first spots did drop off a day or two perhaps before angel past on.

Get yourself a temporary tank.
Bucket treat the fish you got all together in big enough buckets. Only way to ensure that you do not carry the whitespot to the new holding tank. After 8 days you can move the surviving fish to the holding tank. It is a lot of work but for me, its the only sure method to prevent carrying the disease to the next tank.

Leave your display fishless for 6 weeks. Maybe even 8. Push temperature up to 28 on display. Can leave all corals and inverts in there. But must have no fish.
 
Removing the fish seems like the only solution. What would the best course of treatment be in a QT?
 
10944d5110a7027e1.jpg


Check the minimum period as a cyst. 3 days.

Days on the fish, 3 to 7 days. So 8 days bucket would be OK, you can extend it to 10 if needed.

Here is a link to how I do the bucket method.
Bucket Method Quarantine - Marine Aquariums South Africa
 
So 10 days in the bucket. How do you ensure the water quality in the buckets stays reasonable, bag of ceramics, blower, heater and regular water changes?
 
Max 2 days, then they move to the next bucket. Refer back to the cycle image. Minimum 3 days before hatching. So you need to move the fish before the pests hatch.
 
Was the angel bullied by the powder?
 
Adrian B said:
Sorry and what medication do you recommend in the bucket?
Click to expand...

nothing.

Only if you want to. But copper is effective in the free swimming stage. That is when they hatch. That should not happen with the bucket method as you dry out the bucket after use in the sun, throw in boiling kettle water, let it stand with tap water for a day. Whatever you fancy to kill the cysts. Or do them all together. Yeah!
 
Personally removing all fish again will only add to the stress, further decreasing their immune system and causing secondary infection (the pop eye being one).
Unfortunately moving a tank does cause stress on the whole system and where once had a "balanced" mini ecosystem, now you have a shift in that balance.
 
Riaan went through your bucket method thread, makes sense.

Carlos, funny enough the Powder Brown ignored the Angel.

Agree the bucket method will cause more stress but I think they will all surely die if I leave them in the tank.

Will get onto the bucket story to night.

Thanks for the input guys.
 
What would I do? Leave your tank, maybe try save the CB (those are great fish to have), make sure all fish are eating well. I am sure you will lose more fish (maybe :( ), when your tank seems clear again you can then remove the fish and set up a quarantine or try the long bucket method.
I always avoid copper in any situation, it is toxic to fish's livers.

What's important is to try keep the tank running as usual as then starting up things like your kalk will only change things again.

Sorry for you losses and stress.
 
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In your case, you need freshly mixed salt, cannot use old tank water to refill the buckets every second day.

Most important part with every second day transfer. I do a 50% water change. Keep the top 50% of old tub for new tub. Important is to add the new 50% very slowly. It is the same as acclimatization. Small differences in salinity, PH and temperature will have a bigger impact on a 50% water change, compared to a 10%.
 
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