Fish Deaths...Need some help please...

[homegrowncichlid]

Before going on with discussing treatment, are we sure we have velvet? When you say in your original post that the fish turned white, are you saying it was covered with a fuzzy or slimy coating? or did the skin just turn white? Because if its fuzzy, it could be velvet, but if slime it could be bacterial. Also, if my fish dies for whatever reason, it will turn white as a ghost as the skin looses pigments, which is natural in death, or after it dies, the bacterial slime can form.


Based on your description, all I can gather is a fish died for some unknown reason, wasting away, turning pale and died one at a time over a week. When I had an ick breakout, all my fish were covered in ick, and by the third bloom, died together and all where symptomatic.
SO did the fish have visible white fuzzy or slimy symptoms before death?


Every once in a while I'll put a new tang in my QT tank but forget to clean out the clogged filter. The fish will be dead the next morning even though I have other junk fish in the tank, which seem fine. Took me a while to figure out why this happened in the summer, But the simple explanation was that there was not enough flow in the tank and oxygen levels were too low to support the fish. Lost 2 tangs and a wrasse that way.

A picture is worth a thousand words, Lets look at the tank setup and a diseased fish.


As for velvet (or ich) fish develop immunity to that specific strain and will be unaffected from it. New fish do not have immunity to it and need to survive 3 exposures of it to develop immunity. Introducing a new strain of velvet (or ich) will cause the original inhabitants to develop symptoms as they are not immune to the new strain and can kill them just as easily as your preexisting velvet (or ich) can kill new additions. Fish retain this immunity for up around 6 months after the velvet (or ich) naturally die off after, which the fish forgets its immunity, which is only temporary. So your fish are safe as they are immune.

Here is a pictoral guide I find useful
http://www.chucksaddiction.com/disease.html

 

[Djbetterly]

Hey homegrown,

Thanks for chiming in. I'm not 100% sure its velvet, almost all the symptoms point to it, so I'm being cautious.

The tank setup. 48 Gallon display tank, 20 Gallon sump. The display tank has two mp10's. The sump has a fuge in it and the fuge has a power head in it as well. My skimmers intake is connected with a hose that sucks air from outside. With all of that I highly doubt that its lack of oxygen. I mean anything is possible...but thats my theory.

As far as the fish go. The symptoms I saw were very consistent with all of the fish. They would start by going into hiding. During that time they would typically dart out to eat, but then go straight back into hiding. The whole time they were breathing hard. Typically once they went into hiding they would be dead within 24hrs. Within the last 3 weeks I've lost 3 blue reef chromis, a carpenters fairy wrasse, a yellow head jawfish, a tailspot blenny, wyoming clown, and a flame back angel.

Unfortunately the last two to die I wasn't able to get pictures of. The tailspot died overnight and the cleanup crew and pretty much taken care of it by the time I saw it. Before I went to bed he didn't look good at all, he had almost no color. The wyoming clown passed while I was out of town, but had the symptoms before I left. The clown had separated from the other and was in the back corner of the tank behind a rock.

I did purchase a QT tank today and have formalin and chloraquine diphosphate on order. At this point I'm not sure what else to do, but I don't want to risk losing what I have left.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

hmm, aside from behavior changes, all you notice is heavy breathing? no visible white dots or fuzz? The chromis and wrasse are very resistant to parasites of the skin. (personal note: when I has an ich wipe out, all my fish were covered in ich, tangs of course, neon goby, assorted damsels, clownfish all died, except for my chromis).

 

[Djbetterly]

The other strange behavior that I forgot to mention was scraping themselves on the rocks. They would always get whitish about 24hrs before they died. I've never seen a photo of a fish with velvet so I'm cautious about using the word white. The first fish to die and act very strange was the flameback angel. The flameback was very discolored for several days before it died. I didn't think much of it as I wasn't very familiar with these parasites.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Here's a pictorial guide again


http://www.chucksaddiction.com/disease.html


better pics here
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_6/volume_6_1/brooklynella.htm

 

[salpet]

buy some selcon overfeed them and do regular water changes if they are eating hopefully you can boost their immune system remember the stronger you make them the better chances they have to fight whatever malaise they might have i was able to cure my fish from a huge outbracke of ick

 

[CHINO THE BOSS]

Did one of those fish had sign of parasite before you add them to the system

 

[Djbetterly]

No, but I also never QT'd before. I just got the QT setup now. Some people have questioned my diagnosis of velvet but based on the chucksaddiction pages, the fish are showing a majority of the signs.