Loss of True Percula

[Original Fin]

Looking for some feedback. I suspect it was brooklynella, but not positive, and I need some advice on how to move forward. Should I quarantine and treat the remaining four fish even though they show no signs of illness? First some background....

I had this little guy for just 18 days. He looked healthy and vibrant when I purchased him. I kept him in my 55 reef which was born May 9th, 2010. There are no corals yet, besides a couple mushrooms, palys and a Kenya tree branch. The clownfish was the 4th fish addition to the tank. All ready in the tank was a Diamond Goby, Spotted cardinal, and a six line wrasse. Everyone got along great. A week after adding the clown, I also added a bicolor dwarf angel...that was all I was planning to stock for fish in this tank. There are also quite a few different inverts in this tank...hermits, shrimp, urchin, hawaiian feather duster, snails and a very recent quadricolor BTA, meant for the Perc. The perc however was more interested in being hosted by the feather duster than the anemone. As for feedings, I feed twice a day rotation of mysis shrimp, marine pellets, and marine flakes. All fish eat well. The wrasse, angel and clownfish can't or won't take the pellets.
The clown was doing great until the morning of the 11th day, and he always ate well except for the last two days as his disease/infection progressed. The main symptoms were muted colors and a thick slimy white membrane that would shed off. There was also what appeared to be a wound centered in his left side middle white stripe. It was visibly swollen the first day I noticed it, and the center of the wound was discolored brown. He was also swimming uncharacteristically high in the tank, and had lond stringy white excrement.

Water quality has been stable the whole time at the following:
PH 8.2-8.4
Temp 78-80f
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0-5

Based on the symptoms, it didn't appear to be marine or black ich or velvet. Brooklynella seemed more likely. In performing the research, I realized that I was not at all prepared to properly treat as I do not yet have my quarantine tank set up. I now understand the importance of quarantine before introduction to the main tank, and I will not make that mistake again. What I was able to do that seemed to buy a little time, was to perform RO water dips. I made sure that temp and PH were adjusted, and dipped the clown for 5 minutes on three seperate occasions. This seemed to bring him great relief, as his appetite and vitality immediately came back upon reintroduction to the main tank. Within an hour, his slimy coating was gone. The next day, his wound appeared to be healing, and was no longer swollen. This seemed to work for about 48 hours before all the symptoms (except the wound) came back. Sadly, this morning, he succumbed to the stress of the third RO dip and died shortly after reintroduction. A post mortem examination did not reveal any discernable external parasites.

Looking forward, I know that I must institute a quarantine procedure as a proactive measure for not only the new arrival, but more importantly, the main tank. Considering the threat of an unknown parasite, bacteria or virus remaining in the main tank, should I pull the remaining four fish out and quarantine/proactively treat them? I don't want to stress them unnecessarily and they are not showing any signs of illness, but my concern would be if they could be potential immune carriers that might infect the next clownfish I add? BTW, it will probably be an occelaris this time as they are known to be hosted by a much wider range of anemones than the percs. The true percs natural hosts like carpets are generally too large, or too difficult for my system.

[leebca]

I agree with your diagnosis, except one extra thing -- more than likely the infected fish also had an internal parasite. Read this and you'll know where I'm coming from: Strange Excrement from Fish -or- How to be a Super Pooper Snooper

I would not remove the fish that are already there, however I would definitely 'de-worm' the remaining fishes following guidelines in the above link.

One treatment for Brook is 4 or 5 FW dips spaced out every other day. The number of dips and timing is important. What makes it worse for a fish in a display tank is having to chase it down. This was counter-productive to the well being of the fish. This should even more convince one of the need for a quarantine tank where capture, if necessary, is fast, easy, and can even be done with an 'invisible' plastic bag.

The fish may have made a full recovery if separated and in a QT AND the internal parasite(s) were removed/killed. However there is much missing information: chemical test results by kit; size of tank; etc., etc. that hasn't been taken into consideration in the sentence above.




There are only two prophylactic things I recommend for all Anemonefishes: A FW dip going into the QT, and an automatic treatment for Brook. Brook is too prevalent in this family of fishes to skip this prophylactic treatment.

There are many posts here relating to subjects mentioned above. You'll find a listing of links here: Table/Contents - Link List