Help! Our fish are dying!! All advice appreciated!

[Shelley Mantooth]

In the past month we have lost 1 black angel (1 mo ago), 1 flame angel (yesterday), 1 Christmas Wrasse(this morning), 1 Fuzzy Dwarf (Monday) and 1 Sargasm Angler(last week). The Fuzzy Dwarf we are pretty sure just got too stressed and developed the eye fungus. He died before we could get the Rally medication into the tank. We bought another one which is much smaller and he seems quite happy and healthy. He is eating great and his eyes remain clear. The angler just stopped eating, became lethargic and died, unknown etiology.

The two angels appeared to have ich. In fact, the Flame's fins appeared "eaten" with it. The Christmas wrasse appeared perfectly healthy until late last night he seemed a little lethargic but ate as usual. This morning we found him dead on the bottom of the tank, no spots visible on him. I know MI is only visible during stage 2 so it is possible he had it. This is day 10 of treating the tank with Kick Ich. It does not seem to be working. We chose that medication because we have 3 live rock specimens, one of which is thriving quite nicely.

My Valentini Puffer is my favorite of all our fish. She has visible spots on her fins now. I am terrified she will die along with all the rest of our living fish. We do have a UV sterilizer we are running along with the Kick Ick treatment and we are trying to keep the salinity low as well.

I ran a full test kit and the results are: pH 7.8, Ammonia .25ppm, Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 20ppm(high I know), Spec. G 1.023, Salinity 30ppt. To combat the Nitrate I think I will do a quick partial water change. The Kick Ich has been beating down the pH to what you see here. We have been using the product called eight-four(8.4) to buffer it but today is another double dose day of the Kick Ich. We did have the temp set at 84F to try and speed up the MI life cycle but I have learned that is a myth and have lowered it back to 81F.

We do have a small 8 gal tank upstairs that we are keeping a cleaner shrimp in because she is full of eggs and we didn't want them to become snacks for the other fish. I'm thinking I am going to have to just bite the bullet on this one. We plan on moving all invertebrates out of the small tank and using it as a Q tank/copper treatment. We obviously cannot put all our fish in it at once but maybe 1 or two at a time. I don't know what else to do. Please, if you have any advice on how to save our fish please don't be hesitant. Just try to keep in mind I am a beginner and my better half...well, he has a little more experience but is also a Chemist with a PhD. We are both quickly figuring out we both need help with this issue and fast!

[BoogeryIcecream]

In the past month we have lost 1 black angel (1 mo ago), 1 flame angel (yesterday), 1 Christmas Wrasse(this morning), 1 Fuzzy Dwarf (Monday) and 1 Sargasm Angler(last week). The Fuzzy Dwarf we are pretty sure just got too stressed and developed the eye fungus. He died before we could get the Rally medication into the tank. We bought another one which is much smaller and he seems quite happy and healthy. He is eating great and his eyes remain clear. The angler just stopped eating, became lethargic and died, unknown etiology.

The two angels appeared to have ich. In fact, the Flame's fins appeared "eaten" with it. The Christmas wrasse appeared perfectly healthy until late last night he seemed a little lethargic but ate as usual. This morning we found him dead on the bottom of the tank, no spots visible on him. I know MI is only visible during stage 2 so it is possible he had it. This is day 10 of treating the tank with Kick Ich. It does not seem to be working. We chose that medication because we have 3 live rock specimens, one of which is thriving quite nicely.

My Valentini Puffer is my favorite of all our fish. She has visible spots on her fins now. I am terrified she will die along with all the rest of our living fish. We do have a UV sterilizer we are running along with the Kick Ick treatment and we are trying to keep the salinity low as well.

I ran a full test kit and the results are: pH 7.8, Ammonia .25ppm, Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 20ppm(high I know), Spec. G 1.023, Salinity 30ppt. To combat the Nitrate I think I will do a quick partial water change. The Kick Ich has been beating down the pH to what you see here. We have been using the product called eight-four(8.4) to buffer it but today is another double dose day of the Kick Ich. We did have the temp set at 84F to try and speed up the MI life cycle but I have learned that is a myth and have lowered it back to 81F.

We do have a small 8 gal tank upstairs that we are keeping a cleaner shrimp in because she is full of eggs and we didn't want them to become snacks for the other fish. I'm thinking I am going to have to just bite the bullet on this one. We plan on moving all invertebrates out of the small tank and using it as a Q tank/copper treatment. We obviously cannot put all our fish in it at once but maybe 1 or two at a time. I don't know what else to do. Please, if you have any advice on how to save our fish please don't be hesitant. Just try to keep in mind I am a beginner and my better half...well, he has a little more experience but is also a Chemist with a PhD. We are both quickly figuring out we both need help with this issue and fast!

Based on what you say, it "SEEMS" to be flukes affecting some of your fish along with ich. Most importantly though, DO NOT put Rally or Kick-Ich in your tank or more specifically Rally since it contains Formalin which is a poison to the fish at any dosage (Basically stresses them more without doing too much and hurting your biological filtration and so forth)

Actually for your nitrates in what seems to be FOWLR, its in a more than reasonable range, but your ammonia definitely needs to be taken care of along with your unusually low pH (Probably low because there's formalin in your tank which decreases oxygen levels)

This is one case where pictures of the damages would be extremely helpful, but aside from that I recommend setting up a QT tank if possible and start dosing a Praziquantel based medication (Prazipro comes to mind), and start slowly lowering the salinity if possible (and keep up 80% WC's since you won't have a bio filter ready)

Hopefully all this helps and I didn't miss anything.

[Shelley Mantooth]

What is the recommended pH when dealing with the MI? I spoke with the other half and we are going to set up the QT tank and well as incorporate Leebca's method of freshwater dipping. The hyposalinity method looks to be the most promising for our show tank as well. However, I am concerned that keeping the salinity in between 11 and 12 might harm our invertebrates? Is that true?

[BoogeryIcecream]

What is the recommended pH when dealing with the MI? I spoke with the other half and we are going to set up the QT tank and well as incorporate Leebca's method of freshwater dipping. The hyposalinity method looks to be the most promising for our show tank as well. However, I am concerned that keeping the salinity in between 11 and 12 might harm our invertebrates? Is that true?

If it's MI for sure, a FW dip won't do you any good other than stress the fish more probably. If it's flukes (and MI), then it will be helpful (or if you want to verify if there are then go right ahead).
As for what pH is good for Hypo, anywhere between 8.0-8.2 should be fine.
And most inverts can't handle that low of a salinity (Some copepods,isopods and hermits can survive, but I can't think of too much aside from them)
No point in throwing them into the QT since they can't carry MI or some Flukes, only their water can.

[leebca]

If you are confident of your diagnosis being Marine Ich, then follow what to do here: Curing Fish of Marine Ich. Stop chasing ghost cures, like Kick Ick. There are only three known non-prescription methods of curing Marine Ich and they are covered in the above linked post.

I'd say most of your problems come from not having established a proper quarantine system for new acquisitions. This is a very good read on that: A Fish Quarantine Process.

A big obvious is the water quality. Didn't notice but your pH is low (and even with Kick Ick shouldn't be), your ammonia and nitrites are wrong. The thing is, who ever you are listening too is not giving you good advice. The thing to do is re-learn how to setup and run a marine aquarium. This suggestion is not meant as an insult, it just seems you may have been misguided and for me to try and fix all the wrongs would be a big effort. So do this: First read through this post: Setting Up a FOWLR Aquarium. From that post you should see what you should have in your system (equipment, cleanup crew, etc.) and how it should run.

Then read this post: What is Water Quality. This explains some of the finer points of water quality including how to control your pH without buying those prepackaged 'buffering' products. It also gives you some of the finer points about equipment sizing.

As you're reading, list what those posts recommend that you do not have or are not doing, and start moving in the right direction. These changes to your system you do while you are curing your marine fish OUTSIDE of the system, as per that first linked post. Then, as you become more familiar with how things should be, search posts for answers to your questions, or if you can't find those answers, post your questions in new threads -- one thread per topic -- and I and other experts will be happy to share our experience. But, in those linked posts, I have shared my secrets and details on how to be successful and how to cure Marine Ich.

All this may seem daunting at the start, but with perseverance, you'll get up to 'snuff' on how to be a success in the hobby and prevent such events you are now going through.

[michaellee]

My fish were doing the exact same thing. I lost my porcupine puffer, large sailfin, niger trigger, & emperor angel. Surviving were 8 line wrasse, tomato clown, flame back pygme angel, and hippo tang, and goby with his pistol shrimp. All tanks (120G) inline with another (150). I tried to treat fungal and it didn't work at all. The fish got even worse, especially the eyes and fins. My tomato clown was littered with it. I asked a vet of avian and exotic animals and it was determined it was bacterial upon a visit. To me it looked very much like fungus, the eating away of fins, cloudy eyes, patches on the fish etc. I treated with erythromycin but not in the water supply. I made certain UV was working well, and fed 2 times a day letting a significant amount of the antibiotic soak in the food in the refrigerator after thawed out. The clown cleared in 3 days all spots and fins clear. My Hippo lost all his spots as well. All remaining fish are fine now. I was told to use that or Kanamycin. Kanamycin was recommended, but with 300 gallons I didn't have the cash that day - so she said try erythromycin. Good luck. Hopefully they can eat and digest the food. I would have quarantined all fish for treatment but it would have required hacking fused corals apart from many large pieces of liverock to catch them. Good Luck

[Shelley Mantooth]

If you are confident of your diagnosis being Marine Ich, then follow what to do here: Curing Fish of Marine Ich. Stop chasing ghost cures, like Kick Ick. There are only three known non-prescription methods of curing Marine Ich and they are covered in the above linked post.

I'd say most of your problems come from not having established a proper quarantine system for new acquisitions. This is a very good read on that: A Fish Quarantine Process.

A big obvious is the water quality. Didn't notice but your pH is low (and even with Kick Ick shouldn't be), your ammonia and nitrites are wrong. The thing is, who ever you are listening too is not giving you good advice. The thing to do is re-learn how to setup and run a marine aquarium. This suggestion is not meant as an insult, it just seems you may have been misguided and for me to try and fix all the wrongs would be a big effort. So do this: First read through this post: Setting Up a FOWLR Aquarium. From that post you should see what you should have in your system (equipment, cleanup crew, etc.) and how it should run.

Then read this post: What is Water Quality. This explains some of the finer points of water quality including how to control your pH without buying those prepackaged 'buffering' products. It also gives you some of the finer points about equipment sizing.

As you're reading, list what those posts recommend that you do not have or are not doing, and start moving in the right direction. These changes to your system you do while you are curing your marine fish OUTSIDE of the system, as per that first linked post. Then, as you become more familiar with how things should be, search posts for answers to your questions, or if you can't find those answers, post your questions in new threads -- one thread per topic -- and I and other experts will be happy to share our experience. But, in those linked posts, I have shared my secrets and details on how to be successful and how to cure Marine Ich.

All this may seem daunting at the start, but with perseverance, you'll get up to 'snuff' on how to be a success in the hobby and prevent such events you are now going through.

Lee,
Thank you for your post. I do not see you as insulting at all. I am straight shooter myself. I've worked the past 11 yrs as a Paramedic which requires one to be an aggressive critical thinker. One thing I have learned during that time is life is too short to beat around the bush.

I read the articles you cited and I do believe water quality might be one of the problems if not the main one. We have an R/O unit which is testing at 0ppm. We have all the equipment that is noted in your FOWLR setup article. Our protein skimmer is set to handle a 225gal tank and we have a 75gal. We started to SLOWLY lower the salinity to handle the MI. We've had to do this in the display tank and move the inverts to the smaller tank. They all seem to be handling it nicely accept the Fuzzy Dwarf. He has developed the cloudy eyes that our last one had which eventually led to it's demise.

I have read in several of your posts that antibiotics are appropriate to treat this cloudy eyes problem seeing as how we have established that the Rally our supplier recommended is definitely not the answer. Michaellee mentioned below that K-Mycin/Kanamycin could work to help all our fish and it was used in a display tank. Our 8gal tank is too small to put all our fish in to use as a QT and to be honest we do not have the $400+ to throw at a large enough QT tank right now since I had major surgery 1 month ago and will be cleared June 1st to go back to work. I will be doing some saving to accompish this, however.

I will admit I dove into this with my better half fully relying on his confidence that he knew all there was to be successful at it. We are both finding out that we did not know a fraction of what is required. We have to try and handle our immediate problems with what we have right now, which is the 8gal biocube and the 75gal glass display with UV filter and protein skimmer.

So, my questions are...
-Can we use the 8gal as a small hospital/QT tank?
-Since we are using the protein skimmer and the activated carbon already would a large water change (40% - 60%) help?
-Would you recommend the K-mycin for the fuzzy dwarf?

Thanks

[leebca]

Thank you for your support Shelley.

I'm a little unsure just what fish you have left. It is clear you still have the Puffer & FD, but I don't know about the rest.

I don't want to appear to be difficult but I'm unsure where the $400+ comes from. A 29 gallon tank, with two sponge filters, an air pump large enough to drive both, a cheap/inexpensive low lighting light, and some PVC pipes for the fish to hide is what's needed. A table top or even set atop some cement blocks would be a good enough stand. That should run lo about a $80 special 'deal' at most K-marts or pet shops. Or a second 10 gallon would be under $40. These are 'new prices.' The tank you can get used and save even more. For a one-time useage (because you won't let this happen again), you can sell the tank later or give it away as a Christmas present.

Anyway, I'm unsure the fish you have left so I can't address your first question with confidence IF you're asking if it is okay to cure the current live fish in the 8 gallon. I think you still have the Puffer and the FD, but I don't know their size. IF your question can the 8 gal be used for a QT for future fishes, then most likely, 'Yes' if the fish is under 2" in length.

A very large (over 80%) water change will usually improve water quality when the problem is poisons in the water. It doesn't correct chemical balances. Follow this guideline for making such large water changes: How to Make a Successful Water Change

In general, yes. Make a large water change EVERY OTHER DAY for at least three times total.

Kanamycin is okay. My preference is Nitrofurazone, but the best is to use both.

[Shelley Mantooth]

I would like to thank both Leebca and Michaellee for their suggestions! We bought the K-mycin and isolated our baby fuzzy in the QT tank on Friday. We have been administering the K-mycin both in the water and orally as per the instructions on the bottle and his right eye has already cleared completely. His left eye which initially was so bad it appeared as if it was about to rupture is about 50% healed. This was clearly a bacterial infection. I am so glad I found this forum. We were relying solely on our "fish lady" who has become a good friend for advice but if we would have stayed on that path, we surely would have lost more fish.

Leebca, you seem to be a bottomless pit of priceless information. You tell it like it is and I thank you for that. We are still beginners and it seems that this hobby includes a lot of learn as you go. I will be referring a lot to this forum to make the learning curve a little more tolerable.

[michaellee]

I am unsure if you are treating the main tank. Sounds like you have QT. One thing I would remember is the absence of fish will cut the supply to the bacteria - the fish being it's host. In my event, the removal of the fish would have jolted an established system, so I had to combat the situation with the host present. This meant limiting medication to food. It sounds as though you are employing the Kanamycin direct to water which is okay in the QT. I did in the reef but minimal because it was in food. Goes to show if you can establish a resistance in the host - the bacteria effectivness is thwarted and minimized but "still present" in the water. This is why I upped the UV and I treated for a long duration. 10 day treatment just like we do. the reason I write is because if you do have all fishes in the QT and wish to put them back in the display fast - you may run into trouble. I cross contaminated my main tank because innitially this bacteria was in the nano 20G upstairs. All it took was trying to save a clown in the nano by removing him to isolation in my 300G display's refugium. the WORST move I ever made. I inadvertantly exposed the water column to the bacteria that took weeks , but built up and attacked causing major deaths fast. So if I were you I would do preventative measures like good decent water changes in the main display, as well, slow your UV down. The more water exposure the better at killing and not eliminating but surely helping control that bacteria population. My fish seem 100% right now, and I am certain it's kicked, but I will not add another fish for 3 months , just a rule of mine. All I am trying to say is make sure you do the best to eliminate the bacteria in the main tank. In the nano upstairs everything died accept the corals and inverts. I am glad that your employment of Kanamycin is effective. Sounds like we had the same type bacteria. It is really strange how it took the form of textbook fungal infections. I did want to share a little on prazipro. I did use that one time and it was not effective with this disease. My protien skimmer went bezerk upon restart after treatment and the smell of fish was horrible. I am not saying it doesn't work, but I would guess there was some die-off somewhere likely in the bacteria bed of my systems wet/dry filter. Well I'll chat all day so I am glad that your treatment is working. Lastly after the fish developed a resistance with antibiotics, the bactera was eliminated by UV partially, water changes, jsut preventative methods as such. Just as a note I took apart a UV starilizer that is for a pond 6000 gallons and measured the wall of outside diameter. the myth is that pond sterilizers can't be used in a reef due to the wall outside being further away thus lack of sufficient exposure to the UV in saltwater use. It's incorrect. I bought the unit and my coralife 36W is the same distance as the pond sterilizer. I have a 40W Pondmaster that is rated for a gigantic amount of water running. The gallon per hour suggest in the 900GPH range. I have it running at 300GPH. If they are stating that 900GPH controls bacteria in 6000 gallons, I find that hard to believe. What I can believe because my system is showing the result, is at 300G it is effective. Also at 300GPH total water exposure in a 24 hour period is 7,200 Gallons Per Day. that makes a super efficiency I believe. Take that from an ideot who wears glasses now. Upon changing my bulb 2 years ago I looked at the 6 month old bulb and after a night of sleep I woke up in severe pain and stayed in the hospital 2 days my eyes were burnt so bad. Lol. So I am sure a new bulb does "something". Lets just put it that way. Good Luck

[leebca]

Very kind of you Shelly. Thank you. Glad things are turning around. Good luck!