Sick Fish

[Lew90]

I hope this is the right spot to post this. I recently purchased some fish from my LFS and in the last couple of days the fish have come down with what I think could be ich. It looks like salt sprinkled on the fish but is a little more bumpier.

I have lost the Red Headed Goby in the picture below, but still have the Catalina Goby and a Green Banded Goby (not pictured).

All of these fish have been in a quarantine tank since purchased from the LFS 2 plus weeks ago. I'm using Seachem Cupramine as the copper treatment during their quarantine period. The current copper level is .5mg/L

The two left started showing signs of these white spots two days ago. While the Red Headed goby showed signs almost a week ago and died a few days after signs appeared.

Does anyone know what disease this is? How should I go about saving these little fish? Apparently the Cupramine is not working for what they have.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
Lew90

 

[brady816]

wish i could help.. i know someone will be here to help for sure

 

[reeftnk101]

What is the salt level in the QT tank?
Matt

 

[mmkeeper]

Looks like ich. The most advise way of treating ich around here is hypo-salinity. Where over a few days you lower the salinity to 1.009. Once the white spots drop off you keep them there for 4-6 weeks. Great job on having them in qt. This is why we should qt all new critters for our reefs.

Start with this link and hope that Steve-S shows he is the expert.
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=15

 

[Lew90]

salinity level is 1.025. I'll try slowly lowering the salinity to the 1.009. I'd really like to be able to save these little guys. Like anyone, one hates when you've done your reseach on the fish you want to keep and get them home in the QT tank and late find their sick.

My wife and I even went to the extent of purchasing a new chiller for these fish, specially the Catalina

I guess if this doesn't work out I could always use the chiller on another one of my tanks. I just want to give it my best shot.

Thanks Again for the help!

 

[Brenden]

Well I am impressed. I was about to post earlier today that the catalina was a bad choice because they need cool water. I have never used copper for ich. Only hypo. It works great and reduces the stress on the fish while it eliminates the ich. You can lower the salinity quick. Bringing it back up is the slow part. Be sure to buffer the water because the PH will drop as you lower the salinity. Be sure to keep a eye on the NH3 levels also. Good luck. We will be here if you need help.

 

[ronj]

DO NOT LOWER THE SALINITY!!!!!!!!!!!! if you already have copper in the tank, you will probably kill your fish...how long did you dose the copper for?? are you still dosing the copper???

 

[moortim]

Hey Ray,
Yeah, you don't want to try two types of treatment at the same time, either do hypo salinity or cupramine, not both. I did some digging and found some reading for you:

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17618&highlight=Ich+treatment

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16573&highlight=Ich+treatment

Look for any advice from SteveS, he can get you going again.
talk to you later.

Tim

 

[Lew90]

Update -Sorry I'm late on the followup I've been busy with Christmas.

I'm sad to say the fish needed make it.

On the 19th of my last post I had a meeting that night and wasn't able to do the hypo like I had wanted. Sounds like maybe a good thing although the out come was the same.

I was planning on doing it the morning of the 20th. When I checked on the fish first thing in the morning both fish were died.

The fish were in the copper QT for almost 2½ weeks.

I would like to thank all of you for helping me through this. It's really great to have RF family to help get through times like these. A guy feels really bad when you loose some reef life but even worse when you don't have any one to turn to for guideance.

Best Wishes,
Lew90