Sick French Anglefish

[Snowboarda42]

Petco has 20's for pretty cheap, I'd do that. Also, I think cupramine claims that it won't attach to anything in your QT like silicon, glass, plastic, etc. If I were you, just bleach and scrub it out when you're done. Remember to not use a sand bed in QT either.

Yes, I would do hypo for the rest of them. I don't know if you're seeing any sign of Ich on the other fish or not, but keep them in QT for at least 8 weeks after the specific gravity reaches 1.009 before putting them back into the DT.

Hope this helps, keep us updated and ask as many questions as you like.

 

[Gordonious]

:-( Keep my French in a 20 for two months? He'll spike the tank the first time he takes a dump.... I am not sure how I am going to do this. I suppose all I can do is to see if they can all handle the copper treatment. The purple tang is also starting to show some spots. I am not sure if Frenchy will make it through the night. This pulls at my heart so much, but it's midnight on a school night and there are no stores open.

Jon

 

[leebca]

You're not prepared with biological filters for your QT/hospital tanks, unfortunately. The only thing to do is put in sponge filters in the new QTs and make large water changes until the filters take hold AND/OR use chemical filtration.

Extra tanks can be second hand. After the big effort, give them away for late Christmas presents or sell them.

The 20 gallon for the Angel is okay. Keep in mind that that Angel should be normally kept in a 300+ aquarium 3-5" until it is 5" long, then put into a 500+.

 

[Gordonious]

I swore I posted this a couple days ago, but:

I was looking into a 250g for the French, but the person I was going to get it from decided to trash it because they wanted it out of there house. I have a 20g with a crack up the side that I can't justify throwing away and this guy trashes a 250g all glass tank! (Sigh...., sorry needed a little vent there)

I have an old 30g tank I think I will just use for QTing fish in the future after I do the copper treatment. I ordered the copper online and should receive it tomorrow and I will start the treatment tomorrow night. Before I do so I will of course be reading through all of your information on copper, which I just started to read last night.

I have a power head that as a sponge filter on it in both my reef system and my non-photosynthetic system. I am going to move one of them into the 55 which is going to go through hypo as soon as I can get my hands on a pH probe. Though the other fish are probably a bit stressed and have ick to a certain extent they seem to be dealing with it fine for now. Hopefully they won't have a bad outbreak like the French before I start the hypo.

Thanks again to everyone, and I will keep this updated.
Jon

 

[Gordonious]

Update the copper didn't come in and the fish is not looking any better. I'll be going home for thanksgiving, hopefully fedex will show up with my package on Friday, so I can start the copper treatment that night. I thought the package would come right away and it's real disapointing I will have to wait. I hope he can hold on. :-(

 

[Gordonious]

Well I wrote e-mails to try to find out how come the copper had not arrived yet, I still haven't received an e-mail with a tracking number, and I couldn't wait any longer as the angelfish has stopped eating. I drove 45 minutes north to That Pet Place/That Fish Place and picked up everything I should need for both the copper treatment(for the French angelfish) and the hypo(for the eel, tang, and flame angelfish).

Setp up:
I am going to use an old 30 gallon tank for the treatment of copper. I am going to transfer 20 gallons of the tank water that the fish is in now to the 30 and then move the fish in. Once the fish is in I am goign to add 5 gallons of water from an old reef tank that has been running well for years. I will also add a zoo med powersweep from the old reef tank that has a sponge on it hopefully for a bit of bio filtration. It will also have a heater and a digital thermometer. Then I will add 5g of freshly mixed salt water. All the equipment and the tank will only be used for qt and hospitalization of fish in the future and will be marked well so they don't get mixed in with other things.

I am going to use 2.8-3 mL of Cupramine(I am not sure what the resolution of the "enclosed dispenser" is yet.) Then I will test for copper using both the Salifert kit and Seachem MultiTest Copper kit. After 48 hours I will add what ever needed to bring the total copper concentration to .4mg/L. Hopefully 14 days later I will be posting pictures of a happy little French angelfish and be celebrating a successful treatment.

Hopefully throughout the 16 day treatment(two days with 1/2 treatment and 14 with full .4mg/L) I won’t have to do any water changes. I don’t think we will feeding him hardly anything to try to keep waste at a minimum, besides he is not eating at this time anyways.

Tomorrow I hope to start the hypo on the other fish and begin working on getting the 75 ready for them to return to.

Jon

 

[Snowboarda42]

I wouldn't use the powerhead, just take the sponge off (don't wring it out) and put it in the tank somewhere.

Get a HOB filter and run it with nothing in it for flow if you like. Most of the time the sponge filter does enough for flow but in your case. A powerhead is a little too much flow in a QT tank IMO...

 

[Gordonious]

The power head I am using would probably put in as much flow as an HOB filter. It's the smallest in the series and really wouldn't be enough flow for a reef or even a FO only tank typically. I will turn it down though to the lowest setting. It's already in the tank now. Appreciate the comments.

 

[Gordonious]

Starting copper tomorrow, stress of the move was enough and it is too late at night.

 

[leebca]

Sounds like a good plan. I would take one exception to calling it very good and that is the part about feeding. Don't hold back the food to keep wastes down. Make sure that all fish are getting what they need to properly help fight the disease. Remember that you are not curing the fish, the fish are healing on their own with your help. That is, they need the meds AND nourishment.

When the Angel starts to eat again, please be sure to include immune boosters, vitamin and fat supplements.

Good luck!

 

[Gordonious]

I really don't like these test kits. I tried to check the levels of copper after adding just the half dosage and it was just about impossible to see any color change. I added 2.75mL to start and then added another 2.5 tonight. (According to the package I am supposed to add 1mL for every 10.5g of water then repeat, so for 30g I should add about 2.857mL. The little pipette included only has .25 increments.) The fish is a angelfish so I ruled on the side of caution and added slightly less then the recommended amount which is supposed to bring the concentration of copper in the tank to .5mg/L. I will check the water again with the test kits in a little while once the copper has been mixed thoroughly.

His breathing seems to be a little heavy so I am adding some bubbles to the tank. Just air line tubing, and a little peice of PVC for weight, no stone or wand or anything.

He still isn't eating. My gf has added two meaty pellets to the tank, one a day, and today I added a little piece of nori today and he has shown interest in nothing.

I almost picked up some selcon when I was at the store, but talked myself out of it because I had spent enough money and I’ve had the stuff go bad on me in the past.(I wish they said on the package that it needs to be refrigerated after opening.) The only other thing I might be able to add to it’s food that I have here is Garlix Xtreme, but Formula One, his favorite food besides Nori, already has garlic in it.

Thanks once again for your help.
Jon

 

[leebca]

I find that the Seachem Copper Test Kit is a challenge to use. I prefer the Salifert kit and it works fine if you're using Cupramine.

 

[Gordonious]

The Seachem stumped both me and my gf with the instructions in different spots. I had a problem with another one of their other test kits and talked about it in another forum. A guy that works at SeaChem says he was trying to get them to change the instructions, but I think they produced the instruction manuals a while ago and doubt they'll spend money reprinting them.

Regardless the angelfish looks good today. Not a spot of ick on him from what I can see.(there is no light on the tank and usually a wooden plank infront of his tank so foot traffic doesn't scare him) Despite what he looks like though he is not eating yet. I've left a peice of nory in today which I may remove tomorrow. Also tomorrow night I may try to soak one or two of his formula one pellets in garlic xtreme and see if that will trigger any response with him. Maybe I will do one or two peice of mysis shrimp as well.

Hopefully he pulls through, been through a lot with this fish. Thanks agian Lee.
Jon

 

[Snowboarda42]

Honestly, even the Salifert test kit was a little hard to tell, just do your best. Just follow the instructions for dosing as carefully as you can and you should be fine.