Cali Kid Corals

Brooklynella outbreak...

Eh... I wouldn't call it an emergency. I'm fairly lethargic about it now, the progression of fish I care about (in the main tank) has been a couple weeks. the flame tipped tang was perfectly healthy then went down hill in a hurry. Foxface and yellow tang look as happy as can be, and now the tomato clown is looking beat up. If I can catch it cool, if the tomato clown dies it will be sad but if the other fish don't get any issues all is good. Either way I"m slowly preparing to isolate all three fish out of the main tank, and I'll see what I can do for medications. Reminds me of when I treated a $15 clownfish for pop eye, ended up spending damn near $50 on a fish that eventually died.
 
Brooklynella is a quick killer. Could wipe out all your fish.

If it were mine, I'd treat it as an emergency. I hear you about the expense and effort to cure. I look at it as practice so when the expensive fish is sick it won't be an entirely new thing to treat.
 
Well posted a picture in the disease forum at RC (same as this picture), someone seems to think it's either ich or velvet.

I got some Rid Ich plus, not a Petco all they had was freaking "herbal" versions, I need some chemicals up in this house! :D Either way, I should probably treat all fish even if they don't seem infected. That means setting up larger tanks, making decisions about where to put corals, possible break down the 180g tank.
 
how about many water changes.....how long does it persists?
Huh? I'm pretty sure water changes won't cure a parasite infection.

No I didn't try Lucky Ocean because he falls into the same category as other stores who only open after 11am. I like to get my stuff done early, I found a chain pet store (Pet Club) that had some stuff. Plus I'm still unsure about what it is. I'll use this Rid Ich stuff, which turned my hospital tank bluish green. Wait until Monday and I'll give Ed a call to get some of that CP stuff.
 
Brooklynella is a quick killer. Could wipe out all your fish.

If it were mine, I'd treat it as an emergency..

+1! Pathogens don't usually want to kill their host, but in the closed environment of our tanks they reproduce and have no new hosts. I believe we have a duty to care for any fish that comes into our care, regardless of how much or how little we paid for the fish.

Based on the photo I'd agree the powered sugar dusted appearance is more similar to the symptoms of Amyloodinium/velvet, which kills almost as quickly as Brooklynella. Brooklynella typically has a more splotchy appearance. Fortunately treatment for Amyloodinium and Brooklynella is similar - formalin or CP - and copper will work on Amyloodinium.

My offer to give you CP still stands. Pick one method of treatment and stick with it.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, here's a picture I snapped, doesn't quite look like the clown above..

zt7k.jpg
 
Ok so did a short freshwater dip, fish didn't like that and seemed to go into deep sleep, until I touched it then it swam around a bit. Dosed 3 x 1tsp on the 29g tank. The instructions say standard treatment every 24 hours, repeat the dosage as needed. How do I know if it's needed?

Also follow up, if I set up a larger hospital tank for other fish. Can I use the tank water and will the medication kill anything in the water column? Or should I make up fresh salt water?

Also will this stuff permanently infuse into any rocks I put in there? The fish are a little big to hide in PVC pipes.
 
It's Malachite Green, which is a dye, plus formalin. You might end up with odd looking, dyed green rocks! :) You'd be all set for a St. Paddy's day theme tank.

I'd worry it'd leach and kill inverts and corals. There's also the issue of absorbing some and lowering the dose.
 
Ok so did a short freshwater dip, fish didn't like that and seemed to go into deep sleep, until I touched it then it swam around a bit. Dosed 3 x 1tsp on the 29g tank. The instructions say standard treatment every 24 hours, repeat the dosage as needed. How do I know if it's needed?

Also follow up, if I set up a larger hospital tank for other fish. Can I use the tank water and will the medication kill anything in the water column? Or should I make up fresh salt water?

Also will this stuff permanently infuse into any rocks I put in there? The fish are a little big to hide in PVC pipes.

The formalin meds often have malachite green in them as well. That will permanently stain the silicone in your glass tank and I would assume it would stain the acrylic walls of the acrylic tank. It will definitely stain live rock.

I think you need to keep using the medication daily through the lifecycle of whatever it is. It's the only way to be sure you killed it. It looks like the lifecycle is 20+ days for marine velvet.
 
sorry, i was out of town and wouldn't have been able to ship any CP out until i got back. sorry for not checking the forums on a regular basis... i was on family vacation.

if brook, formalin or CP would be your best bet. but formalin breaks down very quickly, so typically once the seal on the bottle has been broken, it is probably only effective 3 or 4 months max. most brands that contain formalin doesn't have enough to be effective, but they will help in prolonging the life of your fishes. on Nano Reef, someone bought a SA snowflake and is experiencing the same, it wiped out his tank. here's the problem, it can be brook or velvet and both these disease wipe out quickly. with velvet, copper or CP is your answer. with that said, this is why i switched to CP for quarantine since Apr2013 instead of copper because if brook comes into my QT system, copper would do nothing... and it did. your best bet is already what you are doing... but unfortunately from what i've read today, it maybe too late. if it is velvet, you would need to leave your tank farrow for 3 months as i've experience velvet reoccuring within a 3 month period and when i've talked to many breeders, several suggest the same exact time period, minimum 3 months no fish. for my own QT, i use 2 months minimum in CP before they are transferred to my display tank. i never mix shipments of fishes from different breeders,so outbreaks occurs, I know the source of where the disease came from. with CP, i have no guesswork of weather it is brook or velvet as it treats both. since using CP, i've had maricultured clownfish come in with brook, but no incident that the brook killed all the fishes within that shipment. if i get in 20 clownfishes from a breeder, i may loose 1 or 2 max when i see active brook occur.

yes, you purchased high end skimmers and t5 bulbs from me, i just don't advertise them as not to compete with LFS that use to not carry them, but are carrying them now, but i still have access to all equipment i have contracts with. i do have CP in stock and will be starting tomorrow, Friday 11/29 if you need any. we can discuss more what you can do if anything if you stopby.
 
Ed, first there is no need to apologize, others have offered help I just didn't feel like driving over to Oakland :). If anything I shouldn't be crying like a little girl and maybe should have seen the signs earlier... unfortunately I thought in the wrong direction as to what was happening.

I would love to stop by tomorrow, get some CP, figure out a good plan of action, etc. I don't know when I could stop by though as my wife is going to attempt shopping tomorrow, so who knows if she gets back in the afternoon or is a crazy psycho woman and gets home at night. But shoot me a message and we'll work something out, if not tomorrow then some other time.
 
Will PM you my cellphone #. Here's the guy on Nano-Reef with same problem, he wiped out his whole tank, which was a pair of SA snowflakes clowns and a wrasse.

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/336937-clownfish-laying-down-and-breathing-rapidly/

I personally had brook attack my earlier system 2 years ago when I didn't separate my shipments from stand alone units. I use to use copper to quarantine everything, so no issues with ich or velvet. But when brook hit from an SA shipment, it infected everything in my system, but luckily I was able to get 37% formalin to treat immediately and only loss 1 or 2 SA Onyx clowns, thereafter, I had to sterilized the system and start over. SA told me their biosecurity system was the tightest it could be and they have no disease in their system. Years later I find out that they've been fighting brook for years and had to sterilized entire systems. Brook is always a fear when brining in anything from te ocean, both wild caught or maricultured fishes.
 
Interesting read Ed. Reminds me of my thought process at first too, first thinking "obvious" signs since none of the fish showed signs of disease. I have to say though that while yeah it killed the young clownfish quick (I'm guessing), it took over a month to kill them all which doesn't sound like the "kills quickly" idea that has been floating around.

Really love the claim that their biosecurity is the "tightest it could be" ... which reading stories from lots of people who are getting from them... the "it could be" part is sketchy... the tightest it could be because they don't take any precautions? or??

But I'll give you a buzz later today.
 
Ok so going to get some CP later today got a few questions

1) Earlier it was said it doesn't break down much in water? Over what kind of time period can I expect almost full strength? month? week?

2) Will carbon absorb it? Like if I had a trickle filter going on should I remove the carbon and stick only with the filter sponge?

3) What sort of time frame are we looking at seeing results/killing parasites? How long to keep in hospital tank?

4) What sort of dosage should I use if there is definite infection?

5) Will it kill stuff in the water column? So can I use water from the main tank that's already mixed and warm in the QT?

6) Will it absorb/leech from rock?

7) Any sort of interactions with water that already has formalin in it? I know formalin breaks down can I keep the same water and dose CP?

8) Treat every fish as if it's sick? Or should I wait it out? If I have to treat every fish that's fine. I'm simply drain the tank, not exactly what I want to do, but in the long run it could be beneficial (cheaper) to go that route. Especially if I can use dry rock in the QT without any adverse affects later if put said dry rcok in the display tank.

Tomato clown isn't looking terribly hot now. Mouth keeps opening and closing somewhat rapidly like he's gasping for air, extreme white spots, fins quite ragged on the edges. Not eating at all. The upside is my yellow tang and my foxface are still big piggies in the main tank.
 
So sorry Mike. When I got it I moved the fish into a constant formalin bath, with daily FW dips. I caught it early and it wasn't in my Reef so it was easier to deal with.
So funny/sad about the marketing claims from SA. For a long time one of the selling points about CB animals is that they were supposed to be disease free, which never made sense to me.
 
Well I'm not going to put any blame on SA, or anyone else who donated the other clownfish, hell I had no idea where the fish came from that I was bidding on. Plus it was my own stupidity for 1) Being "lazy" and engineering a QT system in line with my display tank, although my QT was basically to hold all my anemones as I really had no plans to get any fish and 2) forgetting that said "QT" was in fact in-line with the display tank, when simple turn of a knob would have instantly made it a separate system.
 
Absolutely. Just peddling my particular interest in the reality of claims made in this hobby. Speaking of iffy claims, does Ruby Reef now list ingredients on its bottles?
 
Welp the Tomato clown is going to die. She can't swim, and is kind of just going where the flow takes her, on her side, occasionally upside down, gasping for breath. While I don't see many white spots on her anymore, she hasn't eaten in a few days that I could notice. Her top fin is ragged to the point of frillyness, and she's missing some skin from her head. Either way. she's been in my care around 11 years, it's sad to see her go.

Said my goodbyes, I want to per her out of her misery but think I'll just let her die naturally.
 
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