VJV
04/05/2015, 06:05 PM
I have just lost two fish in during quarantine and wonder if rust mixed with copper (Cuppramine) could have been the culprit?
I had a Powder Brown tang (Japonicus) in a 20g and a Yellow Tang in a 14g tank. They were both juveniles and both had been in the fish store for over a month and looked healthy.
The Japonicus tang after two weeks (more or less when I increased the copper concentration to the 0.5 recommended level) started acting strange, always hiding. In the morning I found it dead on the bottom. It had zero white spots and never flashed nor scratched during those two weeks.
After removing the fish and doing a large water change I decided to move the yellow tang to the larger (now vacant) 20g to give it more room. It too started to hide but I thought it was the stress of having moved him to the new tank. For precaution did another large (60%) water change. Two days later he was dead as well, again with no symptoms of ich or Velvet.
When I tore the QT down to sterilize it I noticed that one of the lid screws was rusting significantly and it was dripping into the tank. Could this have caused both fish to die? Or perhaps an interaction with Cupramine?
- Both fish were healthy at the LFS.
- I tested the cupramine concentration with Seachem test kit, and checked with the reference solution to make sure I was not going beyond the recommended dosage.
- did regular large (60%) water changes and had an ammonia badge that never registered any ammonia.
- had done this before more than 10 times and never had any deaths.
- had a nano skimmer plus an internal filter in the 20g
- the fish did not exhibit white spots or scratching behavior
Any thoughts?
I had a Powder Brown tang (Japonicus) in a 20g and a Yellow Tang in a 14g tank. They were both juveniles and both had been in the fish store for over a month and looked healthy.
The Japonicus tang after two weeks (more or less when I increased the copper concentration to the 0.5 recommended level) started acting strange, always hiding. In the morning I found it dead on the bottom. It had zero white spots and never flashed nor scratched during those two weeks.
After removing the fish and doing a large water change I decided to move the yellow tang to the larger (now vacant) 20g to give it more room. It too started to hide but I thought it was the stress of having moved him to the new tank. For precaution did another large (60%) water change. Two days later he was dead as well, again with no symptoms of ich or Velvet.
When I tore the QT down to sterilize it I noticed that one of the lid screws was rusting significantly and it was dripping into the tank. Could this have caused both fish to die? Or perhaps an interaction with Cupramine?
- Both fish were healthy at the LFS.
- I tested the cupramine concentration with Seachem test kit, and checked with the reference solution to make sure I was not going beyond the recommended dosage.
- did regular large (60%) water changes and had an ammonia badge that never registered any ammonia.
- had done this before more than 10 times and never had any deaths.
- had a nano skimmer plus an internal filter in the 20g
- the fish did not exhibit white spots or scratching behavior
Any thoughts?