I need a fish psychiatrist

[doctor9824]

2 weeks ago it seemed as though my hippo tang and my kole tang had ick.i treated the tank for 3 days with rid ick plus. Since that treatment my tank fell into chaos. Once the 3 days passed I put back the carbon bag, turned the skimmer back on and changed 40 gallons of water ( not at one time, over 1 week). I lost my emperor angel,2 clowns, and 2 damsels following the treatment/ water changes. Water parameters are perfect, and the reaper seems to have left the tank. I will restock once I see all is good in a few weeks. Here is part 2 to my chaos: since this all occurred my kole tang has become a vegetarian only eating off the glass and lr, ( he used to eat anything I put in the tank, not anymore, ignores feeding time and just vacuums up the algae). My Picasso tang found a spot between 2 rocks and won't move all day until feeding time- he eats like an animal then goes back to rocks. If he does stick around after feeding he stands straight up at either the bottom of the tank or the top? Did these fish get brain damage from the treatment?
Tank specs: running 6 yrs, 250gal, 30 gal redugium, 3 Chinese leds, parameters are perfect

[doctor9824]

When I spoke to my lfs, I explained that my 2 sick fish looked as though they had white velvety spots on them. He said it wasn't ick or velvet, he forgot the name of the disease but was sure it was t either of them. Hippo is back to health and nice coloring

[NYCBOB]

medicine like that can kill off beneficial bacteria and throw off water parameters. why do u think they had ich? white spots? i hear many bad things regarding rid ick. people i know who used it in the past had their tank crashed.

[doctor9824]

Yes, my hippo and kole had very very fine white spots over most of their bodies, since treatment they're colored back up and back to normal / except the kole won't eat meaty foods anymore

[NYCBOB]

As long as u have enough live rock to the kole to graze on, he should be fine. Just monitor it for ich coming back. Once its system, it never goes away unless there is no host in the system. Only solution is hypo and copper. Copper only in separate system.

[scooter31707]

As long as u have enough live rock to the kole to graze on, he should be fine. Just monitor it for ich coming back. Once its system, it never goes away unless there is no host in the system. Only solution is hypo and copper. Copper only in separate system.

Hypo and cooper is not the only solution. The best solution is to take out your fish, conducting TTM and letting the tank go fallow for 72-90 days.

[NYCBOB]

Hypo and cooper is not the only solution. The best solution is to take out your fish, conducting TTM and letting the tank go fallow for 72-90 days.

Yes u r right. Ttm works too. I personally never done it with that method bc it's a lot of work.

[BrettDS]

For what it's worth, I have had a kole tang for more than a year and a half and he only eats algae from the rocks and glass. All my other fish go after the pellets I feed, but the kole tang completely ignores the pellets and just spends all day grazing. He's still doing great after nearly 2 years.

[CrayolaViolence]

2 weeks ago it seemed as though my hippo tang and my kole tang had ick.i treated the tank for 3 days with rid ick plus.

Unless rid ick is an actual copper based or chloroquine phosphate medication, then you have not done anything to the parasite in your tank and they are still there and the fish are still infected. The behaviors you are observing are mostly likely due to the fish feeling the affects of the parasites on their bodies. Fish will demonstrate very odd behaviors when they are infected with parasites. The fish know something is wrong but they don't know what it is or how to rid themselves of it, therefore they hide or act bizarre, changing eating behaviors, swimming oddly, sleeping in odd places, etc. It's one of things that gets them eaten in the wild and prevents them from being vectors for disease. Some parasites can even alter the behavior of their host through chemistry to make spreading of the parasite easier. I do not know if there are fish parasites that do this but it would not surprise me if their were.
Ick and marine velvet attack the gill tissue most often, and in many cases you will never see body spots. The only way to diagnose is to take biopsies as there are no home diagnostic methods without the use of a microscope. This is why many people broad spectrum treat as a preventative.

[doctor9824]

Crayola, I believe you r right. I lost my Picasso yesterday. That fish apocalypse really hurt me . I lost some beautiful fish. I ordered a uv sterilizer and it should be in Friday. From what I have been reading it will destroy mostly all parasites in the tank. My last remaining fish are eating well and seem healthy. If this sterilizer isn't the answer then I'm going to have to add copper

[CrayolaViolence]

Crayola, I believe you r right. I lost my Picasso yesterday. That fish apocalypse really hurt me . I lost some beautiful fish. I ordered a uv sterilizer and it should be in Friday. From what I have been reading it will destroy mostly all parasites in the tank. My last remaining fish are eating well and seem healthy. If this sterilizer isn't the answer then I'm going to have to add copper

It will kill parasites in the water column, that go through the UV sterilizer but unless you can get 100% of the water through the sterilizer every few hours, it will not eliminate the parasite. Basically this is impossible because there will be water that is down in the substrate, between rocks, etc, that will not get moved through the sterilizer.

The fish need actual medication that will kill the parasites. Chloraquine phosphate seems to be the best (so I have read and is my personal choice) for broad spectrum treatment. Copper based is good too but there seems to be talk of some types of velvet being resistant to copper and it's not recommended for scaleless fish.

The only medicated food I have actually seen work (and it's not easy to get the fish to eat enough) is the ick shield with chloroquine phosphate in the food. You have to be careful about getting it on corals or letting your inverts get it because it will kill them. However I have had good luck with mixing it into mysis shrimp and feeding tiny amounts through out the day to a fish that went through QT and treatment and still came up with spots within a few hours of entering the DT. That fish has cleared up now.

The hardest problem with the medicated food is getting enough in the fish. I have to feed 10x a day TINY TINY amounts to get the fish to eat enough. Otherwise they seem to get "sick" on it and will refuse to eat it at all.
I had a trigger actually throw up ick shield food. She apparently loved the taste and would gobble up every bit I put into QT, then ten minutes later she'd start blowing out clouds of food. Never knew fish could puke.

Honestly, the only way to cure those fish and to get the parasite out of the tank is to take out all the fish, put them in hypo and CP (or copper if you can) and keep them there for at least 30+ days. Then bring them back up in salinity and observe for another 30+ days. The tank needs to sit fallow for at least 90 days, preferably longer.


It's a PITA I know.

[NYCBOB]

uv does help in my opinion. i have used uv in the past when i first started in the hobby, and it did fix the ich problem as far as i could tell. i could just be a coincidence or fish building up resistance. i recalled running the uv for over 6 months, and ich never resurfaced afterward.

[doctor9824]

Just got home from work and went to feed my fish. I notice that my puffer is now starting to act the same way as the fish did that died. He did eat , but not voraciously like he normally does. I'm gonna be real ****ed if dies.Crayola, are you opposed to using the chlor. Phosphate along with the uv? Maybe the ol' 1-2 punch will completely get rid of it?

[CrayolaViolence]

uv does help in my opinion. i have used uv in the past when i first started in the hobby, and it did fix the ich problem as far as i could tell. i could just be a coincidence or fish building up resistance. i recalled running the uv for over 6 months, and ich never resurfaced afterward.

Yes, UV does help. Absolutely. But it will not eradicate the disease unless there is a way to expose the entire tank, underside of rocks, and all the substrate at the same time. But then everything in the tank would be dead.

[CrayolaViolence]

Just got home from work and went to feed my fish. I notice that my puffer is now starting to act the same way as the fish did that died. He did eat , but not voraciously like he normally does. I'm gonna be real ****ed if dies.Crayola, are you opposed to using the chlor. Phosphate along with the uv? Maybe the ol' 1-2 punch will completely get rid of it?

The UV will alter the chemistry of the CP (UV will break down almost anything exposed to it). You want to remove all carbon, all UV from the tank while dosing CP. I have run a skimmer with it, some say remove the skimmer, some do not. I've done both. Yes, I think it works better with an HOB filter and plain media to catch particulates than a skimmer.

CP will kill all inverts, algae, and snails, so you do not want to use it in your DT. And I strongly suggest you RESEARCH the dosage printed on the package. The powdered Ick Shield has dosage recommendations on the bottle, but in my experience it's about 1/2 what it needs to be for marine velvet.

[CrayolaViolence]

Also every time you do a water change you will have to add some extra to bump the dose back up. You need a scale for this stuff honestly. The spoon is okay but you will get a much more accurate dosing. There are no tests available to check concentration in your tank. The good news is it's pretty forgiving unlike copper. Also it will not bind to rocks and can be easily removed with carbon. You will need to monitor ammonia however CP is less destructive to the bio filter than copper and most of the healthy bacteria should survive. You will get a secondary bacterial bloom in the water column (water will get cloudy).