Flame Angel with suspected stringy poop

[Newms118]

Originally Posted by Jdub968

You don't need to worry about ph during a freshwater dip it will not hurt the fish.as for temp I just float the container in my qt and put a small plastic clamp to hold it in place then I stick and air stone in and let it sit for about 30 min or so check the temp and net the fish drop him in. Also I've seen several reccomendations by seachem as far as the amount of focus that can be used and its anywhere from1-5 scoops so shouldn't be a problem.

This is how positive I am about ph, when I get new fish I set up my qt to matching salinity as the water the fish was shipping in. I float the bag to temp acclimate 30 min or so, then I cut the bag open net the fish and plop him in the qt. I've never lost a fish doing this. Think of it this way the ph is low in the bag so ammonia is in its safe form as you drip acclimate the ph rises quite fast,this causes the ammonia to convert to ammonium the bad stuff. The ph didn't kill the fish it was the ammonium.

Well going from salt water to salt water, I wouldn't imagine the pH to be that far out of balance. But I've read that since its with freshwater, the pH swing can be pretty dramatic. You're the first person I've read say pH with the freshwater dip shouldn't matter.

I like the floating the container in the tank to temp match, makes sense. So what dark container do you use? Thats been another issue, last time I did the FW dip it was in a white bucket, really stupid of me. Of course I couldn't see anything.

As for the status, I've done a water change, added carbon to really get all drug out of the tank and am just feeding frozen food to get it eating again. It'll pick at Emerald Entree and Formula 2, but just a bit. Silly eater really, just peck once or twice then swims away and circle back later. It never really eats it all (I'm having to take a knife and cut like 20% of a cube to put in, and the fish leaves a lot of that left).

So far today I saw it scratch its body on a tube, and its poop is still stringy .

[JustinM]

Any online retailer should have one. I use the ATC refractometer, it goes for around 25$. Hypo should not effect the angel. It's probably safer than formalin.

[Newms118]

Originally Posted by JustinM

Any online retailer should have one. I use the ATC refractometer, it goes for around 25$. Hypo should not effect the angel. It's probably safer than formalin.

Thanks i just ordered one from amazon. Goes 1.00 to 1.07, should be great. So whats the protocol for hypo for flukes, just keep it below 1.011? How slow do you decrease the salinity?

[Jdub968]

not sure if it's against forum rules to post a link that's on another forum but I can pm you a link to a very respected fish disease expert that will confirm ph for a freshwater dip isn't a concern.

[JustinM]

Unfortunately Jdub, reefcentral does not allow links to the forum you're probably thinking of.

As for the protocol, bring your salinity down to 1.011 over 2 days. Once there the flukes will start dying off and if maintained for 5 days, the eggs should not hatch.

Bringing the fish out of hypo should take much longer. It is stressful on fish to go up more than .002 over a 24 hour period.

[lagatbezan]

Originally Posted by Jdub968

not sure if it's against forum rules to post a link that's on another forum but I can pm you a link to a very respected fish disease expert that will confirm ph for a freshwater dip isn't a concern.

Yes ageeed, ph change for short amount of time is not a concern and most fish will handle it with no issues. You can add a few drops of the tank water in the freshwater to try to balance it a little.
But if doing full hypo for a few days, then maintaining correct ph is important.

[Jdub968]

Originally Posted by JustinM

Unfortunately Jdub, reefcentral does not allow links to the forum you're probably thinking of.

As for the protocol, bring your salinity down to 1.011 over 2 days. Once there the flukes will start dying off and if maintained for 5 days, the eggs should not hatch.

Bringing the fish out of hypo should take much longer. It is stressful on fish to go up more than .002 over a 24 hour period.

Thanks Justinm

[Newms118]

Originally Posted by lagatbezan

Yes ageeed, ph change for short amount of time is not a concern and most fish will handle it with no issues. You can add a few drops of the tank water in the freshwater to try to balance it a little.
But if doing full hypo for a few days, then maintaining correct ph is important.

So my QT is 10 gallon and I keep it filled to maybe 8 or 9 gallons. My issue is sure I can drop the salinity, but I dont have a ATO so I worry that me just going to work will be enough time for the water to ruse 0.002+ which could end up hurting the fish apparently. How much water typically evaporates?

So i ordered a black bucket, malachite green and methylene blue since I read both have been used with baths, especially the methylene blue for flukes. My refractometer should come tomorrow so I will try actually looking for flukes over the weekend. Id be shocked to not see a mass maaaaaaass exodus off the fish during the dip.

So far today the fish still just pecks a small bit at food. The tank has a carbon pack in there to pull all drug out. Its strange. The flame usually eats by fully extending its mouth out (like with a kissing fish) to peck at the food. Now it just kind of bumps into it with its mouth and takes a tiny bite, like its afraid to fully extend its mouth. Poor little guy.

[Jdub968]

I wouldn't worry about the minor SG fluctuations from evaporation just top off the tank in the morning and again when you go to bed it will be fine. It won't hurt the fish at all. Methylene blue I have read will help with respiration supposedly it helps the fish absorb o2, I need to study up on this a bit more. However I would not combine a freshwater dip with MB use the MB in a salt water bath.

[Newms118]

So I have some bad news, the flame angel died today. I did a freshwater dip and after it was completed, it died probably no more than a few minutes after being back in the QT. I have zero idea what went wrong, and I'm pretty upset at the moment. Here's what I did.

I put 1 gallon of RO/DI water into a black bucket. To raise the pH, I used API Proper pH 8.2. I have a small scale I use to weight out medication, so I weighed out what the bottle said: 1 scoop for 10 gallons. The scale was 1 scoop was 9.3 g, so for 1 gallon, I would use 930 mg.

I placed the black bucket into another 5 gallon bucket with just tap water inside. The heater was in the tap water so that it would raise the temp in the bucket without actually being in the water. I added the 930 mg powder and stirred with a spoon until all the powder was dissolved. I then ran an airstone for about 2 hours while the water heated up. When the temperature was 78 degrees C (same as what it was in the QT), I tested the pH using an API freshwater kit test and the High pH test. The pH was 8.4. I then tested the pH in the QT, it was between 8.0 and 8.1. Since the pH wasnt an exact match, I added 1 cup of RO/DI water to lower the pH. I then let the water aerate for another hour. After testing the water again, the pH was 8.0 or so I thought from the color of the test.

With the pH appearing to match, and the temp matched, I then caught the flame angel with a net and put it in the water with the airstone going. The fish was in the water for 4 minutes and 30 seconds. It behaved like what I've read, it began to lay on the ground and was breathing, so I moved the airstone around so that it would keep swimming around. Had to do that for most of the time the fish was in the water. At some points it would go limp aside from breathing, but if I moved it a bit with the airstone it would snap out of it and start swimming again. It was hard to see if anything was actually coming off the fish with the airstone going, but I kept at it since I didnt want the fish to suffocate.

When the time was up, I caught the fish with the net and put it back in the QT. It started to swim around a bit and breathe normally. It then swam into its tubes and stayed there for a while. After about 20 minutes I checked on it again and realized it wasnt moving. I got it out of the tube and it was completely motionless.

What ****es me off is I looked in the black bucket, I didnt really see anything. There was dust and maybe some bits from the net, but I couldn't really see any type of bug or parasite. So the fish died for nothing.

Now, I have done a FW dip before, on a clownfish, I did something similar to the above and the fish survived. So what could have possibly happened here? Say the pH was off somehow. At most the pH variation was a jump from 8.0 in the QT, to 8.4 in the dip (thats assuming that my final pH test was off and the value was from the first test). Would a difference of 0.4 or 0.6 pH units lead to death in a fish? Especially after people here were saying not to even worry about the pH difference? Is it possible that the alkalinity was off or something? I didnt test the Alk in either the QT water or FW.

[Jdub968]

I'm sorry to hear the angel died, here's my thoughts on what might have happened Api proper ph 8.2 should not be used in water that doesn't contain salts it can cause an unusually high ph. I know you measured the ph after adding the 8.2 but it requires a hard water source to be stable. In the future don't add any chemicals to a fresh water dip.
I've done freshwater dips on fish with straight tap water with no dechlorinator and everything has turned out ok although I wouldn't recommend do that. One thing I would like you to do is test your Ro water for ammonia it is possible ammonia can make it through a carbon block and the RO membrane, and when you added the 8.2 ph the ammonia converted to free ammonia which is very toxic to fish. If you have ammonia present in your Ro water change your filters

[lagatbezan]

oh man, so sorry to hear