Sick Fish - Next Steps?

[seils@cisco.com]

Hello,

I am new to this hobby, and think a couple of my fish are sick. I have a medium yellow tang with small black spots and overall lackluster color. I assume the black spots are black ich? I also have a lemonpeel angelfish with one eye that is cloudy and puffed out.

All of my water tests seem to be fine, and the salinity is within normal ranges. How can I tell if there is something else going on with the water? How do I know if the live rock is "live" or otherwise healthy?

A little background on what I have:

120 gallon tank
100 pounds of live rock
Pro 150 Wet/Dry with Prefilter


Thanks,
Zach

[aquasport24]

Hi and welcome to MAAST. If you type down your water parameters like nitrate, ammonia,salinty,etc..i cant really help you beside do a 30% water, but others people here will find ways to help you.

[seils@cisco.com]

Thanks for the post. Here is what I tested last night:

Ammonia = 0
pH = 8.3
Nitrites = 0
Nitrates = ~0.5
Salinity = 1.021 - 1.022

Thanks,
Zach

[aquasport24]

I did not see anything abnormal with your parameters.How old is your tank? did you let it go thru the cycle? what are the history of your fishes?(when did you get them? did they eat when you get them? did you guaranteen them before ?)

[seils@cisco.com]

The tank is ~3 months old. It cycled with the live rock for ~6.5 weeks before the yellow tang was added. The yellow tang was not quarantined, but was the first inhabitant. The angelfish was added 2 weeks later. The fish were, and still are, eating.

Zach

[ErikH]

Do the spots look like typical ich spots but black? I have two yellows afflicted with black ich. I was dosing vitamin c which proved to alleviate the problem, but I stopped dosing earlier than originally planned and it came back. There is no known cure for this type of ich, but I just started dosing C again, so we will see what, if any affect it has on the ich itself...

[seils@cisco.com]

Being new to the hobby, I don't have a reference for "typical ich", other than what I have read.

How do you dose vitamin C?

What about the angelfish?

Thanks,
Zach

[RayAllen]

Lemonpeels are known for being a fragile tank species in the first place so it becoming ill is common, most do not survive in the average home aquarium unlike the more common kept Flame, Coral beautys and Rusty angels. Not sure what the illness is but doing more frequnet water changes and running carbon usually help. Most illnesses occur becuase of stress or water paremeters, but you are good on that one. Good luck- I hope they pull through for you.

[JimD]

Some fish, mostly Percs can get black spots from swimming around some types of zoanthids. Could this be a possibility?

[seils@cisco.com]

Thanks for the post. I'll start with a water change and see how things go. I also read another thread that said the plastic hydrometers from the fish store are crap, so my salinity may be unknown. I'll see about a refractometer and make sure my salinity is really ok.

Can you point me to some more information on "running carbon"?

Thanks,
Zach

[ErikH]

http://www.athiel.com/lib2/pguide/vitami1.html

I thought I had originally posted this but I guess I forgot! :) I would definitely double check your salinity as higher salinities make it easier for parasites to survive. I had a swing arm and my poor little bicolor got popeye. It was 9 points higher than it should have been.

Jim, might you have an article? I would love to read about it.

Running carbon is easy, what kind of filtration do you have? Most people use a filtersock and put some activated carbon in it, which can be found at any fish store.

Holy cow, after re-reading your first post, you are probably dealing with pop eye on your angel.

You are probably dealing with a salinity issue here, if I could make a speculative guess.

Take some water to a store and have them double check it.

[Kristy]

As Ray mentioned, if it is ich you are dealing with, then that is generally brought on by stress or water parameters. Assuming that your water is not the issue (since the parameters look good but good idea to have LFS double check them) another thought on what might be stressful to the fish is that you have two similar looking fish. The yellow tang was there first and will view the lemonpeel as competition because they look sort of similar (color). So the tang would be stressed picking on the lemonpeel and the lemonpeel would be very stressed getting picked upon.

There are lots of good threads to read on this site dealing with ich and your best strategies for treatment. There is also a whole long thread on dosing vitamin c. Good luck!

[ErikH]

Yeah, the problem here lies with the type of ich. Our typical marine ich is very different than black ich, which is brought on by a parasitic worm, if I remember correctly. I checked my tangs at lunch and couldn't see any spots, but I will check again when the halides are a rockin.

[JimD]

Go with this first and Ill see if I can dig up some info about the zoo's...

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/compldiagnodisease/a/aa041701.htm

[seils@cisco.com]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm going to start with a water change and dialing in my salinity.

Any recommendations on a better hydrometer/refractometer?

Zach

[ErikH]

http://www.tropic-marin.com/web/english/produkte/araeo.htm

Per Bill's recommendation (bstreep)

Bill is wise. :)

[seils@cisco.com]

Just an update for everyone ...

I lowered the SG in the tank to 1.019 and changed 15% of the tank water. Almost overnight the lemonpeel's eye has cleared up. The black spots on the yellow also appear to be diminishing in size.

Thanks again for the responses.

Zach

[crossxfire2]

I don't even know why they sell hydrometers. What is the point? All they do is cause havock. I have 1 that is 5 points off. My salinity is at 1.025, but my hydrometer sais 1.020. I always compensate. Take your water to a fish dealer and have them measure the salinity. Then see how many points off your hydrometer is, then compensate for your own tank.

[Richard]

There is no known cure for this type of ich, ...

Where did you get that information?

Take a look at tang turbellarian/black ich treatments in this article...
http://www.saltwater-aquarium-online-guide.com/diseases.html

I would opt for prazi bath treatments.