Snow's 60G Secret Predatory Sanctum 🐲🐉 - Shutting Down

[debbeach13]

I do not envy you trying to balance their needs and yours.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Goblin (GCG) is dying. So is Poseidon (mandy). 

 

At this point, I'm not sure if it'll help, but I'll try to net them out and see if I can somehow QT them. 

 

Poseidon is still 50/50, but Goblin looks like he's near the edge to me. His mouth is gaping and he's breathing hard. I'll try an acriflavine bath on him, then move him to a QT with metro. I'll double check if Poseidon can withstand an acriflavine bath. 

 

And I'll also double check if metro can be used simultaneously as Prazi. 

 

I'll work on moving the fish out to QT one by one over the next few days. I can't get a good look at my foxface, but I *though I saw her covered in spots and dust. It's hard to tell because of her body color. 

 

My angel and lubbocks are still very active. Clownfish is okay, but still thin. Haven't seen the rest yet. 11 fish left. Will be considered extremely lucky if even half of them are left after this. 😭

[DevilDuck]

It heartbreaking reading this, but your fighting this the best you can!

[Tamberav]

Sorry to hear this 😞 I would probably do one of those peroxide/tank water dips before going into QT. VERY sick fish may not handle it well though I expect very sick fish won't make the stress of being moved either 😞 The peroxide/tank water dip can knock off some velvet and gentler than freshwater imo. Humble has a write up on it. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Thank you for being such an amazing fish. Swim free, old friend. R.I.P. Poseidon. 😭

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Six hours of non-stop work to strip the tank down, remove all the rocks, catch all the fish, mix up 60G of SW, set up 2 QTs - an acriflavine bath & QT bin with metronidazole, then siphon out all the debri, then refill the tank & rescape. 

 

I only took a 10 min. break in between to eat lunch. Am in so much pain & drop dead exhausted.

 

QTs: 

 

 

Poseidon was already dying in the DT today morning. He succumbed during the acriflavine bath. 😭

 

 

 

 

 

His slime coat was quite badly damaged in the DT - you can already see how it has completely peeled off to expose his flesh on his head. 😔

 

Goblin the GCG was dying as well. But he appeared to be better after the bath. I will have to check on the QT shortly to pull out any dead fish, if there are any. 

 

Most of them were in poor shape. 😔

 

There was a lot of sediment leftover in the DT. Cleaning this up took hours:

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The tank is now re-set and will go fallow. The rocks were out of the water for ~2 hours, so some of the bristleworms died:

 

 

 

 

 

 

But my yuma was sursprisingly alive:

 

 

The dartfish was actually hiding in the rocks. I layered the bottom of the pail (where I transfered the rocks into) with wet tissues. He was actually plastered to one of the tissues, with no more than half an inch of water in the bottom of the pail - for ~1.5 hours. 

 

I thought he was still hiding in my sandbed and was poking around the sand to lure him out. Luckily I checked the pail (eventually), so I quickly cupped him in my hands, hobbled back downstairs and dropped him in the QT. 

 

He appeared fine, but I'll check on him shortly. 

 

Tank should be re-cycling as well. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

R.I.P. Goblin. Swim free, lil' guy. 😔

 

[debbeach13]

This is heart breaking. I am so sorry. 

[seabass]

Your commitment is very commendable; but please now, rest and recover.

[Snow_Phoenix]

17 minutes ago, seabass said:

Your commitment is very commendable; but please now, rest and recover.

Yeah. Currently putting ice on my ankle. Will take a painkiller once I'm back upstairs again. 

 

Such an awful day, though. 😔

 

My mum came by to check on me several times while I was working on the tank - she kept reassuring me that it is okay, it is alright - that I've been through worse in the past with full-on tank crashes. 

 

She did have a point there. But my reefing journey has changed so much since those incidents. Still, things like these do catch me completely off guard. And when they do, and animals die because of it, it hurts terribly. 😔

 

I did re-set the tank though. So the time spent going fallow should be more than enough time for the cycle to re-establish itself. I'm planning on going lightless, so hopefully this will eventually reduce the amount of algae on the rocks. 

 

In the meantime, I'll just monitor the fish in the QT and follow through with metronidazole for ~2 weeks. The prazi + TTM for ~2 weeks, then observe. If there are any weird signs of further infection, I'll consult Humblefish again. He has been very helpful. 👍

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Despite everything, these 2 geriatrics still managed to make it through, and I'm both astonished and secretly proud of their survival in this tank:

 

 

 

 

Life has already started to re-appear:

 

[Tamberav]

What temp are you running for fallow? I turned mine up to 82 degrees to increase the cycle of the parasites so they would die out faster. I did 45 days at 82 while stirring the sand bed and blasting the rocks periodically. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

16 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

What temp are you running for fallow? I turned mine up to 82 degrees to increase the cycle of the parasites so they would die out faster. I did 45 days at 82 while stirring the sand bed and blasting the rocks periodically. 

My tank temp is usually 28'C, but it can go down to as low as 25'C overnight when I turn on the fan & A/C to sleep. 

 

Think it'll be worth adding my heater in this then? I have a 300W heater - I used it to treat FW ich in my discus tank, and all the fish made a full recovery. The parasite's life cycle was indeed accelerated, but I had to add extra air stones to increase oxygeneation since the spike in temp. increases the metabolism of the fish, and causes them to breathe harder/faster.

 

I currently don't have any fish in this tank - but I do have 2 urchins, 4 snails & 1 sandsifting starfish. Will the increase in temp. affect them by any chance? 🤔

 

 

[Tamberav]

I did 82 F with all my inverts and corals and saw no negative impact. I think it’s worth is as sometimes fish start to stress in QT when they go a full 76 days and 82 is supposed to cut it down to 45 days. I personally did 45 cuz some of my fish seemed depressed although longer is safer.
 

I run my coral QT at 82 as well.

 

Also be sure to look up hybrid TTM as it’s not extra work and I find it very effective since you plan to TTM anyways. 
 

Any fish I buy now gets hybrid TTM and prazipro before going in my display. It’s a lot easier to do 1-2 new fish at a time then a display full though. 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

10 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

I did 82 F with all my inverts and corals and saw no negative impact. I think it’s worth is as sometimes fish start to stress in QT when they go a full 76 days and 82 is supposed to cut it down to 45 days. I personally did 45 cuz some of my fish seemed depressed although longer is more safe. 
 

I run my coral QT at 82 as well.

 

Also be sure to look up hybrid TTM as it’s not extra work and I find it very effective since you plan to TTM anyways. 
 

 

 

Noted with thanks! I'll drop the heater into the DT tomorrow. 

 

I agree that prolonged QT does stress out the fish more. I've actually *lost more fish due to prolonged QT periods than actual disease itself.

 

And yes, I'll be doing a hybrid TTM once the metro-treatment is over. I did it several times in the past - but I've forgotten the steps. Will look it up again. Thank you so much for reminding me!

[Tamberav]

Last table. The only thing it doesn’t cover is flukes. If you did prazi during transfer. You would do two doses about 6 days apart but not on the peroxide dose days. You would only need to do it 24 hours before the transfer. That is all it needs to work. Since it can lower oxygen I would try to stick to just the 24 hour exposure.  You could also wait and do it in the observation tank after TTM. 
 

Biggest things to watch for are ammonia and oxygen. I feed very light except the last day before the next transfer, they get a heavy feeding that day since I am about to move them to a new tank. 
 

I had an air pump break over night in a bin and lost two fish to oxygen deprivation 😞 I was lucky to not lose them all as they were all laying on the bottom gasping when I went to go check on them. 
 

Wash the old bin and equipment with vinegar or diluted bleach and put a fan on it so it gets bone dry. I know it’s more humid there! I use a new air line tubing piece and air stone for every transfer. I let air stones dry out for months between use since the small pours can hold water. I just have a huge bag of them so it’s easy to rotate. Airline also shouldn’t reused. Too hard to get every wet spot dry. Thankfully it’s cheap. 
 

 

https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/tank-transfer-method-all-versions.6800/

[Tamberav]

Also don’t beat yourself up over losses. These fish are sick and have to go through an stressful event so there may be some even though you are doing your best. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Alright, so I'm tentatively planning out my next course of action with regards to this tank:-

 

1. I'll be stopping the peroxide treatment because there is no sense in dosing peroxide when there is no more fish in the DT. The peroxide is also *mostly a means to bring down the parasite load to a more manageable level while building up the fish's immune system towards it - although I *think based on the data shared on Humblefish's forum, you can eventually eradicate it, it'll just take some time (weeks, possibly months, and some trial-and-error).

 

2. I'll be inserting my 300W heater into the DT some time tomorrow. And raise the temp. to 30'C. I'll try to maintain this temp. range for 45 days (60, if possible, and if the fish are not overly stressful in QT) to shorten its life cycle - thanks to Tamberav, for this one.

 

3. I'll be going lightless. I only have a single yuma and a few ugly brown palys in the tank - and I know this sounds wrong, but it's okay if they don't make it. I have 3 same rainbow yuma babies growing in my nano, and I won't miss the palys. By going lightless, I'm hoping most of the GHA in the DT will eventually die-off as well. 

 

4. I'll still turn on my fuge lights every night, overnight - simply because I still do have macro growing in my fuge, as unhealthy as they might be.

 

5. I'll only scrape the glass, baste the rocks & stir the sandbed once a week. Mostly to stop too much dirt from accumulating in the sand like before. I'll also ghost-feed the tank a very, very *tiny helping of pellets once a week.

 

6. I'm not going to WC or dose any buffers in the DT for the next 2 months. I'll be doing partial WCs of the sump once every 3 to 4 weeks, however, and replace the floss every week. I'll also top up the sump with normal water and dose ChaetoGro in the fuge as usual. 

My tentative plans for the QT process:

1. 1st & 2nd week:- SW + Metronidazole - will WC as required by the instructions on the label of the med. bottle. Will feed the fish small amounts of food dipped in garlic, and siphon out any excess, uneaten food after a few hours. Will remove any fish that die.

 

2. 3rd & 4th week:- Hybrid-TTM ---> a combination of TTM & Prazipro dosing (Praziquantel). If any of the fish showing signs of flashing, then I'll give them daily FW dips. 

3. 5th week onwards: Rest & recovery until fallow period is over.*

 

*If any of the fish develop lesions or symptoms of a bacterial infection, I'll treat all of them with Kanamycin. 

4. Once the fallow period is over, I'll slowly re-add the fish to the DT, preferably in pairs. The Singapore Angelfish, however, will be rehomed. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

14 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Last table. The only thing it doesn’t cover is flukes. If you did prazi during transfer. You would do two doses about 6 days apart but not on the peroxide dose days. You would only need to do it 24 hours before the transfer. That is all it needs to work. Since it can lower oxygen I would try to stick to just the 24 hour exposure.  You could also wait and do it in the observation tank after TTM. 
 

Biggest things to watch for are ammonia and oxygen. I feed very light except the last day before the next transfer, they get a heavy feeding that day since I am about to move them to a new tank. 
 

I had an air pump break over night in a bin and lost two fish to oxygen deprivation 😞 I was lucky to not lose them all as they were all laying on the bottom gasping when I went to go check on them. 
 

Wash the old bin and equipment with vinegar or diluted bleach and put a fan on it so it gets bone dry. I know it’s more humid there! I use a new air line tubing piece and air stone for every transfer. I let air stones dry out for months between use since the small pours can hold water. I just have a huge bag of them so it’s easy to rotate. Airline also shouldn’t reused. Too hard to get every wet spot dry. Thankfully it’s cheap. 
 

 

https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/tank-transfer-method-all-versions.6800/

Noted on all accounts, and thank you so much for the link.

I'm actually running a HOB & 2 air stones in the QT bin atm to keep the water as oxygenated as possible. But yes, the possibility of ammonia buildups does concern me. 

I usually dry the bins (or any equipment) under the hot sun before re-using them. If they're not dry, then I leave them outside overnight and usually they'll dry up within a day or two. 

I am actually preparing myself for further losses. QT is hard - especially on sensitive species like wrasses and dragonets. And I currently have 3 wrasses and 1 dragonet left. 😕 

[Tamberav]

Does metro treat velvet? I am not sure. @Humblefish ?

 

I just don’t want to see you delay any velvet treatment. May be good to have him weigh in. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

10 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Does metro treat velvet? I am not sure. @Humblefish ?

 

I just don’t want to see you delay any velvet treatment. May be good to have him weigh in. 

I thought it did - or at least I assumed I read it somewhere, since metro treats protozoan infections in general. I'll wait for his input. 

If he says no, I'll skip the metro treatment and jump straight to the hybrid TTM as depicted in the table. 

[A.m.P]

Metro treats brook, which definitely sounds present, it can also help suppress bacterial infections, I would keep with it. I've never heard of it having much of an impact on velvet.

Copper is really all that has been shown to treat the stuff, H202 is experimental, Acri baths provide relief and can sometimes eradicate brook in a single pass...

I'm really sorry to hear about your losses, it's awful.

[Humblefish]

2 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Does metro treat velvet? I am not sure. @Humblefish ?

 

I just don’t want to see you delay any velvet treatment. May be good to have him weigh in. 

Metro treats Brooklynella, mild cases of Uronema, and some bacterial diseases. It is also useful for eliminating internal flagellates when soaked in food.

 

While Metronidazole does technically kill Velvet dinospores (free swimmers), it doesn't remain stable in water long enough to get them all the way copper or chloroquine does.

[Tamberav]

I guess it depends on what you are trying to treat. I don’t see brook? And the clownfish isn’t sloughing skin? 
 

I see a bad case if ich and not sure about velvet.