Its apparent I've a parasite in my tank... as most my fish are affected one way or another.
Purple tang, flamehawk and puffer all are scratching against the live rock. Puffer has been stay at the very top of the tank. And SADLY, one of my clownfish jumped out of the tank in the wee hours of the morning.
Yesterday, I medicated the tank with Kent RXP.
I'm wondering can I add cleaner shrimp or with puffer eat the cleaner shrimp. If I can't add cleaner shrimp... can I add a cleaner wrasse? To help rid the fish of parasites?
Purple tang seems to be going up to each fish... wanting them to clean him.
I cannot stand to watch them suffer...
Any advice is welcomed!
Sick Fish
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
-
Puffer Queen
- Mentor
- Posts: 386
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:35 am
- Location: Louisville, KY
- Contact:
Kent Rxp is a pepper based treatment. It has not been proven to eradicate parasites. The parasites normal life cycle is to feed on the fish for 1 - 7 days and then drop off as cysts waiting to develop into hundreds to thousands of free swimming parasites looking for a fish to feed off of and continue its life cycle. Adding many of the cure all treatments may irritate the parasite to fall off of the fish or the parasite may have been ready on its own (natural life cycle) - BUT the parasite has eaten and is continuing its life cycle in the tank. The pepper base or any of the other "natural" or "reef safe" treatments do NOT eradicate the parasite.
As mentioned in other threads....the only way to prevent ich is quarantine.
The only way to treat parasites - fallow (fishless) display tank for 4- 6 weeks (I prefer at least 6) and to treat ALL fish (even if you don't think all are infected) with hyposalinity OR copper.
Best of luck.
As mentioned in other threads....the only way to prevent ich is quarantine.
The only way to treat parasites - fallow (fishless) display tank for 4- 6 weeks (I prefer at least 6) and to treat ALL fish (even if you don't think all are infected) with hyposalinity OR copper.
Best of luck.
Kelly
I would definitely follow Puffer Queens advice and run the tank fishless for six weeks while treating all your fish in a quarantine tank(s). It's really the only way I know of to get rid of a parasite infestation.
Afterwords, you could consider adding a cleaner shrimp, but depending on your puffer's personallity, you might be adding an expensive snack (I've heard of people having success with porcupines and cleaner shrimp though). You could also consider neon gobies - they're pretty handy little cleaners, but tiny, so again, they could become fish food.
Good luck,
Dan
Afterwords, you could consider adding a cleaner shrimp, but depending on your puffer's personallity, you might be adding an expensive snack (I've heard of people having success with porcupines and cleaner shrimp though). You could also consider neon gobies - they're pretty handy little cleaners, but tiny, so again, they could become fish food.
Good luck,
Dan