Help! Something's killing our fish!

[bystran]

We have a 75 gallon marine aquarium since July of this year. We have quite a bit of live rock, and followed all the rules about setting up and all was going very very well. We had 4 fish (2 clowns, a Banner fish, a Zebrasoma Dejardinis ) Then we brought in a second banner fish, 2 cardinals a blue linkia sea star. Within a week, the second banner fish got a cloudy eye, then 2 cloudy eyes and then he died. THe star died. Two weeks later, one of the clowns died, but he wasn't eating well. NOw, 2 weeks nmore, and the first banner fish ( a large specimen) quickly deteriorated and died - a cloudy eye and faint powdery whote residue all over him. I assumed he caught whatever the other banner fish died from. Now the tang has a cloudy eye and I"m frantic!
What can we do at this point? We have tested all the water, all is OK, did a 30% water change after the last fish died.

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds Like itch or velvet. I do not have first hand experience with these diseases. You may have introduced the pathogens when adding a new fish. There are plenty of reefers here that will help you out I am certain. To start with you may want to look here.

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/h_cortes-jorge.html

Hope that starts you off in the right direction. Good luck, and sory about the demise of your fish.

 

[rabagley]

You have a case of marine velvet, aka Amyloodinium ocellatum. Here is a page that discusses the disease as well as prevention and treatment options (basically: separate the fish and the inverts, treat the fish with copper, leave the tank fallow for 4-6 weeks). Garlic, as recommended in the article posted by the previous poster, won't do much of anything for either Ich or velvet. Prevention (quarantine) is much easier and less expensive than treatment.

I'm going to hazard a guess that you don't have a quarantine tank and you didn't quarantine the new arrivals before introducing them to the tank. In my experience, quarantine of all new arrivals is the practice that separates people who become experienced aquarists from people who "..used to have a tank, but the fish are just too difficult to keep alive..."

Here are some links on the subject of quarantine tanks. Also, most books on aquarium keeping published in the last 20 years will encourage a quarantine tank and provide some suggestions on how to set it up. If you do choose to start quarantining new arrivals, you will probably have a long and happy future in aquarium keeping. If you do not choose to set up and use a quarantine tank, I'll hazard another guess that you'll be done with aquarium keeping by July, 2005.

Which I would consider a sad loss, as the more people who can make a responsible success of this hobby, the less likely the industry surrounding it will be regulated/shut down.

Good luck,
Ross