Just lost a blueface angelfish

[LadAShark]

I had recently gotten a shipment of 7 fish, around two weeks ago from fishybusiness aquatics: emperor angel, blueface, flame angel, blue tang, sailfin tang, indian triggerfish, niger triggerfish.

 

Unfortunately the blueface seems to have some variant of velvet that only afflicts the gills, or at least so I am told by more experienced folks at reef2reef. Despite treatment I was unable to save him, and he just passed a few minutes ago. 

 

I’m going to avoid taking a risk and I will most likely go fallow on my main tank, treating the remaining fish (which all look healthy and spotless) in a separate tank. 

 

In the meanwhile, I’m totally bummed out, as I really liked the fella and now the rest of the fish too are at risk. 

 

😞

 

p.s. I am going to try to get my hands on some chloroquine phosphate. Don’t know how I will go about it buuuut...

[albertareef]

Sorry to hear.   Beautiful fish for sure.  Glad you caught it quickly though.

[PetVet]

If you need some Chloroquine Phosphate, you can PM me.  I can write a prescription after establishing some history (for legality purposes).   

 

[LadAShark]

1 hour ago, PetVet said:

If you need some Chloroquine Phosphate, you can PM me.  I can write a prescription after establishing some history (for legality purposes).   

 

Woohoo, that helps a lot. 

 

Will do.

[LadAShark]

So update on situation: I saw the infection proceeding rapidly across basically all of the fish so I switched to treatment asap. I have pulled an all nighter (nothing I’m unfamiliar with after engineering and now being in medicine) trying to keep the fish and watch them as I treat them. Of the 6, 5: the indian and niger triggers, emperor angelfish, sailfin and blue tangs are all doing great and are in copper+furan2+kanamycin. The flame angel is in critical condition and could pass any second... though he’s been like that for hours now and I am somehow maintaining his breathing. I am also treating him but I am doing it separately from the other fish as I wanted to not increase the copper too fast for him. 

I don’t know if it’s worth my time for the flame angelfish, but I feel responsible for its life and so I will try to stay awake as long as I can— until I pass out, it gets better, or it passes away. 

 

I wish I had assumed that the fish all had velvet when they arrived. I thought I would watch them in my DT (as it was fishless for months prior) and then treat them in my hospital tank on first sign of something going wrong, unfortunately my blueface angelfish was changing colors simultaneously and hid the progression of his disease too well until it was too late. At least I caught it before it wiped my tank, hopefully I can at least save these fish...

 

Edit: as of about 7:45 AM the flame angelfish passed away. I am quite saddened but partially numb after the blueface. All the other fish however seem to be on the path to full recovery.

It appears I not only had velvet, but also some sort of gram negative bacterial infection.

Edited August 7, 2018 by LadAShark

[The ReefBox]

Man what a bummer. Sorry to hear for sure. Hopefully you got it figured out and the rest are doing ok 

[LadAShark]

7 hours ago, River City Corals said:

Man what a bummer. Sorry to hear for sure. Hopefully you got it figured out and the rest are doing ok 

I more or less have it figured out and the rest are looking healthy. They eat too but don’t have much of an appetite. Up to full therapeutic dose of cupramine and thanks to @PetVet I also have  chloroquine phosphate and a prescription for more of it. 

I am contemplating when and how I should switch to CP, but I am worried about my blue tang as I have heard they don’t tolerate it well. But on the other hand, I have heard that some velvet is resistant to copper treatments.