Potential tank Wipeout! Help, Please!

[PJs_Bucket_List]

This is one of those situations that will either make or break a new reefer. All aspects of my situation considered, I very much need your help to be one of the ones who make it! A few weeks ago I bought a couple new fish, a Valentini puffer and a tail spot blenny. Didn't have a QT tank (I know, incredibly stupid mistake #1), so into the display tank they went. About a week & a half ago, I noticed my royal gramma flashing. Still no QT, and I assumed flukes, so I decided to treat the whole tank with Prazipro. Still, the royal gramma died, followed by the blenny a few days later . This, on top of the tomini tang mess, plus appointments, upcoming surgery, etc etc...I was too distracted and didn't pay close enough attention. Looking closely this morning, one of my clownfish looks "furry", and the puffer less vibrant in color and not looking so good. Can't really tell with my diamond goby, yellow rose goby, and fire fish, but I think my tank has a brooklynella outbreak! I don't know what to do, if I can do anything at all...please, help me! I don't have a good QT setup, just a spare 10 gallon tank. Plus I'm supposed to leave this afternoon for Newnan, with surgery scheduled early tomorrow morning and I won't be back until Friday. I'm going to lose all my fish, and I don't know if this effects my coral or not. Is there anything at all I can do, particularly with my limited time and resources? This is absolutely soul crushing.

 

[project1004]

So sorry about your tank situation. I’m not good with fish QT’s but I hope you can just focus on being well before anything else.

I think the Club members (including me I hope) can help you get back on your track none the less even after all said and done.

 

[siege]

Would that I had any useful advice, but this is definitely out of my league. If I had the right experience and any kind of system set up already I'd volunteer to watch the fish for you, and with it being a 2 hour drive each way from here to Chatsworth, I can't realistically volunteer to drive to your place and try to assist your spouse (even if I had the requisite experience).

I don't suppose you have a microscope, by any chance?

 

[spike]

throwing it out there, but if fish are still eating mix seachem metro and seachem focus with food. Also the metro can be dosed to the tank. Years ago I was loosing fish everyday. Another hobbyist told me to do the Seachem products. Clowns and a few other fish were still eating. I fed them based upon directions. All that ate survived, at least in this instance.

 

[PJs_Bucket_List]

throwing it out there, but if fish are still eating mix seachem metro and seachem focus with food. Also the metro can be dosed to the tank. Years ago I was loosing fish everyday. Another hobbyist told me to do the Seachem products. Clowns and a few other fish were still eating. I fed them based upon directions. All that ate survived, at least in this instance.

If I can get my hands on this, I'll try it. Thanks

 

[wellrn2002]

Should you need help let me know. I have a 5G qt tank but the fish would have to be brought to me. Also, to treat we need to know what we are dealing with. Most fish death will not impact the coral….. depending. However, dead fish in the tank might wipe out coral if they are not removed in a timely fashion. I’m also an ICU nurse. Please take care of yourself. While tank friends are great they need an owner. I hope you get better soon and wish you a speedy recovery.

 

[chaples55]

Hard to tell in the photos but I think you're right about it being brooklynella. Here's the humblefish link if you haven't seen it:

Brooklynella

Brooklynella hostilis (updated 6-9-2023) What You Need To Know: * This is most often seen with clownfish, but it can afflict other fish (usually in the gills) as well. When a clownfish has Brook, the skin will appear to be peeling or sloughing off. Which is actually excess white mucous coming...

humble.fish

A 5 minute freshwater dip can temporarily help if you don't have any of the other options available.

 

[PJs_Bucket_List]

I've ordered some Seachem metro, focus, and one I can't remember the name of right now, but it won't be delivered until Saturday. Set up the 10 gallon tank for a quarantine and gathered supplies to do a freshwater dip asap. I'll do the best I can, and I'm hoping it works, but I have to accept the possibility that it might not. I have a pretty big task ahead of me, to fix my mistakes. Catching all of them is going to be...gaining experience (yeah, let's go with that). I don't know how I'm going to get the little yellow rose goby out of its burrow with the pistol shrimp.

 

[PJs_Bucket_List]

@spike , I hope I'm not speaking too soon, but I have to give you a big shout out and say thank you for your advice! I got the seachem metro and focus last Saturday and started them on the medicated food. Been dosing according to the directions. Not only are they all still alive, but they're eating well, acting normal and looking better every day! I'm still going through the medication schedule, but my fingers are crossed and I'm hopeful. Thank you so much for your recommendation! It's looking like you saved me from a tank wipeout.

 

[spike]

Glad to have helped. I passed on what worked for me.

 

[siege]

I was wondering about this and what was happening with your tank, I'm glad to hear things seem to be taking a turn for the better

 

[jkz429]

Hi I use perplexity it’s a free AI app. It will answer all your questions. I use it all the time and it has been very helpful.

 

[Jikkermanccini]

Hi I use perplexity it’s a free AI app. It will answer all your questions. I use it all the time and it has been very helpful.

Did you seriously just tell them to use an AI to answer a complex aquarium question? That is absolutely the worst place to go. Gen-AIs have been proven to completely make up their answers on the spot and cannot tell when they're "wrong", it's an easier way to get an incorrect answer than asking a Petco employee for help.
Not trying to dog on you, but that's legitimately a bad idea to promote stuff like that. Randy Holmes-Farley on R2R has done extensive testing of gen-AI models and proven that they are not worth the aquarist's time, especially in chemistry and disease control aspects.

 

[siege]

Did you seriously just tell them to use an AI to answer a complex aquarium question? That is absolutely the worst place to go. Gen-AIs have been proven to completely make up their answers on the spot and cannot tell when they're "wrong", it's an easier way to get an incorrect answer than asking a Petco employee for help.
Not trying to dog on you, but that's legitimately a bad idea to promote stuff like that. Randy Holmes-Farley on R2R has done extensive testing of gen-AI models and proven that they are not worth the aquarist's time, especially in chemistry and disease control aspects.

I use AI for quite a lot, but I do so as an I.T. professional of 30 years who understands what it is and how it works. I use it for note-taking, brain-storming and research, but on the last bit especially I make sure to actually follow the trail. Otherwise, I primarily use it as an editor for when I'm writing up anything extensive, where I'm still doing the majority of the work, and simply asking it to proofread for style, tone, and flow - I will ask it "am I missing anything here" or "is this accurate", etc., but I still take its replies with a grain of salt and follow up on anything that isn't consistent with what I know or believe to be true. Really, it's mainly to keep my long rambling posts from being incoherent when I'm diving deep into a subject, and making sure they are cogent.

The LLMs were trained on "stolen" data from the internet. Not reams of academic papers and the like, but primarily just random postings by random people. The data is grossly polluted by opinion masquerading as fact - conventional "internet wisdom" - and that's BEFORE the AI starts hallucinating. It's like that friend who seems to know a lot about everything, but is often kinda wrong somehow, sometimes in very big - or very small, but important - ways... not to mention the acid flashbacks from doing way too many drugs in their late teens and 20's.

You actually have to know what you're talking about when it comes to using an LLM, or it will bite you in the butt, sooner than later, and it pays to do your own research. You can let an LLM help guide you into where to start, but you should never take anything it says as authoritative.