Emergency, Dying Star Fish Due To Myxazin?

[leecara]

Hi

So 2 days ago, under the advice from my local LFS, who has apparently used this treatment in his tank with no ill effects, I put Myxazin in my tank to cure the white spot on my yellow eyed tang.( also i rang a number of other lfs,s and they said they would do exactly the same thing.

I have read alot about it, and most people seem to have had trouble with it, but was left with no option as the white spot is spreading on him, and I have no hospital tank.

I followed the instructions, only uusing half the dose, every 12 hours etc, etc.

Last night my orange star fish was stiff, and seem to be disintegrating from each arm, turning white as it went, he was not dead as he moved slowly.

My sand sifting star is buried and although I can see his top, he has not moved, my bristle star, is is now having the same promblem as my orange star as is legs a disintergrating from the tip inwards i know quite a lot about star fish and he shouldnt die as it is not disintergrating very quickly its quite slow.

Fish are fine, hermits fine and all else seems ok, just the stars at the moment.


I have stopped treatment, put on my skimmer and turned muy UV back on, will get water later for a quick water change, but by the time I have done salt, it will probably go in late tonight or tomorrow.

ammonia, 0
nitrite, 0
salt level, 1.023/1.024

I am gutted, pissing treatment the label says reef safe and it is not i will give them a piece of my mind as i am not in the mood to be messed about,, I don't think they should advertise this treatment as invert, and marine reef safe, it is just so sad.

need some advice

i am now going to use a 20 gall qt tank for my tang with copper and bring my main tank back to normal.

had some advice from a number of lfs's but just to be on safe side what best ways for going about a qt tank .

 

[MEL07]

putting your tang from a large tank to a small 20 gallon may stress it out and cause the ich to get worse. i never trust putting any chemicals in our tank, whether it says reef safe or not. you just never know.

 

[AK77]

Apart from the water change, there is precious little you can do. I would never put any chemical treatments like that in a display tank. Its far better to quarantine the affected fish and treat that way. Perhaps now you can convince your mum of the need for one. It only needs to be a 2ft tank that can be set up in the garage or utility room.

Keep an eye on the starfish and remove them if they don't show any signs of movement. Don't want them nuking your tank.

I'd perform a big water change to remove a majority of the stuff and add active charcoal to absorb more. Come to think of it, didnt someone else have the same problem a few weeks back with their starfish getting killed by this stuff?

 

[leecara]

we have set up a qt tank putting the tang in at lights out running carbon in both tanks to take out myaxin
1 starfish recovring the other is hanging in thereand hopefully he pulls through
water life are invetsigting the product and our situation and may compensend(is that the righ word lol?)

um for the qt it will have a 10 day course of water lifes cuprazin then 7 days revcoer then going into main tank
the tank is 20 us gall wich is better than nothing right
anything else i should be looking at?

oh also we done a 25 gall waterchange roughly and our skimmer uv and carbon
is takingout the remaning myaxin

 

[leecara]

last night we was cathcing him for 2 hours and it failed but we got him this morining and poped him in the qt tank and put in curprazin (5ml) in qt tank as i looked at him i found he was covered with white spot wich i have never seen before it always was just 1-5 spots wich would change each day bt i think after putting in myaxin and trying to catch him it had just stressed him out.
i have never seen him so ill he always looked healthy and was always swimming and eating just fine and he had lots of colour ,but 30 mins after putting him in the qt tank he was found dead ,he was my favourite fish

next time i will NEVER ever use myaxin as soon as i see signs of diseasae i will qt him in the qt tank instead of using safe meds for the main tank

i have two fish to go in my main tank another tang(the same 1) and a royal gramma i will qt them each for 2 weeks then put them in the main tank

so it will be tang 2 weeks qt then main tang and after tang goes into main tank i will buy a royal gramma and qt him for 2 weeks

also my other fish are fine my water stats are 0,0,0 and my starfish are recovering just,
this has been a terrible week and its my birthday 2moz

just to add i hate white spot!!!!!!!!!

 

[AK77]

Ah that's a real shame Lee.

Both my tangs died of it, as did the copperbanded butterfly. I couldn't get a quarantine tank set up in time, due to finances. I feel your pain though.

Its annoying that tangs are so susceptible to it. It might be a good idea if you purchase another tang, to quaratine it for a week or two, treat it with medications as if it had the parasite, then introduce it to your display tank. Indeed, its a practise I intend to follow for all fish I purchase from now on.

Poor fishy

 

[shibby]

my butterfly just died from it! caught up the otheres and there at work being treated to a 5star qureentene complete with skimmer, heater, powerheads and they may get a cleaner shrimp and neon goby with them too. im hoping my puffer survives it. only fish left in tank now is a cleaner wrasse which hasd reli bad whitespot but he hides alot so i havent been able to catch him =(

i hate whitespot too!!! def considering getting a qt tank or treatign them at work i now have the option to do which is a very good option to have!

 

[AK77]

Yeah operating an expensive reef aquarium or even a FO tank is just asking for trouble if you dont quarantine the fish before hand.

 

[leecara]

my 2 clownfish are in the qt with white spot
in my main tank i have realised my flame angel has white spot and i cannot catch him(any good methods people use as i need to rid this white spot problem asap)
also unsure about my chromis i am in 2 minds if they do or dont have white spot so...
to go in my qt my flame angel with 2 clowns maybe 3 chromis

when i get rrd of white spot (if i do) could i still get a tang or would this be the main cause for whitespot to occur in my tank?

 

[AK77]

Damn. Man you have my sympathy. I know how annoying Whitespot is. Whats left in your display tank besides the flame? Do you have any corals etc?

*Edit*

No, no, no. Get the Chromis out too and quarantine all the fish you can. Don't wait for them to get infected and add more fuel to the fire. Get all the fish out and into medicated water. Other than that, do frequent water changes, hook a UV sterilizers if you have one and keep trying to catch the Flame. Try using some mesh/egg crate to section the tank off and restricts the fish to make it easier to catch.

You could still get a tang but, where they are so susceptible to the parasite they will most likely be the ones to reintroduce the ich into the tank again. If you get a new one and quaratine it first, treat it as though its got whitespot and internal parasites, then release it into the display, you should avoid whitespot in your tank.

 

[leecara]

qt tank
2 nemos

main tank
1 yellow watchman gobie(no .white spot)
1 flame angel
1 sixline(no white spot)
3 chromis
starfish shrimp snails hermits etc
liverock
no corals yet

i was going to get a yellow eyed tang replacemnt after all white spot is cleaered and recovered and a royal grama also
i am now scrathcing the idea of a royal grama and am going with a cleaner wrasse picking up the cleaner wrasse to moz to put in display to clear white spot so its easier than moving tanks wich can add stress this way no med is neeed hopefully this works if the cleaner wrasse gets white spot he will be the only to get qt'd and then hel be put bck in main tank to help out again i was offered this advice from a very good marine shop not maiden head aquatics

what ya think also the cleaner wrasse will be added during lights out to minimize the stress also this should prevent a outbreak of white spot in future if goes to plan what you think of this idea

 

[AK77]

I think that you will probably struggle greatly with the whitespot. The wrasse will help somewhat, as will cleaner and fireshrimp. Sometimes it appears you are winning the fight, but thats only because the cysts have burst off the fish and the tomites are in free swimming stage. Later on in the day the fish are littered with white spots again.

Just because fish don't currently have it, doesn't mean they wont develop it. When they do it will be at epidemic levels and will most likely kill the fish.

Quarantining is a far better option IMO.

 

[leecara]

plan changd slighly going to catch flame tomoz by taking some liverock out and put the flame in qt (using cuprazin in there)and maybe the chromis then in the qt i will have 3 fish
then i will add a cleaner wrasse to the main tank to help out with the whitespot.i will pick up a cleaner wrasse tomoz also the man rekons as i have a uv sterliser he reckons whitespot was introduced from a fish e..g my tang so i will be buying all stuff now from the new lfs as they are a indepenedt store with a very good reputation,as before i just used chain store wich is really a bit of a botch up job over there
edit

not going to get a cleaner wrasse

 

[littleme1969]

Someone slap me with a wet fish here if i'm wrong, but what I know of keeping tropical fish for 5 years is white spot are always present in every tank. It just takes a fish with a low imune system to attatch to so a population explosion can occur. Thats why certain types of fish seem *to bring it in* it is in fact that particular type of fish has a low imunity to the paraite and once it starts breeding on mass then it can infest other fish, and as more fish become stressed more become infected. Well thats what I thought anyhow. Raising the temp slowly to over 81F will stop the mite dead in its tracks as it cant change from one stage to another at that temp and will die off. So raise the temp in all your tanks, medicate what you can in the quaranitine tank . Ive use this method for years in tropical tanks and havent had to treat any new or old fish for it for years. Trick is to catch it super early at the first sign of any spots. That way you get on top of the bug before it can become a problem. Im sure that marine fish are probably a different issue here but so far, finger crossed ive had no white spot outbreak in my marine tank as yet, but I would treat it the same way I treat the tropicals as the parasite lives in the same cycle wether in fresh or salt water.

 

[AK77]

<<SLAP>>

Only kidding lol .

Raising the tank temperature is one thing I forgot to mention. It won't stop the parasite dead in its tracks though. What it will do is speed up the cycle time for the cysts to burst, enter the substrate and then becoming free swimming tomites to reinfect again. If you have fish in the tank, then its probably not the best idea to do it as you will just give the fish a greater probability of reinfection and cause them more stress. If you have quite a few fish in the tank, as Lee does, then ich will spread like wildfire.

I'd only raise the temperature when the tank was void of fish. Then speed up the life cycle of the parasite by raising the temperature. Without a fish host, the tomites die very quickly and the tank will become free of them.

I swear I've read something about tangs and ich and why they are more susceptible to it. I could be wrong so don't quote me on it but, if I remember correctly its something to do with their scales. Tangs appear very soft, due to the minute size and texture of their scales. This makes it very easy for the tomites to attach and burrow into the fish. Compare that to say a damsel fish, that the scales are clearly visible on and are much harder, you can see why the tomites would have a much harder time penetrating them.

As ich is a parasite, it can only be brought into an aquarium on an infected fish, hence why treating every new purchase as infected with some parasite or disease is a good idea to keep your main tank healthy. Putting the fish in quarantine is definitely a recommended practise.