Hi guys,
2 weeks ago I purchased 3 bannerfish 2 small and one medium size, all looked very healthy but i forgot to ask to see them eat.
A couple days after I put them into my tank one of the small ones developed a cloudy patch on its body fin (not the tail), each day it seemed to get larger until around the third day it appeared the actual body of the fish under where this cloud started was infected (missing scales and redness unfortunately didn't take pictures), by this point the fish was obviously stressed, breathing fast, annoying the other bannerfish and the next morning it was dead with what looked like an even larger area of missing scales and redness.
Now a week on the medium size bannerfish developed missing scales and redness on the side of its body just above the lower fins ( see pictures) and I am thinking what the other bannerfish had has been passed onto this fish ? And only 3 days later this fish had died as well.
Now I only have one of the small bannerfish left and i am worried that it too will catch this infection. It has looked fine until this morning where I've noticed the tiniest patch of white on his body which I'm really hoping is not the same as the other fish , but I think it may be. I also noticed for the first time it flashing on the rocks the other fish did not do this.( no signs of whitespot at all however)
I should note that the first small fish that died was eating but not heaps, the medium size was eating pellets fine but this last one I haven't seen eat much I've tried nori, pellets, flakes and marinara/greens mix I made.
My tank is 450 gallons
No other fish in there other than this last bannerfish as it used to be a predator tank home to only one large grouper which i moved on to someone else with a larger tank.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate i haven't checked as I've lost my test kit for it but when I checked at fish store 2 weeks ago it was 0.
Never really had a problem with those parameters at all really as I have a lot of live rock, bio balls, marine pure bags, 2 canister filters, an overflow with mesh type filter and polyfilter . Tank has been running for 14 years now.
So I'm hoping that I just bought a sick fish which has passed it onto the other fish.
Does it look like a bacterial infection ?
Can it stay in the water and infect future fish?
Yes I will be looking to set up a hospital tank to try save this last fish.
Let me know what you think the disease is or any advice you can give me on addressing it (melafix?)
These pictures are only of the medium sized fish that died, the last one showing the other side of his body and the small white patch it started out with until it grew and became redder.
2 weeks ago I purchased 3 bannerfish 2 small and one medium size, all looked very healthy but i forgot to ask to see them eat.
A couple days after I put them into my tank one of the small ones developed a cloudy patch on its body fin (not the tail), each day it seemed to get larger until around the third day it appeared the actual body of the fish under where this cloud started was infected (missing scales and redness unfortunately didn't take pictures), by this point the fish was obviously stressed, breathing fast, annoying the other bannerfish and the next morning it was dead with what looked like an even larger area of missing scales and redness.
Now a week on the medium size bannerfish developed missing scales and redness on the side of its body just above the lower fins ( see pictures) and I am thinking what the other bannerfish had has been passed onto this fish ? And only 3 days later this fish had died as well.
Now I only have one of the small bannerfish left and i am worried that it too will catch this infection. It has looked fine until this morning where I've noticed the tiniest patch of white on his body which I'm really hoping is not the same as the other fish , but I think it may be. I also noticed for the first time it flashing on the rocks the other fish did not do this.( no signs of whitespot at all however)
I should note that the first small fish that died was eating but not heaps, the medium size was eating pellets fine but this last one I haven't seen eat much I've tried nori, pellets, flakes and marinara/greens mix I made.
My tank is 450 gallons
No other fish in there other than this last bannerfish as it used to be a predator tank home to only one large grouper which i moved on to someone else with a larger tank.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate i haven't checked as I've lost my test kit for it but when I checked at fish store 2 weeks ago it was 0.
Never really had a problem with those parameters at all really as I have a lot of live rock, bio balls, marine pure bags, 2 canister filters, an overflow with mesh type filter and polyfilter . Tank has been running for 14 years now.
So I'm hoping that I just bought a sick fish which has passed it onto the other fish.
Does it look like a bacterial infection ?
Can it stay in the water and infect future fish?
Yes I will be looking to set up a hospital tank to try save this last fish.
Let me know what you think the disease is or any advice you can give me on addressing it (melafix?)
These pictures are only of the medium sized fish that died, the last one showing the other side of his body and the small white patch it started out with until it grew and became redder.