KatyKat said:
yea that sounds about right. and thats funny you say that because i added a damsel to the tank about a month ago who died very suddenly. same symptoms. i figured he had ich (like most fish from the store do) so after he passes, at the first sign of my clown having an issue i started treatment. now can you tell me if my tank would be contaminated with this stil? if so what can i do to fix that. also how do i deal with this situation if it arises again?
Okay, here is a pretty decent article regarding what you may have:
www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Oodinium.html
If he is swimming around ok and not laying at the bottom, you can do a freshwater dip. I hate doing them and don't like to recommend that anyone does typically however, if you truly do have brooklynella or oodinium, the survival rate is not high. I'm not saying you can't cure it, it depends on how advanced it is. If you are interested in doing it let me know and I will tell you how. Here is a link you can read for it in the meantime. I wouldn't dip him too long. 3-5 minutes as the first article states.
www.aquariumslife.com/diseases/freshwater-dip-against-saltwater-fish-diseases/
If you do it, make sure to change out the water in your QT. That water is contaminated.
You will hate me when I tell you how to get it out of your tank...
. Don't get to discouraged as we have all been there. I had one ich outbreak years ago before I started to QT that wiped out hundreds of dollars worth of fish. Just crazy!
I copied and pasted from a site because it was a lot to type! So here is how you will have to get rid of it
Reinfection will occur no matter how effectively the fish have been treated if the organisms are not eradicated from the main aquarium. Because they require a fish host to survive, this can be accomplished by keeping the tank devoid of any fish for at least four weeks. For fish-only aquariums hyposalinity can be applied during this period of time, and the tank temperature elevated to 85 to 90 degrees to speed up the life cycle of the organisms, which will help to eliminate all cysts and dinospores in three weeks. (Go with 4 because that's what I've always heard before).
You will need to clean your substrate really well. I would thoroughly clean all of my equipment including power heads. When I had the ich breakout I soaked all my stuff for a few hours in chlorinated water then soaked in dechlorinated. You won't need to do this though until you are done with the wait period. The parasite has to run through the life cycle until its finished.
