Help please! Longnose hawkfish

[Wheelman76]

I've had a longnose hawkfish and a royal gramma in my 20 gallon quarantine tank now for 9 days now. I put them straight into the tank which had a half dose of Cupramine 0.25 and then raised it to 0.5 over the next couple of days. He was acting normal for the first week perching on the bottom of the tank or on top of the PVC tubes. He eats like a pig and the royal gramma eats well too and seems fine other than being a little shy. For the last 36 hours or so the hawkfish has not stopped swimming , he is constantly near the top of the tank like he is looking for something at the waterline. The tank is beside my bed and I checked on him numerous times throughout the night and he was either swimming around or hovering in one place. He also likes to try and squeeze himself between the heater and the glass vertically with his nose pointing up. I'm worried that hes gonna wear himself out because I'm pretty sure he hasn't stopped swimming for almost 2 days and without a swim bladder that must be hard on him. The tank has a small Powerhead and an aquaclear 30 that I let cascade 3 or 4 inches back into the tank to create oxygen. I thought maybe the oxygen levels could be low since he is always at the top of the tank so I just added 2 airstones to see if that helps. I also did a 4 gallon waterchange to lower the cupramine level a little incase it has something to do with the copper. I also added a small piece of live rock to make him feel more comfortable , but like I said before , he was perching on the PVC and acting normal for the first week. He still eats like a pig , but he won't stop moving.

Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.1
Temp 78
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 1 ppm

Any ideas?
Sorry about the long post.


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[toytech]

Why the copper treatment ? Its hard on fish and not necissary if they dont have ick so i could be the stress of qt and the copper. Hawkfish do like to cram themselves in weird places so thats normal but the non stop swimming is not.

[Myka]

I am also curious about the copper treatment. Copper is not a nice treatment, and is not the best choice in my opinion for a prophylactic treatment.

Some fish don't do well in quarantine tanks that don't have live rock, and I think this might be part of the problem with your Hawkfish. He is obviously very stressed which is why he is frantically swimming the way you describe. I would suggest you toss that bottle of Copper medication in the garbage and choose prophylactic treatments that are live rock friendly - like hyposalinity. The tank you are using for copper treatment is also now a junk tank as you cannot ever get all of the copper out of the silicone. I don't think you will be able to save the fish if you don't move it into a tank with live rock and no copper.

Check out the link in my thread on quarantine for some tips.

[Wheelman76]

I added an airstone , and dropped the cupramine level to 0.3 with a small waterchange and he was back to perching within about 5 hours and is back to acting normal now.

[Wheelman76]

With the next fish that go into quarantine I plan on using hypo salinity instead of the cupramine.

[Myka]

Hey that's good to hear that you were able to help him out just by lowering the copper. I'm also happy that you're going to try hyposalinity in the future.

[Reef_Geek]

First, glad to hear all is well now.

Just a shot in the dark... copper sulfate is toxic to both fish and protozoa. The idea is that it's going to kill the protozoa before it is lethal to fish. Copper sulfate is known to cause damage to fish gill tissues, and its effects can vary from specimen/species to the next. My bet is that the fish was "ram ventilating" to increase water flow over its gills.

[Wheelman76]

Sounds like a definite possibility.

[Wheelman76]

Update!! And any advice is welcome. I continued the cupramine treatment for a total of 3 weeks , but because the hawkfish was originally having problems I had lowered the dose to 0.3. Unfortunately a couple times during the 3 weeks I noticed during testing the copper was about 0.2. After 3 weeks I added carbon , did a large water change and treated with prazipro for the next 7 days ,which brings me to today. Today I noticed my royal gramma flashing and rubbing itself against the PVC tubes , and only a little flashing from the hawkfish. I can't see any spots on either fish , but something is obviously irritating them. What should I do? Treat with cupramine again making sure to keep it at or above 0.3 Or should i treat with hyposalinity? Does hypo only treat ich? Since I don't see any spots could it be some other type of parasite?

[monocus]

maybe try just your regular water without any treatment to see if it calms the fish down