fishermann
Well-known member
So glad to hear things are working out. You said you did a partial water change and moved your mandarine into the 55, was he in the Q tank? How is the amon. and nitrites in the Q tank doing? You need to keep a very close eye on them. Glad to hear you found the poly pads. You well need to rinse them out once inawhile under the faucet as they well also collect detritus for you, which you don't want to bild up as it well contribute to the nitrate problem. Just rinse under faucet and squish keeping them flat, don't ring them out. I would put atleast one whole one if not two to get those chems out. Like i said if there is any question on the stabilaty of the Q tank and the clowns eyes are not cloudy put them back in the 55, if they are not stressed the ich well die out even with the fish you have in the tank. Believe me a lot of peoples new fish get a little ich when put in their tanks without quarantining them first and if the tank and fish are healthy the ich well die off. One big thing to keep in mind in the future is not to treat even in your Q tank just because you see a little ich on the new fish. If he is eating good and the water is good he well most likeky rid himself of the ich. A lot of people believe that copper damages the internals of fish slightly and may shorten their life span. Some fish like butterflies do not tolorate copper well. It may take longer but if things are good and they are eating they well take care of themselves. I also believe in the us of UV, especially on the Q tank, run the flow rate on the slow end of suggested rates so as to give the lite time to sap the bugs and change the bulb once a year. I run UV on all my tanks 24/7. Also what are you running for a skimmer on your 55 and on the Q tank? High nitrates are usally a sign of some husbandry problems. What are your nitrate levels now? Doing partiall water changes does not much other then for a day, we need to figure out why they are up. I can't stress enough the use of a good skimmer and not to OVERFEED. Small weekly or semi-weekly water changes are also a good practice. High nitratees are not something to get stressed over, In the old days before skimmers and todays tech. we had high nitrates, that was one reason it was hard to keep fish with corals back then. Don't add chems for this reason, i don't know if there are any but i'm sure someone has one for it. After we get the present situation settled down we can tackle your nitrate problems.
