dead fish...how long before I can add more?

[tanglover]

After treating my tank with greenex (following the directions) my flame angle and blue tang died. I have done one large water change (55%) per the directions on the greenex. How long do ya'll think I should wait until I add more fish? I am running carbon in my wet/dry right now to help remove some of the greenex. Also I still have two black perculas in the tank that are doing great and never did get the ich that the other two had.

 

[tanglover]

just an update, it seems that the mandarine and black perculas have ich as well, so it will be awhile before i add any more fish

 

[Ray Pollett]

I'm not trying to be obnockious, but this may sound that way.

I've found that using those meds do nothing worth while in my opinion. If you have ick it is because something is wrong in the tank. Healthy fish do not get ick. They get it when they are stressed out. The stress can come from a number of reasons; poor food, shipping, incorrect water parameters, incorrect tank mates or lack of territory(or hidding spaces). Fix the problem and the ick goes away.

In other words quit using meds, find and fix the problem!

I regularly take fish from people with ick and put them in a proper setup with other healthy fish that is proper for the fish with ick. I never loose any of the fish in the tank and usually save the fish with ick.

Ray

 

[tanglover]

i don't know if this would have done it but i went out of town for two days and my timer on my tank messed up, the lights were on for possibly as long as two days could this have done it?

 

[fishermann]

doubt your timer was the cause, but i agree with what ray says. the lasat thing you should be thinking about rite now is putting more fish in. I would get some poly filter pads and get that greenex out, quit doing such large water changes at one time, which in itself can be a stress unless your conditions are really bad and warrant such actions. i would maybe take a wild guess and say the blue tang was new to the tank, they are prone to ich and should be put in a quarantine tank first . the fish you have left should be fine if you get the greenex out and let things settle down for many weeks before thinking of anymore fish. and check your water paramaters and go slooow.

 

[tanglover]

well actually the flame angle was new, and i did'nt qt him. i will always do that from now on. my black perculas are getting worse so i am going to remove them and treat with copper. i hope that will work. too, bad the ich the flame had ended up killing the hippo. i am running some carbon right now and the reason behind the large water change was to help get rid or the greenex.thanks for all the help, any more advise would be welcome.

 

[fishermann]

large water changes are also hard on your fish, get some poly filter pads and the greenex well be out in a couple days, works at removing chemicals a hundred times faster then carbon. you have something that is stressing your fish out alot in that tank, healthy clowns well kick ich easy if your tank is good. I would hold off on treating them with copper all you are doing is stressing things, first one chem now another. if you now have a quarantine tank get them out of your other tank and just place them in the Q. tank, i would hold off on the copper. observe for a few days and if things are good in your Q. tnak the clowns should start to clear up. get some poly filters for the main tank and check and double check your water quality, you have something wrong somewhere.

 

[tanglover]

I am so stressed out about this, I can not figure out what is wrong with my main tank. ammonia 0 , PH 8.4, salinity 1.235, nitrate 0, nitrite 0, iron 0, copper 0
What else could it be? It has been up and running for 10 months.
And the bad thing is I alreay put the clowns in the QT with copper last night. there was no copper in the water and then the coppersafe brought it up to like 1.0 I feel like I am doing everything wrong. My QT was really cloudy today. I will get the poly filters for my main tank tonight. What can I do to save my clowns?
I have to do something fast.
I feel like I have been over reacting.

 

[esmith]

Just out of curiousity, is it a typo that you're salinity is at 1.235? I hope so, otherwise you're salinity is way above normal (1.025).

This may be part of your problem if things are dying off in the tank.

HTH,

Eliyah

 

[tanglover]

yes it was a typo sorry, it is 1.0235

 

[fishermann]

like esmith says 1.235 is waaaay to high of salinity. if that is correct, there is a good cause of your stress. To be honest, things are pretty screwd up rite now. I don't know quite which way to tell yuou to go. First off , do you have any animals in the main tank? You need to start dropping that salinity down with even large water changes if needed, but not all at once. That is really high,but you can,t do it all at once, but since it sounds like the quarantine tank maybe screwed up worse now i would do it in a couple of days, which ain't good for the fish to drop it that fast, but it is probably the lesser of to evils rite now. Get the poly filters working and i would get the fish back over there tonite if it was me. As for you're quarantine tank it sounds like you mite have overdosed the copper and killed off the bacteria in the bed and rock, I don't know. Why did you put the copper in there????? There are so many variables now in your quarantine tank that you have to deal with? Is the good bacteria dead? How much copper is truly in the tank? Is my test kit compatable to the type of copper I am using so as to give me a proper reading of the copper level? Is my salinity rite in this tank? When treating with copper you have to be super careful and do it sloowly so as not to kill everything else off in the tank and use a test kit that well test the copper you are using. There is plain copper, chelated copper and a bunch of others out there bound up with different things and not all test kits work with all of them. I have read that seachems cupramine is one of the beter ones on the market and they make their own test kit that works with it, i hope since i mentioned this you won't run out and buy this now and dump this in. The new hypersalinity treatment is a better opion in the future i believe, I haven't use it but i have seen a lot of post on the technique and it seems to be a better way to go on the quar. tank and the fish. I guess I would get the clowns out of the q tank since it sounds like it maybe be screwed up worse. get some genuine poly pads on the big tank, get the salinity down in two or three days which is fast but probably better then the other situation, and for your'e clowns sake quit dumping all these chems in your tanks, chems are not a cure all and other then for some bacteria problems are way over advertised in the mags as a cure all and qarunteed to cure your fish of anything and everything. Also if you are using one of them swing arm hydrometers, get youself a temp. compensated float hydrometer to double check it, I have tested some of these plastic swing arm ones against my refractometer and found them to be off, not as much as you are but a lot more then you want if you have corals someday. Remember what has been said, these little guys are tuff and well kick this on their own if you settle down and get yor tank in good order, healthy clowns are very strong little fish, and pleeeease don,t do treat them with anymore chems you are going to end up getting a bacterial infection going in them if they get weak enough and that is reaaaally hard to cure. WATER QUALITY!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[tanglover]

like i just said my salinity is 1.0235, (my first print was a typo)i have a very good salinity tester as well as a copper test that tests all types of copper. the only varible in my QT that is different from my main tank is the copper level, which is 0 in my main and 1.0 in my QT. I raised the copper level only after all other parameters were identical to my main tank.
I tired greenex in my main tank over two weeks ago and then nothing in my main tank for the last 7 days.
Only after the greenex did nothing for my ich and ended up killing my flame and hippo (the ich not the greenex) did i decide to take more drastic messures for my clowns.
I do not want to treat my main tank with anything else b/c i do have a mandarine in there and i would not want to kill off his food source.

 

[fishermann]

how old is your'e quarantine tank? Do you have substrate in it? Do you have live rock in it? Is the water still cloudy? Are the clowns taking food when it is offered? How long did your,e flame have ich before he died, if it wasn't long and he died quickly, he may have died from a bacterial infection and he had ich from being under stress from the bact. infection, ich can be a secondary response. It sounds like your tank is pretty good shape so i'm just guessing that there maybe be something the flame had picked up and transfered to some of the others. I wasn't suggesting you treat your main tank, I was asking if you had other fish inthere if you were going to have to lower the salinity. What a test kit claims and what they do are two different things.

 

[tanglover]

i started my QT just last night, i only put some PVC, heater, and filter in my tank. I used water out of my main tank. My clowns ate last night before i put them in the QT so i have not fed them today. and yes it is still cloudy

 

[tanglover]

i forgot to answer your questions about the flame, he did have cloud eye right after he was introduced into my main tank. I overnighted some ruby reef hydo plex ($54) and diped him with that. (someone on another forum suggested this) The eye did'nt clear up and the the Hippo came downwith ich. After this I started feeding with garlic ($10)and treating main tank with melafix.($8) Two weeks with melafix and no improvement. So I did water chaged and started treating main tank with greenex ($5). Then the tang and flame both died ($115). So I started running carbon in my main tank to get rid of all chemicals. ($10) I started up a QT tank ($55) I put my clowns in there and put the copper ($9)in last night and started testing the QT for everything including the copper test ($12)

Needless to say after days and days of working on this and spending over $278 on all of this i would like some great advise and would bevery thankful for your help : (

 

[fishermann]

I understand alot more now. I would take a wild guess and say your flame had a bacterial infection going, what with the cloudy eyes. The ich was probably a secondary thing. It sounds like the quarantine tank is new, the copper probably killed any bacteria you had going. I would keep a close eye on your water parimeters, you probably well start getting amon. nitrite condition and well have to do regular water changes which in turn well delute your copper concentration. As you can see one problem leads to anotherMost people do copper treatments in bare bottom tanks witha few pvc pieces for cover or long established quar. tanks, who's substrate has enough good bacteria populatin that you have some remaining to carry on the nitrifying process when you kill some off with the copper. Also if you have live rock it well absorb the copper also, so make sure you never use iti in another tank with inverts. Well enough on that, my best advice would beif they have cloudy eyes to keep them in the quarantine because if they do have a bacterial infection you don,t want to give it to the mandarinif he seems to be doing fine. The next thing is you have put about everything there is into the main tank and you have to be REALLY careful about what you mix. You still don't have poly filter pads in there yet and all these different meds are still in the tank minus what the carbon has removed, which probably isn't much from the variety of everything you have added. Somethings when mixed become very toxic, I don't know about the things you have dumped in, but i would almost bet they are not mixable. I would get poly filters on the tank today, NOW! and get all that stuff out. Does your clowns have cloudy eyes, if not they maybe just reacting to all the chems in the main tank and are stressed enough to get ich. You have two choices and I don't want to tell you which way to go because i think it well be a crap shoot either way. IF the clowns eyes are not cloudy and they seemstill interested in eating I would get the chems out NOW fromthe main tank and put them back. If their eyes are cloudy and they have lost interest ineating they probably have a bacterial infection of some kind going. The best stuff i have found is a product called Maracyn and Maracyn-two. It is a antibiotic that between the two well treat both gram positive and gram negative bacteria, it can be used in conjuction with copper and they can be used witheach other at the same time. They are also supposed to help the fish keep their appetite. It sounds like you quar tank is not at all stable so if the fishes eyes are not cloudy and they are still wanting to eat I would take the chance and get them back to the other tank and get the chems out. If their eyes are clouded up I would get the above products and treat in the quarantine tank as per directions and remember go slow and easy. A lot of people think if this amount is good a little more ought to be better. Follow instructions and watch the water parims closely and remember when you make water changes you are going to have to REPLACE the chems only at the quanity of water you take out, and the daily doses they call for. This is why it is really important to buy your fish and corals for that manner from reputable fish stores that you know how they treat their fish, and not just see something that strikes your fancy in some store, especially the big chain stores who have kids working that most of the time may or may not know how to take care of saltwater fish and how they are collected of the reef. Make sure any fish you buy is eating, is alert and actively grazing, has no wounds,has good color,eyes are clear and alert. As you found out all it takes is one wrong move and you can wipe alot of things out in a hurry, and no matter how good they seem use that quarantine tank first, atleast for long enough to make sure they are as good as you thought they were. Good luck and keep writing as to how things are going. It well be very hard to balance the tratment tank through this.

 

[tanglover]

ok, well i am going home to add those poly filter pads and see how the clown are doing, i am going to watch the QT and keep them in there for a few days until i get everything out of the main tank. right now they just have ick and their eyes look find. i reallyhope they are still doing well.

 

[fishermann]

Are they still eating eagerly? And really look closely at their eyes and if they look good I would get them back in the main tank if there is any question on the stability of that freshly set up Quar. tank> the ploy filtersa well start to help immediatly. I am only saying this because i think your amon and nitites are going to start rising in the Q tank and that well be a big stress factor. Good luck on finding the poly filters, the only place i could get them that i knew of was aquariunm cocepts when they were still selling retail. I would hunt around on the phone, Try blue sierra, salt water city, but get some and don't let someone talk you into adding or doing something else. I buy the industrial strength ones from drsfostersandsmith.com which i run intermittently on my tanks. Marine depot has the regular ones. They are a good thing to have even if you don't use them regularly for just this situation. You need them now and if you can,t find them I can give you some, the only problem being i live in anacortes.

 

[fishermann]

another thing that just crossed my mine is i don't know what you have done to all the bugs in your main tank. Most mandarins well only eat live little bugs which are inverts which usally get killed off with some of these chems you have added i think because i am not sure if this stuff was reef safe to begin with since i have never used any of it and the mixing together does,t help. If you have a friend or a LFS that well hold him for you until things settle down and you can reseed your tank with bugs, he may not be getting any food?, unless you happen to be the one in a hundred that has a mandarin that well take processed food.

 

[tanglover]

thankfully i am one in a hundred that has a great, fat, frozen food taking mandarine. He love mysis, prime reef and brine shrimp. I include some ZOE, too. I did a partinal water change in the main tank and moved my mandarine into my 55 gal just until I get things settled down. I flound the poly filters at my lfs, they have everything. Thanks for offering me yours.
My clowns looked great last night and are seeming to settle down. I changed out one gal of water in the QT to get the copper level down a little. I am going to slowly reduce the copper level in the QT and leave them in there until I can get things in my main tank under control. Right now my nitrates are really high and like you said I am afraid that mixing the melafix and greenex caused some problems. I would really like for it to sit for 30 days or so as to get rid of all of the ick. Thanks.