First Disaster PLEASE HELP

[bbauer]

I had my first real disaster over the last week with my FOWLER tank. I have a 110 tall with 120lbs of live rock, 2 clowns, a lionfish, nevarcus angel, foxface, and a lunar wrass. They were all rather small, except for the wrass which is about 7 inches, and they all got along very well even the lionfish and the clowns. so i decided to add some more fish. I bought a yellow eyed tang and a koran angel which where both juveniles. After aclimating them into the tank the nevarcus chased around the koran angel and the wrass chased around the new tang. Well, unfortunatly I believe the stress was too much for the tang and after 2 days he wasn't looking so good but the nevarcus left the koran alone and he looked fine. The tang developed white spots which i believed to be ich and within a day he had died. for 2 days I couldnt find the new tang because his body somehow ened up under the bottom of the stack of live rock which turned into a painstaking process of removing all the rock to retrieve the body. Well in doing this I removed all the fish so I could clean the entire tank. Well I believed I stressed the entire tank because some of my fish didnt look the same again. The following two days my nevarcus and the koran developed the spots as well and began looking terrible so i went to the fish store bought some stuff that was supposed to help ich and treated the tank and it seemed to do nothing except turn the water blue. Then the nevarcus died which made me mad bacuse this was my favorite fish. At this time I was preparring to go on vacation to lake powell for the week and I had a buddy come over and feed the fish for the time that was gone. the day that i was leaving i had to pull the body of the koran out of the water because it had died too I had then told my friend what was happening so if more fish died while i was gone not to feel bad just take the dead bodys out of the fish tank. Well I came back yesterday from the lake to find that almost all my fish had suffered the same fate. The only one that is still living is the lunar wrass which seemes to be doing well for the time being. Im depressed. Can someone tell me what I should do. I dont know if i have parasites or what and how i should recover the tank so I can restock it. Please help. Any comments or insight will help.
I have a 110 tall with a proclear 150 sump with built in skimmer 2 powerheads moving the water in my tank. I only use ro water and do a 1/3rd water change ever 3 weeks. From what i could tell from my water tests was that ever thing seemed to be ok. When i left i kept the air in my house to 82 and i did notice an increase in temperature in the tank to match that at 82 degrees which was a 3 degree increase. PLEASE HELP

 

[Krish]

WOW! Sorry to hear that! I'm no expert on ich, but SteveS would be the person to talk to. He has helped numerous people here with ich related problems and steered them all in the right direction. If he doesn't reply here or you don't get the responses you were looking for, I'd copy and paste this thread in his personal forum. I wish you the best and sorry again to hear about your losses.

 

[twilliard]

What was it that you added to fight the Ich?

 

[ronj]

well, you only learn from experience sorry about all your fish....i have had ich issues in my display just recently..one of the best rules of keeping these tanks is to QUARANTINE any new inhabitant before putting it in your tank...this way you can make sure the fish isn't sick and also treat it safely...i don't know what medicine you used, but you are going to have to do some serious water changes to get that mess out of there...running some carbon would probably be a good idea...you don't want to treat anything in your display tank, especially if you have liverock, inverts, or corals....it would be a good idea to go ahead and set up a hospital tank for your wrasse and get the tank cycling...it could " break out" w/ ich...even if it doesn't show signs and you are positive it was ich, you could treat it w/ hyposalinity and quarantine ALL new additions..this way, you will at least have ich out of your tank...you will have to leave your display tank empty of all fish for 6-8 weeks to be good and sure...8 weeks would be better someone else might know how to help you get all the meds out of the water that you used....hope it works out better the next time

 

[james734]

It will help to know what you treated with. Do you know what it was called? do you still have it? What was the dosage?

 

[bbauer]

i used rid ich + by kordon and it said to use 1 tablespoon for every 10 gallons of water so i put 11 tablespoons in and it said repeat every 24 hours as necessary. I did the treatment twice.

 

[steve-s]

Formalin and malachite greens' original intended use was for Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, which it works well for the most part as long as it didn't kill the fish. For the marine version, Cryptocaryon irritans, both are pretty much useless. I would do some good sized water changes and run some carbon to clean up the water.

Given the types of fish and the speed in which they are passing, I would move them all to a QT set up and treat with copper. There is a good chance your fish have both C. irritans and A. ocellatum (aka velvet). Crypt will not usually kill within two days on it's own.

Do not administer copper to a tank containing sand, rock or any other kind of CaCO3 substrates. It will interefere with the proper concentration of copper and hamper your efforts. Once treatment begins, you should notice marked improvement fairly quickly. If your LFS has it, get Cupramine (copper) and Seachems copper and ammonia test kits. The velvet (A.ocellatum) is what's killing the fish so quickly.

Be sure you have plenty of new saltwater prepared for water changes. Since I doubt you have a cycled QT (?), water quality will be a challenge as well.

Cheers
Steve

 

[ronj]

he only has the one fish left...the wrasse

 

[bbauer]

well i definetly plan on making a quarantine tank now because i now have a good reason to create one. curious though how long should a fish be quarantined before it can be added to the main tank.

 

[shallowreef]

Usually if it is sick people wait two weeks after the disease is no longer visible just to be safe.

 

[ronj]

i would definately leave it in quarantine for 4-6 weeks....if it had ich, it might not be visible. i would give it that long to let the possible ich run through its life cycle and become visible...ich is only one disease that you have to worry about... there are others to worry about.. this one is very common and has a fairly long life cycle..if there was another disease present, it would probably present itself during this time. Steve S told me a 20g long would be a good qt tank, but if you already have a small one , it will probably be fine

 

[steve-s]

First and foremost, anything wet should be QT'd not just fish.

As for the duration, a minimum of 4 weeks for all new arrivals. It will allow enough time for most maladies/parasites/hitchikers to develope/show up if present. This time frame also allows for fish especially to recoup after a long transport/stress period from what it has gone through during collection/transport/LFS. Fish that go through this process are much better prepared (feeding response/temperment etc) once added to the community tank than fish that go from LFS to main.

As pointed out by shallowreef/ronj, if a fish needs treating, wait a minimum of 2 weeks after the treatment to ensure it was successful.

Cheers
Steve

 

[ronj]

Steve, how long would you suggest to qt corals??? 4-6 weeks???

 

[steve-s]

Four should be plenty. When in comes to inverts (mobile or sessile) it's also a good idea to visually inspect the animal as close as possible. If you have a magnifying glass all the better. Also spend a few nights each week examining the animal after lights out without handling it of course. There are a few nasties that won't be visible in daylight hours. The easiest to miss being hydroids and worms.

Cheers
Steve

 

[ronj]

thanks, i am about to get a few newbies..i really don't want to deal w/ disease problems again.......