Dying Fish

[Ledford]

I am a new tank owner so I don't have a lot of knowledge on this so you will to bear with me.  I have had my tank running for 8 months and in the past 6 months I have had 2 puffers, and a loinfish, a flounder, one lawnmower blennie, and a rock beauty. All seemed to have died from an infestation with iche.  While all of my fish were dead I decided to do a lot of water changes and cleaning on the tank and let it run and hopefully clean itself from whatever was killing all of my fish. In this three month period I bought roughly 35 pounds of live rock and 4 anemnone a sallylightfoot crab and a niger trigger came inside of a rock. My tank had been flourishing for the past 4 months so I decided to buy more fish... I bought 2 tomatoe clowns and a saebay? anenmnone and a rock beauty.  Recently the rock beauty died from what seemed to be an infestation of ich and the tomatoes are looking very bad I have done water changeskeeping up on my quality but my fish just get sicker everyday. I have no quarintine tank and connot treat with copper do to the inverts so what to do and is it ich. By the way the trigger has been fine the whole time.

[dawn]

i just knowtest jar jar has what looks like ether

ick or reef dis why?

 

yesterday i checked my tempture in my tank ouch

69 degrees

 

ive had this heater in my tank since i set it up never had problem till now grrrr

 

i got the temp up to 25celc degrees by 3pm yesterday

took that long for the underwater heater to get it up

 

my poor baby spent most of his day facing the water

current try to get rid of it lucky hes still eating

 

by 7pm i couldnt stand to see him suffering(so far the coral beauty is oka)so i turned off the lights on their tank

 

i got up this mornging did not turn the lights on that tank he looks less stressed not swimming in the current

 

my 15gal beside it i turned the light on so jar jars tank

gets some lignt from it

i will leave the lights off to keep the stress down

and will try the garlic treat ment lucky i have a oriantal

grocer and health food store just down the street

ill get some garlic gels and some seaweed and feed it to them when the sun give them more light

i did feed them little this moring when the sun light got little brighter jar jar ate little and beauty gobelled up the food so

hopfuly no bright light and the garlic treatment will work

[Delph]

(Edited by Delph at 7:56 am on June 3, 2002)

[Ledford]

Delf,

 

 Thank you for you're concerns and questions.  As far as the confusion on the time frame the tank has been up for 8 months the first 2 months is when I first seen the problems with the ich. I then backed off and let my tank establish itself buying fish randomly and dealing with the consiquences later :frown:.  After that I started learning what I was doing I ended up with my "flourishing" period. hopefully that helps you with the timeframe :confused:.

  Anemone questions, 2 calacticus?, 1 bubble, and a sebae. No I have not seen any color loss at all on any of them and yes the 2 calacticus? are attached as well as the bubble. The sebae is on the bottom of the tank and seems to be doing fine. I do not directly feed them as they do eat mysis shrimp while the fish eat.

 All of my tests show good water conditions

salinity- 1.022

amonia-0

nitrite-0

temp-76-78

phosphate-0 

 As for the clown question, I bought 2 tomatoe clowns and 1 sebae anemone not any sebae clowns sorry for the confusion.  My filtration is as follows, I run a Magnum 350 cannister (charcoal) and a Red Devil_Prizm protein skimmer in witch I am not impressed with and to powerheads for water circulation and arration along with 2 bubble bars. My lights run for 10 hours a day on timer. ONe is a coralife 20000 and the other is a ocean sun 10000.  

 And finally no my tank is not a nanoreef it is a 55 gal tank that I have just started into saltwater with but the information I collect at any and every site I go to is used so any info is much appreciated. O and the trigger is a niger not intentionally got but it seems to be the only fish that will live in my tank and I have never seen it mess with and of my anemones.  So hopefully that answers you're questions if you have more don't hesitate to ask, because I won't.

 Thank you for all of everyones help and advise.

 

P.s. now that i have seen some nanoreefs I have taken interest and am planning to set up soon hopefully with less problams than I am experiencing now.

 

--Ledford

 

 

 

(Edited by Ledford at 6:11 pm on Mar. 5, 2002)

[Delph]

(Edited by Delph at 7:57 am on June 3, 2002)

[Ledford]

Delf,

 

 Thank you again for you're knowledge.  Good insight in the anemone dept. I have never been told as the life of the anemone is so short and hard to keep.  Anyway as far as my water changes, go I am a consistant 15-20% water change a month and I trade out my charcoal in my magnum every 3 weeks.  I thought that I was changing more water than I should but the more I read the more I think that if you're water quality is good you should not have to change it out as much as long as you're filtration is working properly.  Is this a reasonable idea or an off the wall thought?

 

 My fish at the moment are the trigger and one of the clowns, the other got sucked into my pickup tube on my Magnum-ouch- so it is a good idea to put my screen back on it for the anemone as well.  Other than that I just have my flame scallop and my sally lightfoot crab which I have forgotten to mention this whole time, sorry.

 

  And as for the anemones do you know of any other carpet type anemone that is a durable species?

 

   I actually have tried the freshwater dip on a puffer but it did not seem to help, by the time I heard about it I think it was too late.  

 Right now I have about 11/2 watts per gallon.  I now know this is low wattage but my problem is that I have 2 48" lights on top of my tank and not much room for expansion, what brand/types are brighter or recommended?  Is the light in the room during the day enough to compensate?  Hope for more good answers, thanks

 

--Ledford--

 

(Edited by Ledford at 8:54 am on Mar. 6, 2002)

[Delph]

(Edited by Delph at 7:57 am on June 3, 2002)

[Ledford]

Delf--

 

 Hello again,  and I forgot to give you my temp. actually my temp runs from 76 to 79 but mostly it is from 76-78 fluxuation depends on where I have my powerheads but I actually just got them in a 'sweet' spot where it seems to be circulating a lot better so I am hoping to keep it at an average of 76-77.  

 So I am going to try the 2 week water changes and I am getting ready to check on some light right now so hopfully I can get this straightened out and let it run and do some researching on nano reef requirements.  (Just dug out my old 10gal all-glass hopefullt it will do just fine!)

 If you have any more ideas give me a shout.

Thanks again

 

'--Ledford--

 

(Edited by Ledford at 8:24 am on Mar. 7, 2002)

[Delph]

(Edited by Delph at 7:58 am on June 3, 2002)

[quiksilver5768]

   The problem could be bad bacteria or such in the water your changing your tank with. If tap water around you area is bad you might want to try using RO/DI water. Also what might help is an investment in a UV sterilizer. This will help clean the bad bacteria from your tank and prevent ich from occuring. Also, about your new nano reef...

   Delph, why no anemones? They aren't thaat bad or hard to keep if you get the right one and if you get it healthy.

[Delph]

(Edited by Delph at 7:58 am on June 3, 2002)

[Ledford]

Hey Delf - Quicksilver

 

It's been a while since I have been able to post I've been busy with a new job.  I got rid of the seabae anemone to Delfs advice I figure better safe than sorry and actually it was showing some bad signs but at the time I didn't have proper lighting.  Now I am looking for a anemone to go with my clowns - don't kill me I put a tomatoe and a maroon/gold banded clown in and they are actually getting along thank god.  But I only have my bubble left and one condalactus I took the other condalactus out after it kept stinging my bubble and made it shrivel into almost nothing before I could see what was going on. Sooooooo what would be a good carpet anemone?  I need to get rid of my gonipora (good intentions, bad idea) it is still alive and well but I think I am going to get credit for it before something drastic happens.  And I was actually checking on a UV sterilizer but it is very pricey and I will have to save up for that one.   As far as my nano is going,  slowly as for I am taking Delf's advice once again I got a 32W PC 50/50 and my tank and 2 404 Powerheads still debating on LS or crushed coral and how much LR to shell out of my big tank.  Anyway it will be up and running soon and if I get a digicam sometime soon you will see it and my 55g so I'll keep ya posted. don't forget about me.

[Delph]

(Edited by Delph at 7:58 am on June 3, 2002)

[Ledford]

Ah-ha very good Delf my moroon did kick my tomatoe out of the bubble but after that they have been getting along fairly well I'll keep you posted on this since I am also curious myself (so is my LFS ha-ha).  By the way they have been in their together for about 3 weeks now.  I think I will stay away from the S. Haddoni anemone ( a nasty rash is the last think any of us needs) ha-ha.  anyway I got my LS ordered it should be her next thursday and I am looking for a good deal on about 15 lbs of LR so what kind of filtration is really needed for my ten if I have 3" of LS and appx. 15 lbs of LR?  Just a powerhead and a protein skimmer? that is what I was thinking but I need some opinions. Help me out on this one please, thank you.

[Delph]

(Edited by Delph at 7:59 am on June 3, 2002)

[Cam barr]

have any of u guys tryed a fresh water dip it will  help also if u have a hospital tank take all the infected fish and raze the temp to 80 degreeses ich cant survive so it will die off of the fish dont do that in a reef tank obvsuly cuz the temp will be too high

[Ledford]

Cam-bar

I have tried a FW dip and it actually did seem to help I could see the difference but I think my tank was so bad at the time it would come back within days and it did so ultimatly it never did pay off for me.  I would still like to see if the garlic oil works but havn't had the need to use it and I hopefully don't.  

[Cam barr]

i dunno bout galic oil but i know from experince that garlic elixer works im not kidding