How common is sick fish?

[BillyBubBob]

I am about ready to throw the towel in.

 

Whenever, I buy new fish (freshwater or saltwater), the vast majority of them get sick. If I treat them successfully they do well in the longterm.

 

I am just getting tired of playing Russian Roulette with these fish. I lost a clownfish today and have to explain to my daughter that it did not make it :*(.

 

I have tried a variety of fish stores, test my water regularly, and do weekly water changes.

 

I guess I wonder if this is part of the hobby or whether I should really examine whether I am doing something fundamentally wrong.

[Gilman]

Either you are doing something fundamentally wrong, or your LFSs are selling you unhealthy fish to begin with.

 

Could you elaborate on your methods of fishkeeping? Equipment information, water parameters, etc?

 

Keeping healthy fish in the correct environment shouldn't be a russian roulette game.

 

Gil

[BillyBubBob]

The saltware fish came from a locally owned store.

 

Here is a brain dump about my system and methods.

 

My saltwater tank is a 10 gallon with 8 lbs of live rock. The live rock was from display tanks at the LFS.

 

The tank has a penguin mini without biowheel, but with the carbon filter.

 

An extra powerhead is in the tank.

 

50Watt heater with a water temp of 78 to 80F

 

When the tank was set up, I only had a small cycle which I measured with test kits from the beginning to the end. Water parameters are excellent. I use distilled water with IO. I do a 15% water change every week.

 

I have many spagetti worms, bristle worms, and other small critters running around the tank. I added no inverts and haven't seen any as hitchhikers.

 

My coraline is spreading, and I have small amount of algea.

 

The fish (1 damsel & 1 clown) are fed once a day with either frozen formula 1 or marine flake. They seemed to prefer the flake.

 

The tank was 2 weeks old when I put the fish in. They were the smallest specimens that the fish store had.

 

2.5 weeks after the fish were introduced the clown developed some type of infection, not ick, but white streaks. The clown had the infection for about 10 days before dying. 7 days after the clown showed signs the damsel caught it. The night before the clown died, it was swimming normally and eating.

 

I assume that infections have to be introduced by a living organism. Other than the fish, where can these problems come from?

[moorediddy]

bump... i'd like to hear answers to this as well.

[dafullerman]

I hope this helps.....I work here at one of the LFS and here is one of my experiences. The LFS saltwater expert (20 + yrs) noticed a white "streak" on one of the new clowns. A couple of days later we noticed the damn thing actually moving. Till this day we have no idea what it was, but it was a living organism almost looking like a small flatworm.

 

Anyways, the quickest and most painless way to take care of it was a fresh water dip. It took care of the problem almost instantaneously. We now do a fresh water dip on ALL new fish we get.

 

Hope this helps!!