New & Need Help...

[Sweetp]

Hi everyone.. I have a 55 gal tank. We started the tank last Saturday with Live sand and salt water. The LFS also sold us 2 clowns and 2 cardinals.. the cardinals died within 24 hours of putting them in the tank! We brought the fish back and they traded us for one spotfin butterfly (yellow/white/black spots on the top and tail).

We then figured after some further reading and forum searching...that the shop didn't give us correct info on getting the fish before cycling the tank. We went to a new shop.. where they sold us a 10 gal hospital tank.. and 40lbs of live rock.. we have that in the tank now with the fish. They are all doing good except one of the clowns appears to have white fuzzy stuff on it's gills and underside.. so we got the meds for it..

We have the 10 gal set up now with water (set 1.010 salinity) we have not transferred the sick fish yet.. question is this... should we move all the fish into this tank and treat them all??? We are figuring that this would get the fish out of harms way while the 55gal finishs cycling with the rock in it.. but not sure if all the fish would be safe in the medicated hospital tank.

Any help or suggestions are much appreciated!!

Thanks!

 

[Grins704]

Sorry to hear you've dealt with a bad store.

Ideally you'd quarantine all new live stock for a few weeks before placing them in your display tank. What you do now depends on what your fish have. When you researched what meds to give what did you treat for and what did you treat with? Some illnesses such as ich require that you move all the fish to a hospital tank. Others don't require that.

 

[Sweetp]

it's treatment for clown disease.. although both clowns are very very active and constanly all over the tank investigating.. so it's only showing the signs of having crap on it's gills.

I guess i'm just wondering if i should move all the fish out of the new tank and into the smaller new tank for their safty while the live rock is only 2 days new in a tank that is only 1 week new.

 

[Brian5000]

I think fuzzy stuff (not Ich) is an opportunistic fungus affecting your stressed out fish. I don't think it will affect healthy fish. Move your affected fish to the hospital tank right away, but don't forget to acclimate it to hypotonic conditions you have there.

When you bought your live rock, did the fish store owner say whether it was fully cured (cured: cycled and ready for fish)? If he did, then your other fish will hopefully be fine. Otherwise, they may be in for more stress.

Test your ammonia daily and it might help you to do a 10% water change in your aquarium every couple days (more if the ammonia test is positive) for the next few weeks. That will help ensure your fish stay relatively healthy while your tank is settling in. I find it also helps to fan off the rocks with your hand or a turkey baster and suck up what floats off during water changes. In my aquarium, critters pushed out all the dead crud from deep inside my rocks at night. It was a fairly regular process for about a month, and I think it helped me a lot not to let that stuff sit in my aquarium and rot.
_________________
BMW M Coupe

 

[ihopss]

You need to bring your salinity up to 1.022 ,1.026

 

[Sweetp]

in my main big tank 55gal, the salinity is 1.024... i was under the impression that the hospital tank had to be much lower to kill this fuzz he's got?

 

[cindre2000]

Hyposalinity is good for killing parasites and reducing the stress of ill fish. You are correct to have you sg low.

 

[IslandCrow]

That clownfish may also have Brooklynella (although it may just be fungus like Brian5000 said). What are you using to treat it. Antibiotics are best for fungus, but a Formalin dip is the best treatment for Brook. Do a search for Brooklynella to see if your fish's symptoms match. Hopefully, that's not what it is, since the diagnosis is generally grim.
That first LFS certainly did you a huge disservice, and I'd never go back there again if I were you. No one should ever sell you a tank and fish at the same time. That's just irresponsible (and dishonest).
One last thing. What are you using to check your salinity. With hyposalinity treatment, you're right on the edge of what's safe long term for the fish. If you're using an uncalibrated hydrometer, your SG is probably not what you think it is. A refractometer is a better tool to use, but whichever one you use, it should be calibrated with a solution of known salinity. If you don't have an accurate tool for measuring SG, I would actually advise against keeping the SG that low. Unfortunately, that will negate the treatment for parasites, but it will still make it easier for the fish to osmoregulate (that is, keep a balance between the SG of the water inside vs. outside their body), which is a plus for the overall stress on the fish.

Anyway, take this for what it's worth. I only have about 2 years in the hobby, but I've dealt with a couple sick fish in the past and hopefully learned from both my successes and my failures.

 

[Sweetp]

Happy to report that the clowns are still alive. They are in the 20 gal hospital tank.. the new LFS said that they are just stressed and have a cottony virus?? This would sort of make sense.. because they are very active little guys.. swimming.. eating.. loving life..just have cotton ball looking things on their gills and tails.. they said to take this off manually and it should not reappear??

Secondly.. our main tank has cycled All the water parameters have tested in perfect range.. so we got a cleaner crew to eat up the diatom bloom that is on the live sand and rocks.. (it's not very bad compaired to some of the pictures i've seen) We got hermits and snails and a brittle star today.. they are eating and cleaning like crazy!!!

Question for you guys... the first fish store sold us an Ehiem canister filter ($150).. which after reading all over this forum.. i'm seeing that it might be a bad investment and that we should have just gotten a protein skimmer.
Could someone please explain the differences/ benefits / advise on why one over the other?

and what is this? http://www.ecoaqualizer.com/aquarium.htm

 

[SnowManSnow]

the bottom line is that there is no way you should be treating fish at this point, because there's no way you should HAVE fish at this point.

I think a little more information on your setup would be helpful.

1) Are you going for a Fish only with LR tank?

2) How are your purifying your water?

As far as the fish go, i would take them back for credit at the store. Honestly it would be AMAZING if your tank has cycled in only 1 week!

Skimming is the way to go IMO. In most cases LR and a GOOD skimmer provides adequate filtration. I think the biggest concern with using canister filters in marine aquariums is that they have to constantly be cleaned in order to keep them from becoming a nitrate factory. Skimming is simply much more effective, and easier to maintain than mechanical filtration is.

When you do look into skimming i would STRONGLY recommend AGAINST a prism or seaclone. If you are looking for a HOT skimmer (hang on tank) i WOULD STRONGLY recommend an AquaC Remora with a MJ1200 pump. . IF you have room for a sump or want to run an external skimmer in your sump area i WOULD STRONGLY recommend an octopus skimmer (what I have now). You can find them both at www.premiumaquatics.com (GREAT STORE WITH GREAT CS). There are more expensive ones out there, but for the buck these seem to be a few of the best deals around IMO.

If I had anything else to say here I would say go slow. It's much better to spend a little more, go a litter slower, and save a LOT of heartache and wasted $$ down the road.

Hope this post helps get you started!

GOOD LUCK! oh... when you get a BROWN DIATOM ALGAE BLOOM in a few weeks don't freak out. It will eventually go away on it's own.

B

 

[Sweetp]

We set up the tank on July 7th.

The tank has cycled. Water went thru all stages (ammonia>nitrite>nitrate) Readings have been testing perfect for over a week. (home test and LFS) We started getting brown diatom bloom about 5 days ago. Hence the cleaning crew that is now in the tank as of this morning. (hermit crabs absolutely love the brown dust on our live sand!!)

We have:

55 gallon tank
Ehiem Canister filtration system.
2 powerheads
Heater
Coralife Compact Florescent 48" 4 10,000K
(white and blue with night time lunar)
40lbs of live sand
40lbs of live rock.

Readings in tank are:
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: Trace/ under 20
Ph: 8.0
Temperature: 79 degrees
SG: 1.024

We have a 20 gallon QT/ Hospital Tank with lots of fun PVC pipes with 2 clowns.. they are cute and small and love it in there. The reason I have fish is due to the fact that the first store we went to sold us fish right off the bat.. full story in previous posts in this thread.

I'm just trying to see whether we should get a skimmer or stick with the cannister that we just shelled out money on.. the fish store we went to sucked.. we are not going back.. using another store we found that is awesome. Today they wouldn't even give us crabs/snails til they tested the water we brought in.

 

[IslandCrow]

There are a lot of different interpretations out there for what it means for a tank to cycle. As far as I'm concerned, my tank was probably cycling for 4-5 months. Even if your ammonia and nitrites are undetectable, it doesn't mean your tank has reached biological balance. Does that mean you should wait 4 months before adding fish or inverts to your tank? Ideally, perhaps, but probably not realistic. You'll hear it a hundred times, but it's good advice. Take things slowly.

It sounds like the clownfish have some sort of fungal infection. Antibiotics may be in order. Maracyn is a good product, though I can't remember off-hand whether you want the gram postive or gram negative variant (look on the back, and it should mention fungal infections for one of them). If they're eating and look otherwise healthy, they'll probably be able to ride it out, but I, personally, would treat them now rather than trying to catch up with it later. I don't think fungal infections are generally lethal, but I can only imagine it must be uncomfortable at the very least. If you do decide to treat, you'll definitely want to do it in the hospital tank.

I would definitely invest in a skimmer. That, along with the live rock, is really all you need for filtration. Canister filters are great for running carbon or doing a little water polishing with a micron filter, so you may want to keep it, especially if the store won't take it back. I have one, but I only use it one week out of the month at most. The protein skimmer is used 24/7.

I'm glad you found a good fish store. They can be tough to find. It sounds like you got to learn a couple lessons the hard way because of the first one you went to. Hopefully things run a little smoother for you from here on out. Keep asking questions and doing your homework, and this will be a very rewarding hobby.