Having NO luck with fish..

[SteelerMike]

Well, I added 3 new fish to my tank a week and half ago (royal gramma, six line wrasse and a yellow tang) and 2 died in 2 days and the third one (the tang) now has ich
I'm pretty sure I caused the trouble as I panicked last week when I thought my salinity had shot to 1.030 and topped of 5 gallons of fresh ro water only to realize my refractometer was off and dropped my salinity to 1.021, plus didn't realize I needed to put marine buffer in fresh ro water so made a big swing in my ph as well. Total newb mistake but I am pretty disheartened.
Now I am torn about wehether I should try to catch the tang and put him in a hsopital tank and treat him or see if he fights through it. He is eating well and still active. I also have a bicolor blenny in the tank who seems fine. Any advice?
On a positive note, the corals are all doing well.

[laxb0rder]

Im new at this also but from what I've read so far if your tang has ich your probably going to want to take him out of your display tank to somewhere you can watch him and control the ich keeping it out of your tank. And with the salinity issue it probably would have been better to add the fresh water slowly then all at once even if the salinity had been high. However Im not speaking from experience just from what i have gathered from reading on here and other places.

Im sure someone with more experience will chime in. (And thats probably just about everyone here)

[SteelerMike]

I agree. I panicked and realize that now. I actually pulled out and cleaned a 20g tank I have in case I want to treat him. I'm just concerned that chasing him around a 125g tank to catch him may cause him even more stress and cause his demise. I'm going to buy the medicine on the way home so that I have it if I need it. Just wondering if others have had success in feeding garlic enriched food and having the fish fight it off.

[laxb0rder]

If there is a petsmart by you try there for ich treatment they have had huge sales in there saltwater section the past week or so trying to clear it out for new stuff i remember seeing something for ich treatment like 80% off.

[mtc1966]

if it the only fish left i would just treat it in your tank since your tank already has ich in it. no need to stress it out again. j.m.o

[Pallobi]

research quarantining methods... and follow... people who dont QT, usually deal with issues like yours...

you can not treat in tank if their are anything else but fish in there... you will now have to go fallow in your display/main system (fishless) for 8 weeks, and do proper FULL LENGTH qt for any new arrivals, if you never wana deal with these issues again...

GL...

[Captainfester]

Originally Posted by mtc1966

if it the only fish left i would just treat it in your tank since your tank already has ich in it. no need to stress it out again. j.m.o

any treatment (that works aka hypo / copper ) will nuke the other life in the tank.

best advice i can give you is QT all your purchases. take all fish from DT and treat / QT while tank sits fallow ( empty ) for 8-10 weeks. 8 is min and iffy, 10 is more or less the best gtee you can get in this hobby.

I believe Pallobi has a very strict QT procedure, maybe he can chime in as well. ( see above )

GL with the fish

[SteelerMike]

Originally Posted by Captainfester

any treatment (that works aka hypo / copper ) will nuke the other life in the tank.

best advice i can give you is QT all your purchases. take all fish from DT and treat / QT while tank sits fallow ( empty ) for 8-10 weeks. 8 is min and iffy, 10 is more or less the best gtee you can get in this hobby.

I believe Pallobi has a very strict QT procedure, maybe he can chime in as well. ( see above )

GL with the fish

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I just don't know how the heck I will get them out, especially the blenny, he basically sits inside the rocks, when I bought him the guy the the fish store actually took his rock out of the water and waited for him to fall into the bag!

[SteelerMike]

If I use this tank to treat these fish, can I then use the same tank for QTing down the road (assuiming I don't use the same water)?

[Pallobi]

Yes...

[Chriskid]

y r you useing a buffer? what kind of salt?

[SteelerMike]

I have been using instant ocean. I bought a 200 gallon box when I first started. When I use that up, I will switch to a reef crystal, I din't really know any better at the time. I haven't really been puting buffer in the salt mix, but I was told that I should add buffer to the fresh ro water top offs because ro water has a ph of around 6 and it will slowly lower your ph.

[Collinrb]

pure water with nothing else but H20 (which i assume is what is coming out of your RODI) would have a pH of 7

[Chriskid]

Originally Posted by SteelerMike

I have been using instant ocean. I bought a 200 gallon box when I first started. When I use that up, I will switch to a reef crystal, I din't really know any better at the time. I haven't really been puting buffer in the salt mix, but I was told that I should add buffer to the fresh ro water top offs because ro water has a ph of around 6 and it will slowly lower your ph.

no, if you mix instant ocean, and leave it overnight it should be right on. im not a fan of buffer,also mrs wages pickilng lime will bring the ph up in tank if need be but a new tank with the use of an alk,cal(a.b) is all you should realy need. you will have nothing but trouble with buffer.

[SteelerMike]

Originally Posted by Chriskid

no, if you mix instant ocean, and leave it overnight it should be right on. im not a fan of buffer,also mrs wages pickilng lime will bring the ph up in tank if need be but a new tank with the use of an alk,cal(a.b) is all you should realy need. you will have nothing but trouble with buffer.

I do usually let the mix sit in a trash can with a powerhead overnight. It was a lfs that told me that adding 5 gallons of ro water to my tank had probably shocked the new fish and caused them to die and recomended I use a buffer for my freshwater topoffs. He tested my water and noticed that my ph was low (about 7.8) and thus gave me the advice. he didn't try to sell me the buffer so I took it for good advice. Just really frustrtating as I have been blaming these 3 fishes fate on myself and that addition of the water, but in hindsight, I got 3 fish that day and now 2 are dead and one is very sick..maybe just a bad batch of fish? Either way, the QT tank is being set up to try to save this one and QT all incoming fish...lesson learned I guess.

[dMarina]

Adding 5 g of R/O probably made the temp drop. Depending on thr size of your tank, that could be the culprit. 1.021 is not drastically low. In fact if you ask at most LFS they keep the salinity low [1.019] to prevent Ick. QT is your best bet tho.

[scotties82]

Dont use buffer!

[scotties82]

i have had fish with ich and lowered salinity and would feed more than usually to try tp keep them happy, put some seeweed with a clip for the tang so he can eat whenever he wants. dont know what else is in your tank but i have a cleaner wrase and cleaner shrimp, definitly will help if the fish let them clean them up

[SteelerMike]

Originally Posted by scotties82

i have had fish with ich and lowered salinity and would feed more than usually to try tp keep them happy, put some seeweed with a clip for the tang so he can eat whenever he wants. dont know what else is in your tank but i have a cleaner wrase and cleaner shrimp, definitly will help if the fish let them clean them up

This was my original thought, but after researching the life cyle of ich, it seems like it will only come back stronger if it goes untreated. He is still lively and eating and still no signs on the blenny. I am going to set up the tank and monitor closely. If he gets worse i will treat him in the QT.

[SteelerMike]

Originally Posted by dMarina

Adding 5 g of R/O probably made the temp drop. Depending on thr size of your tank, that could be the culprit. 1.021 is not drastically low. In fact if you ask at most LFS they keep the salinity low [1.019] to prevent Ick. QT is your best bet tho.

It was almost the same temp as the tank. I was thinking it was the drastic change in salinity and ph that may have caused it. It's a 125g tank, so not sure how much 5 gallons does....

[osrascom]

I remember reading somewhere that ich is in everyones tank. but certain things in the water will make it grow. What condition were the fish when you got them. At the LFS were they swimming well, did the salesman feed them in front of you.?121 salinity isnt low enough to harm the fish(some stores keep their level at 118 0r 120 to help keeping parasites away)If the fish are acclimated to the temp of the water, a 75 and up wouldn't affect the water enough to bother the fish.

[frankyrivera]

2 liter coke bottle fish trap stop feeding lace a piece of nori rubberbanded to a rock place inside bottle wait until tang goes in and pull bottle up assuming u attached some fishing line to the bottle to pull it out. Good luck

[Reefir]

IMO, let it ride and feed well , its a touchy subject . and dont make silly mistakes like that , everything has to be done slowly , quick change in sg is tough on the fish , if it was done slow you might have been ok . we all know a qt is important . if u dont qt every frag , rock , fish then dont waste your time qting . good luck

[norrin_radd]

Mike, I had Ich, found this stuff that was recommended to me by very reputable reefers. Microbelift. Now a lot of people say it is just snake oil. I used it it worked, so IMO it works. Although making sure the fish keep eating by using some garlic in the food helps. I read Ich post's and sticky's for DAYS. Ich is in the tank, for the most part. it DOES need a host to survive, like fleas, the eggs die the cycle breaks and it goes "away" But when a fish is stressed out it will lose its ability to fight off the parasite (Cleaner shrimp can't clean ich BTW).
There are TONS of posts about it, do some research on it and see what you can come up with. I think we ALL have had it. I also do not Q anything, mostly cause I am probably lazy. only had one issue (KNOCK KNOCK) And am pretty diligent in my husbandry...
Keep the fish healthy and well fed and no stress and ich is usually well contained. ONE YEAR and on incident. THE MICROBELIFT is worth a shot. No skimmer for 10 days and I was golden. I am SURE there are going to becrits against this, but hey, dont mind, I had great results.

Salt: I would stay away from Reef Crystals, only cause all I have been told. the batches on that stuff never come out the same, and you might get different #s on params every time you buy it. of course there are people who use it and love it so. MY best results came(COME) from Red Sea salt, not the pro just the regular salt. ask around, but the more people you ask, the more different choices you will be stuck with.

Buffer: NO. I sometimes test my PH but there are not many reliable PH test kits out there, and I was also told, again by REPUTABLE REEFERS, that testing PH leads to chasing PH and CHASING ph leads to chasing alk and that leads to chasing PH. LOL I never worried about PH and have never had a problem. ALK CA and MAG are my only concerns, that and Ammonia and nitrate of course. (dont test for nitrite but maybe once a month. never a problem.
Sorry this was so long, but I remember my first few months and all the issues, and all the posts. we are ALL in this together so, listen, and RESEARCH. the only problems are information overload, but you get used to it. Good luck.....

[SteelerMike]

Thanks for all the responses guys. I set up the QT tank last night but did not put the fish in there yet. The tang definitely has a good amount of ich, but he is still eating etc, so I will monitor him, and if he gets worse I will try to treat him in the QT tank. I will look into that product Norrinradd. I agree, there is a TON of info out there and many different opinions. I'm just trying to go slowly because I think it was my quick reaction (over reaction really) that I think started all of this.