250 Gallon room-divider project log - Page 32

jeffbrig · #**776** 09/19/2005, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ah64av8tor
Jeff
I have 7 RBTAs if you are interested in makeing a trip to Tampa. I got 1 two years ago (also tank raised) and it has split every 4 months since. My skunks love them but my Ocellaris haven't gone near them.

Greg

Thanks Greg, I may take you up on that. My wife and I are season pass holders at Busch Gardens, and we'll probably take a trip over there one weekend after the weather cools off a bit.

Have you ever tried encouraging the oscellaris clowns to host with an anemone in a separate tank? I've heard of using egg crate to partition them into a smaller and smaller area until they find the anemone. I am thinking of trying this before I migrate them into the display.

jeffbrig · #**777** 09/19/2005, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by captbunzo
What sort of biological filter are you using in the QT tank?

Actually, one of the oft-ridiculed biowheel filters.

They do a great job converting ammonia and nitrite, but can't do anything beyond that. So, they're basically junk for a reef tank, but can do great things for a QT. You just have to maintain reasonable nitrate levels with water changes.

I floated the wheels in my tank's sump for a few weeks, then set up the QT with the filter. When I filled it with tank water, I even siphoned some detritus off the bottom of the sump to provide a source of ammonia to help mature the filter. It seems to have worked. While I didn't measure the ammonia early enough to see the initial spike, I did measure nitrite near 5ppm one day last week, and by Saturday it had dropped to .025ppm (low range Salifert). That proves that something is definitely happening.

I also saved the last batch of used carbon from my display, and loaded that into the baskets in the back of the hang-on filter. While it probably isn't effective for absorption, it also harbors some bacteria, so I figured it couldn't hurt to throw it in there.

wonrib00 · #**778** 09/19/2005, 12:49 PM

Jeff,
I have to disagree with you on one thing. You said that you wouldn't have to acclimate the tang or clowns to the main display tank. Unless you are feeding the QT with water straight from the main display tank every second of the day, the water chemisty will be different from one tank to the next, even though you are using the same water. I have had some experiance with the ichmagnet tangs, and the least amount of stress is best, as you know. You may still want to do a drip aclimation for the clowns and the tang...just a thought.

eidillitih · #**779** 09/19/2005, 12:56 PM

Well jeffbrig, I lost everything. Coral, Fish and inverts.. Didn't get any water in the house though so I was bless in that sense. I've began cooking my rock and will be setting up my 210 in about six weeks.

Starting over can be exciting in a sense able to make some corrections. I'm going to add about 2000 gph flow behind my rocks given me about 35X the flow in the tank.

Good luck

mcdonaldtj · #**780** 09/19/2005, 01:05 PM

eidillitih

I am sorry about your loss to the tank, one question can you claim it on your insurance? I am concidering getting renters insurance here because of how many fires we have been having and I am going to include my tanks.

V/Tim

eidillitih · #**781** 09/19/2005, 01:12 PM

No you can't claim it but I have heard of people geting a type of rider insurance that does cover it. I have to find out and let you know.

jeffbrig · #**782** 09/19/2005, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wonrib00
Jeff,
I have to disagree with you on one thing. You said that you wouldn't have to acclimate the tang or clowns to the main display tank. Unless you are feeding the QT with water straight from the main display tank every second of the day, the water chemisty will be different from one tank to the next, even though you are using the same water.

Agreed. If I suggested that no acclimiation would be needed, I misspoke. But I expect it to be a shorter acclimation process than if the tangs came from an outside tank with very different parameters.

jeffbrig · #**783** 09/19/2005, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by eidillitih
Well jeffbrig, I lost everything. Coral, Fish and inverts.. Didn't get any water in the house though so I was bless in that sense. I've began cooking my rock and will be setting up my 210 in about six weeks.

Starting over can be exciting in a sense able to make some corrections.

Great attitude! I'm sorry to hear about your losses, but at the same time it sounds like you were very lucky with everything else making it through ok. Best of luck getting things up and running as soon as possible!

Ah64av8tor · #**784** 09/19/2005, 02:02 PM

Jeff,

This is my first experience with hosting clowns in anemones, but the technique sounds like it would work.

My girlfriend has been taking care of my tank since my reserve unit was activated in Jan 04, the first year I only got home one weekend a month so I really donâ€™t have that much experience with it, but she has been keeping everything under control so Iâ€™m sure that you wonâ€™t have any trouble. I got the RBTA from a friend (who is helping take care of the tank now) in trade for some stuff that I couldnâ€™t leave in the 65g while I was gone.

It was a few months after we got the RBTA and the Ocellaris still wouldnâ€™t go near it. We saw some skunks at Fish and Other Ichty Things burring themselves in a RBTA and my girlfriend had to have them. I have only seen the tank a few times since the Skunks hosted in the RBTAs, and havent seen it in a year. I canâ€™t imagine what 7 RBTAs look like in a 65

Ill be getting home around thanksgiving (wahoooooo!), it has been a long 21 months. If you can wait, you are welcome to one of the RBTAs.

Ill be starting up my 150 again when I get home and might call you for some insight on things I have missed in the last 2 years.

I have been following this thread since the start and you have done a fantastic job! Keep up the good work.

Greg

jeffbrig · #**785** 09/21/2005, 12:09 AM

Ah, the fun continues....

I tried giving the fish a few days to settle in before dropping the sg on them. This afternoon I noticed a little white speck on the tang, which I guess was somewhat expected. By this evening, a few more were appearing. So, time to move ahead with medicating for ich. My wife noticed the smaller clown was also looking less than perfect as well. The good news is, all of the fish are still swimming around the tank and have good appetites. I tested ammonia and still register nothing on the test kit. Temp and sg have been stable. In short, I'm chalk this one up to stress, since there are no visible water quality problems.

So, we decided to give all 3 fish a formalin dip. We made quick trip to the LFS, but they didn't have any straight formalin medications. We ended up with Rid-Ich, which is mostly formalin with a little malachite green. I didn't really want to treat the entire 55 long-term, so we decided to mix up a dip formula. We found some info on another message board that suggested 2mL of Rid-Ich per gallon was a good strength for a dip. The works out to be virtually identical in strength to the formalin dip Steven Pro recommends in his RK article on ich, so we gave it a shot. We mixed up the dip solution using some tank water in a 5 gal bucket. Each fish spent 15 minutes in the dip, then a quick rinse in a bucket of clean tank water, then went back into the QT. As smoothly as this went, I may start using this as standard procedure for introducing new fish.

I also picked up a bottle of Garlic Guard (seachem's garlic extract product) at the LFS, and I'll start soaking some food in that.
We're also accelerating our plan to drop the salinity down to 1.09, from our usual 1.026.

I'm trying to figure out exactly how to maintain pH as I drop the salinity. I understand that the key is to buffer the RO/DI water that you're putting in. I read another post suggesting 1 tsp of baking soda per 2 gallons of RO/DI. That sounded like a lot to me, but I had nothing else to go on. It mixed up to a pH of 8.55, but when I added it to the tank, the tank's pH actually went down a little bit. It was 7.88, and fell to 7.81 when the water was added. Since then, it seems to have crept up to 7.83 while the lights are off. If anybody has any insight into what's going on here, I'd love to hear it. I also have a thread over in the chemistry forum, so we'll figure something out.

NexDog · #**786** 09/21/2005, 07:19 AM

I used to try and maintain teh PH but don't bother anymore. I have a clown, 5 chromis and a blue tang in QT at 1.009 at the 5 week mark now with PH really low and they are fine. The blue tang has grown ONE INCH in the 5 weeks in QT. It was a little 1" baby when I got and smaller than all the other fish but now it's the biggest. I'll go test the PH now.

NexDog · #**787** 09/21/2005, 07:23 AM

PH in there is 7.4 and the fish are fine and thriving.

jeffbrig · #**788** 09/21/2005, 08:25 AM

Thanks for the info NexDog, good to know.

How quickly did you drop the sg down to 1.009? This is my first time playing around with hyposalinity, so I'm a little bit tentative.

I've gave the fish formula 2 pellets and Nori that were soaked in Selcon and Garlic Guard. Everyone had at least some food, so that's a good sign (especially considering I was just in their tank freaking them out by siphoning detritus and changing water). They're down to 1.017 right now, I'll throw another bucket of RO/DI in there before I leave for work. Then another change this evening.

NexDog · #**789** 09/21/2005, 08:42 AM

I normally do it over 4 days - dropping to 1.021 first, then to 1.017, then to 1.012 and finally to 1.009. I bring the salinity back up slower though - normally a week or 8 days. The osmotic shock is worse going up than down.

jeffbrig · #**790** 09/21/2005, 08:50 AM

I've heard essentially the same thing. Quicker going down, but no more than .002 a day on the way back up. I found this article last night, which recommended changing out 25% of the water with RO/DI every 12 hours. After 48 hours you're pretty close, and can fine tune the next day as needed.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...osalinity.html

wimplefish · #**791** 09/21/2005, 08:55 AM

Just started reading this thread very helpfull info place a very nice setup made my wife look over this nows shes letting me get a 125 thank you jeffbrig for all the info on your thread once again nice setup

jeffbrig · #**792** 09/21/2005, 08:58 AM

Thanks, and glad I could help (with the 125)!

NexDog · #**793** 09/21/2005, 08:59 AM

Yea, I normally do about 20% and drag it out a bit. Not all fish can take the short trip down to hypo. Better to be same than sorry. Basically the whole chore takes 2 months due the drop and then the raising. I've done it 3 times now with fantastic result. No deaths and no Ich in the tank. Before hypo/QT I think I killed 2 out 3 fish. Lost clowns to brook, others to Ich, others to poor acclimatision. QT and hypo is the only way to go. Takes time but the rewards and benefits are immense.

JustOneMoreTank · #**794** 09/21/2005, 06:01 PM

Thanks everyone for the talk about QT, Hypo, and Ich treatment using dips in the Rid-Ich. Excellent information for me.

Keeping the fish in QT for so long is going to be difficult to explain to the wife but I think that it will be worth it for the tanks long term.

jeffbrig · #**795** 09/21/2005, 11:22 PM

No problem, it's a learning experience for everyone (myself included). My wife didn't understand the length for the QT either. Once we started seeing the ich spots, she read up on it too, and is completely on board with everything now.

Everyone is still doing well in the QT. They ate a lot of food today, which is always good. The tang finally found the nori clip I left in there this morning. The sg is down to 1.013, I'll lower it a little bit tomorrow morning, then finish getting to 1.009 tomorrow evening. I never done hypo before, and I continue to be amazed by the relaxed behavior of the fish. They really don't seem to be bothered by the changes at all.

After the buffered water addition last night, pH is at a healthy 8.15, and ammonia is still way below .25ppm on my Salifert kit. I can't believe the difference made by seasoning the bio wheels in the display tank's sump. I didn't even run the filter, just submerged the wheels so the filter pleats could slime up and become colonized with bacteria.

jeffbrig · #**796** 09/22/2005, 09:41 AM

We're just a hair over 1.010. I'll change out another bucket tonight to get it down to 1.009.

I just went to put some more nori in the tank, and broke the plastic clip. Only the 2nd time I've tried to use it, and it breaks.

jeffbrig · #**797** 09/22/2005, 11:20 PM

And we're now down to 1.009.

The bigger clown looks great (as always). The tang has a few light spots where the ich spots are/were, but looks great otherwise.

The smaller clown seems to be struggling a bit. I can't figure out if he's suffering from ich or something else like brooklynella. He's still eating and swimming, but his fins continue to look a little ragged at the edges, and his skin seems somewhat thin/transparent compared to the other clown. I also think he's breathing faster. He got another formalin dip tonight, and is back in the tank with the others. I'll try to get a picture of him tomorrow to post here and in the fish disease forum to try to get opinions for a better diagnosis.

jeffbrig · #**798** 09/23/2005, 08:57 AM

Okay, anyone want to help diagnose this fish?

I brought home 2 clownfish last Saturday, and a tang on Sunday. They are in a 55g QT with a matured filter, ammonia levels are undetectable.

Symptoms:
increased respiration (difficulty breathing?)
ragged fin edges
spots/splotches on skin
decreased swimming (last 24 hours)
clown is still eating

Sunday:

At this point, I dismissed a little damage on the fin tips as evidence of nipping, perhaps by the bigger clown.

Today:

As of last night, the clown is still eating, but looking worse each day. Respiration seems to be getting faster and faster.

Treatment so far:
The tang in the QT has a few ich spots, so the fish are in all hyposalinity right now (1.009 sg). All 3 were given a 15 minute formalin/malachite green dip on Tuesday. The sick clown was given another 30 minute dip last night. The other fish in the tank show no signs of whatever the clown is suffering from.

My original thoughs were either ich or brooklynella, but if it were either of those, I expected that the treatments already performed would be helping.

Running out of ideas, but I would like to save this fish....I'm thinking maybe a freshwater dip to test for Amyloodinium?

Any help is appreciated,

Jeff

Psyire · #**799** 09/23/2005, 11:54 AM

I can't really help you out with the diagnosis or meds, but I did have a quesiton. Did all of these fish look perfectly fine when you bought them?

jeffbrig · #**800** 09/23/2005, 12:03 PM

Yep, or at least, so I thought at the time. In retrospect, looking closely at the clownfish pictures from Sunday, the small clown's pectoral and lower (don't know what they're called) fins are a little tattered. I did not notice that at the LFS, but it's quite possible I didn't look close enough. Needless to say, I'll look MUCH closer in the future.

My wife spoke to someone at the LFS, and they suggested it's probably brooklynella. That leaves me wondering why the formalin dips haven't been effective. The little guy did not eat this morning, to my knowledge. Picked at a little food but spit it back out. I will try some frozen foods when I get home tonight.