Bad things going on in my tank

[ghost78]

Well I am not to sure what is happening in my tank, but dose not seem so good.

Last week i went and bought a Naso Tang. I got home and put it in my tank. I woke up the next morning to discover it had ick. well to make matters even worse it also had black spot disease.

well I was told that the reason it had ick was b/c of my snowflake eel snapping at it as it was going in between the rocks.

So I took the eel out and set him up in a my 26 bow front with a few pieces of live rock. (the eel also ate a goby that i got the same day as the tang so this seemed logica)

I was also instructed by LFS to up the temp and decrease the specific gravity.

So over the course of a 4 day perriod i droped from 1.023 to 1.019 and the temp is 82

well everything was great the tang started to look alot better no sighns of ick or black spot. it has been a week now since i got the tang and i woke up this morning to the tang 1000 times worse then it was last week.

it did well for about 4 days was eating every piece of alge in site.

To top it off one of my damsels just died. I mean no stress signs no ick nothing. he was fine when i left at noon today i came home at 2:30 and it was dead. My wife just said it was acting wierd last night. But it was fine this morning. i've had the damsel for about 7 months.

nitrates are 10
clacum is 400
hardness is 11-12

what should i do?
any suggestions?

[xfactor]

setup a QT tank, put the tang in it and every other fish you have and put .5ppm of copper in the tank let it run for 14 days, then put carbon in the tank to take out the copper, leave the fish in there another 4 weeks, and then the ick should be gone and your main tank should be ick free as well.

[DaveJohnson]

I suggest finding a new LFS. :) FWIW, I'd drop the temp to under 80 and increase the SG to where you previously had it.

Ich goes through lifecycles and it can appear, for periods, that your fish does not have ich but that's just because the ich is not in a stage of it's life where it's on the fish (vastly oversimplied but that's it in a nutshell)

Check out this link, ATJ has lots of good info on ich:
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

Cheers,
Dave Johnson

[staticfishmonger]

the tang probably had ick before being put in your tank it is just now showing up. it also sounds like the hypo-salinity didnt work to well and the ick still multiplied. i would agree with xfactor its time to use a more powerfull method..copper. monitor the levels and keep them at 5ppm like mentioned above leave all the fish out of the main display for 6 weeks this allows any parisites in the tank to die off as they cant live without a host for long. also maintaining high water quality and a good diet for your fish can help keep them from contracting disease. the best medicine is prevention. but somtimes as quoted by forest gump $@*% happens. good luck and hopefully everyone else will survive.

[ghost78]

well I just found out that the tank has been at 1.021 not 1.019 my specific gravity meter was off. So I gave the fish a fresh water bath about an hour and a half ago. So much came off of him it looked like bubbles. He really did not get stressed.

I took him out and put him in the 26 gallon by him self ( I am crossing my fingers for the clown and teh Pj cardinal b/c i could not get them out.

Well initially he looked better but now he has bteh white spots all over him agian. wehn should i do the next dip?

I appreciate the idea of the cooper, but I want to give the fresh water dips a chance. since apparently it was not hyposalinity and the disapearance of the ick was the life cycle.

now my next question can an eel get ick?

[thedude]

There are some that don't believe the freshwater dips are all that effective. Mainly because the ich burrows into the fish to the point to where the freshwater doesn't reach them.

The best treatments are supposed to be copper and hyposalinity. For hyposalinity to work you need to bring your levels down to 1.009, which is significantly lower than what you did.

Garlic added to the fishes food also seems to help, although no one can really say why. I've used garlic myself and the ich did go away. It's anecdotal evidence, but hell if it works do it. There are also some theories on using fresh ginger as well or in combination with the garlic.

If nothing else you've just marinated your fish from the inside ;)

[Mariner]

Sorry, but FW dips alone will not cure ich if you're putting the fish back in a tank that has the ich parasite in any stage of its life cycle. If you want to save these fish, set up the Hospital/QT, and go with a good copper treatment of two weeks (as mentioned above). Keep the fish in QT for at least another two weeks, and let your main tank remain fishless for the entire 4 week period (at least, maybe longer) -- removing the fish "hosts" from your main tank will cause all the ich parasites to die out (takes about 30 days usually). In the future, QT every fish for at least two weeks before adding it to your main display.
I know this is painful, but take it from someone who has been there, it's the way to go.
HTH,
Mariner

[wsg]

Are you sure about ich if you seen alot of stuff come from the fish during a freshwater dip and have had sudden deaths in your tank check out this thread hth
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=334948

[Roadie]

I'm sure putting the Naso in a 75 didn't help either. Anthing less than 180 is generally frowned upon for this fish. I know because it's my favorite and I won't even try to keep it in a 120.

[ghost78]

well it died last night some time. so sad

I just don't know what I did wrong. I brought the fish home and aclimated it for about an hour. I notcied one black spot on it after it was in the tank about an hour or so. Then the next morning it was covered in ICH.

I still can't get the other two fish out of the Main tank, so they are going to have to fend for them selves. I just hope they are strong enough.

SAD SAD day, chaulk up three fish in under a week
(one to the eel, but I should have seen that comming, guess I just can't trust my LFS they obviosly are in it to make a $$$)

Also i noticed something else on the glass there i are a bunch of white dots when i looked at them with a maginifying glass they are little bugs almost look like fleas. Are these the ich parasite waiting to prey on my unsuspecting fish?

also can a snowflake eel get ich?

[kansas1051]

You should have listened to what everyone said above. you need to QT your fish before you introduce them into your tank, and the only way to save your remaining fish is to put them in a QT and treat with copper or hyposalinity.

[DaveJohnson]

Originally posted by kansas1051
and the only way to save your remaining fish is to put them in a QT and treat with copper or hyposalinity.
That's hardly certain, they may survive just fine on their own. I had ich in my 100 gal about 4 years ago when I was starting out. Lost 1 fish but no fish has displayed signs of ich since and I certainly did neither copper nor hyposalinity to the remaining fish. Does that mean the ich is gone? Probably not, but all of the fish are healthy enough to keep it at bay.

Cheers,
Dave Johnson

[ghost78]

I wanted to thank you all for you advice. I am definatly going to quarintine any new fish but this really dose not help:

"You should have listened to what everyone said above. you need to QT your fish before you introduce them into your tank, and the only way to save your remaining fish is to put them in a QT and treat with copper or hyposalinity."

I understand that the question seemes redundant since the suggestion was to qurintine the fish which makes total sence. But what did I do wrong with aclimating the fish?

[nanocat]

What they are suggesting is that you acclimate and put new arrivals in a separate QT tank (not your display tank) for a few weeks so you can see them well, and if they happen to get sick you can treat them easily.

[kansas1051]

Originally posted by DaveJohnson
That's hardly certain, they may survive just fine on their own. I had ich in my 100 gal about 4 years ago when I was starting out. Lost 1 fish but no fish has displayed signs of ich since and I certainly did neither copper nor hyposalinity to the remaining fish. Does that mean the ich is gone? Probably not, but all of the fish are healthy enough to keep it at bay.

Cheers,
Dave Johnson

ill agree that its possible for fish to survive an ich outbreak without any sort of intervention, even if they show signs of infection. Its also possible for a tang to live in a 5 gallon tank, but it doesnt mean its a good idea. I've lost all my fish to ick before, so thats why im sensitive to the subject of what works. The only sure way to 'cure' a tank of ich is to remove all fish from the tank and treat them in QT.

[DaveJohnson]

Originally posted by kansas1051
ill agree that its possible for fish to survive an ich outbreak without any sort of intervention, even if they show signs of infection. Its also possible for a tang to live in a 5 gallon tank, but it doesnt mean its a good idea.
Think of immunity and resistance to things like disease (though ich is not a disease) For example, ich is in the ocean but not all of the fish in the ocean are dying from it.
Originally posted by kansas1051
The only sure way to 'cure' a tank of ich is to remove all fish from the tank and treat them in QT.
No doubt, but that's hardly the same thing as saying the remaining fish are as good as dead if they're not QT'd.

Note that I'm not saying QT is a bad idea, in fact it's a good one. I just don't believe it's absolutely essential for the survival of these remaining fish, they may be just fine on their own.

Cheers,
Dave Johnson