Puffy is dead..getting po-ed now. Need to vent before I scream!

[courtneyclv]

I am getting really upset and about to take my tank out of the window cubby and stick some nice flowers where it use to be.

Now Puffy is dead. My roomate and BF are telling me that I need to hire someone to redo my tank, take everything out and set it up fresh. They tell me that I stressed out my fish too much by putting them in the QT and that is why they die, that it is my fault.

I put them in there because my main tank has ich. I didn't know what to do so I set up a QT because that is what everyone said. I never used a QT when I added fish to the tank because my bf and roomate said I didn't need one and that will stress out the fish even more. They believe it woud be better to just add the fish straight to the display tank then to add them to a QT and then display tank.

Now they are dying in the main tank and the QT.

I don't know what to do. Should I start over? Should I give up and just stop my damn hobby that I cannnot do right?

[Ebmorri]

The first thing everyone is going to want to know are parameters. How long has the tank been up? pH, Alk, NO2 and NO3 levels? What is in your tanks? QT is always recommended so you do not introduce diseases and parasites to your tank. Live stock?

Erick

[ACBlinky]

IMO using a QT is never wrong. To try and keep stress low I have lots of PVC elbows, tees etc. in my QT where the fish can hide and I do frequent water changes.

Were you using copper, or hyposalinity to treat the ich? What were the parameters in the QT? Measurable ammonia could stress and/or kill your fish.

My advice is to take a deep breath, regroup and keep going. We've all made mistakes - I just try to learn from anything that goes wrong with my reef so it doesn't happen again. This hobby can be stressful, and it's difficult when you're getting conflicting advice, but don't let a setback ruin things for you.

[courtneyclv]

In QT, just a foxface. Par. are all at O, temp 80, ph 8.2

Look at my info to see what I have.

[hwyman]

when did you discover the ich? did the puffer die from the ich?

[Sk8r]

Just FYI, new tanks are skittish in parameters; yours seem to be good. You're doing some things right. Certain species of fish are prone to ich: certain ones are resistent. New tanks are more prone to serious outbreaks of ich than older tanks.

The resistent species are blennies and gobies. As you reconstitute your tank, you would have less trouble with a few gobies and a blenny to start with. Let the tank build around those few at first, and then consider your centerpiece fish.

To solve the present situation, let the main tank lie fallow and fishless for 8 weeks. The ich will die out there. In the meanwhile you can get some fish going in the qt tank and observe them for disease---that's one of the hardest things, to know when a fish is having trouble, when you're brand new. But *any* anomalous white rash or fuzziness of skin or fin edges, or heavy breathing, should be queried here in the forum and we'll be happy to help and suggest appropriate treatment if necessary.

After half a year of stability, and qt-ing your new fish on the way into your tank, you should be rock-solid for getting another showpiece fish. Your methods were not wrong, nor are you at fault. If it was anything, it was just being new and having a delicate fish in a new system, and not being perhaps as conversant with symptoms as you are now. Now you know what ich looks like, and hopefully how to treat it---fast. I would recommend a refractometer, as a real invaluable aid to keeping fish in qt: it's much more accurate and easier to read.

You fought an uphill battle pretty well. I wish you every success, and a much smoother next several months.

[Shagsbeard]

Sorry to hear about any loss... all I can say is that we can all learn from it. QT isn't "optional" for me anymore. It's less stressful for the fish to be QTed than it is for them to be put into a tank with all sorts of new competitors. If I were you, I'd get the firefish out and QT him too... let the tank recover. Keep your water pristine for a couple months and you'll have a great start on a new one. During that time... up the live rock in your display to at least 100 lbs. 50 lbs in an 80 gallon is really not enough to be an effective filter.

[2fishy]

I am so sorry to hear about your fish! I wouldn't give it up! I would keep with it! A lot of the members have had a lot of things go wrong before they went completely right, so although they are telling you to just give it up, I don't think I would. Especially if you enjoy having your tank despite the losses!

[hwyman]

my suggestion would be to give the remianing fish some garlic, use kents garlic oil if you can get some. When our tang came down with ich we used a small amount of crushed garlic that we mixed with the food. Garlic will help build a slime coat on the fish, healthy unstressed fish can repel ich. So best to keep the fish in QT until its healthy again, make sure to change the water in the QT as well. The life span of ich is something like 6 weeks, so if this is your only fish, leave him in the QT for 6 weeks for the ich to die off.

We dont use a QT and have had ich a couple of times when adding new fish, usally the tang got it, but he was able to get rid of it on his own. So generally i would suggest a QT for any new fish. As for the current problem, let the ich die off then if the foxface makes it put him back in. Then from now on make sure to QT any new fish. The stress in QT is minor compared to loseing all your fish due to an ich outbreak.

[Sk8r]

Garlic helps, I agree with hwyman on that matter, and rabbitfish [foxface] are capable of having ich and throwing it off with a little help; but if you have an active outbreak, you need to medicate or take the qt to hypo, [not both: choose a treatment, copper or hypo, never copper and hypo] with no pussyfooting about with garlic---a fine tonic, and a good support during trreatment, but not a complete cure for a bad case. I use it myself, and do think it helps. But a thundering case in a raw new tank---it just can't handle by itself. I'm a little suspicious that the rabbit was the original carrier of the parasite: they're good about having a mild case and then having it disappear: they generally survive. Sometimes their tankmates don't. When puffers, tangs, and clowns get it, they get it bad and don't often get over it without help.

[courtneyclv]

Wow, thanks for your info everyone. I feel better.

Ok, so this is what I am going to do..
I(If you havent read my other posts..my main tank had ich, thought it was gone, got it again. I have lost about 8 fish so far because of the ich.

Puffy and foxface had signs (puffy was worse, breathing heavily, not eating) treating with copper in the QT. Foxy is eating food soaked in garlic and that is why I believe he is doing well in the QT.)

So I will attempt to catch firefish, put in QT and continue with the copper, go fallow for 2 months...put all new fish in the 'copper' water.

Now this is my BIG question..IF the ich is out of the tank in 2 months and the QT has copper in it when new fish are Quar. then they all don't have the ich....

Lets say I put the fish in my display and the temp rises or falls, gives the fish stress again...will they get ich again???

My room temp flucuates and I want to prevent ich but even with a heater, the temp will adjust a few degrees sometimes...

[Sk8r]

Ich is a parasite. When it is dead without reproducing and finding a host, it is dead and gone. Your fish which recover may hereafter have some resistence to hosting the parasite---at least fish that have once thrown it off do not seem to be particularly susceptible. You can have a few degree temperature flux without too much trouble: chemistry fluctuations are within your control, if you test often and keep things in balance.

[courtneyclv]

So if the parasite is gone from the tank, dead in two months going fallow..and I quarantine the new fish and treat them in the QT with copper...can the ich just 'come back'?

I have read that ich can somehow survive on the fish that is in the QT but then not show spots until after you put it in the display tank?

[ralphie16]

My how everyone's memory fades!

This is the abnoxious girl who posted not too long ago about how she wants to fit all these inappropriately sized fish in too small of a small tank and how she is having all these problems with ich and other things as well.

Then when the reef central community offered help she got all defensive and thought eveyone was attacking her but it was really only in her head. Then her stupid little bf got online and started being annoying to everyone.

Wow ,we all told you how to fix your problems with your tank, you took it like we were attacking you and told everyone off. Now your back because your fish is dead, like we all told you will happen soon enough if you don't LISTEN to what all these tremendously helpful members have to say. I suggest you empty your tank now and leave it that way. Hopefully less deaths at your hands.

[Sk8r]

Courtney, there's some debate on whether a fish can be a carrier of the parasite [the gills is one place where it can live without being visible], but at very least you'll have resistent fish, if they've been through this. I can't swear you'll never see ich again, but if you do, it should be a mild case, particularly if you follow your program of qt-ing everything that comes in.

[Conceyted]

A little off topic here, but not too much. I have always read its best to keep any medication out of the quarantine tank for new fish. Is this true? I had an ich outbreak after following normal (what i thought was normal) qt procedures. I think having copper stay in my qt tank would allow for a better buffer of protection against ich and I planned on using copper on all new fish before adding them to the main display. Is there any reason I shouldnt do this?

[Nykademus]

Originally posted by ralphie16
My how everyone's memory fades!

This is the abnoxious girl who posted not too long ago about how she wants to fit all these inappropriately sized fish in too small of a small tank and how she is having all these problems with ich and other things as well.

Then when the reef central community offered help she got all defensive and thought eveyone was attacking her but it was really only in her head. Then her stupid little bf got online and started being annoying to everyone.

Wow ,we all told you how to fix your problems with your tank, you took it like we were attacking you and told everyone off. Now your back because your fish is dead, like we all told you will happen soon enough if you don't LISTEN to what all these tremendously helpful members have to say. I suggest you empty your tank now and leave it that way. Hopefully less deaths at your hands.

If you dont want to try to help, thats fine. Just dont compound the problem by making a public announcement of a personal opinion. If it has to be said, send a PM.

This is a forum for FIXING problems, not promoting them.

Then again.. maybe I should follow my own advice.

[Sk8r]

Conceyted, honestly, I wouldn't: copper is a poison, and the reason it works to kill ich is that ich is more sensitive to it [and smaller] than the fish. But it's not good for the fish. You should maintain qt for 4 weeks...be sure you give enough time for a cycle to complete and manifest. I do know that some lfs's used to use copper on all incoming fish, but it infuriated reefers, because if just a little copper drips through with your fish into the display tank it can kill specimens...you do have to watch that. The other problem is that if your specimen then shows some disease other than ich, something that needs antibiotics, then you have to get them out of the copper and start with the antibiotics, and the fish is already a little queasy from the copper treatment---

The short answer is, yes, some do use copper as a general preventative and the fish in general survive and thrive. SOme don't, for the reasons given above. If you do, watch your evaporation and be careful of levels: it's easy to overdo when maintaining a qt tank over time: the stuff gets into tank seams and glues and equipment, and tends to build up in odd places. Don't use equipment that's been coppered in any other tank.

[ralphie16]

Originally posted by Nykademus
If you dont want to try to help, thats fine. Just dont compound the problem by making a public announcement of a personal opinion. If it has to be said, send a PM.

This is a forum for FIXING problems, not promoting them.

Then again.. maybe I should follow my own advice.

Was not trying to start anything sorry. Just tell me, how many time can you tell this same person the same thing over and over again? We all told her what to do, she refuses to listen and then comes back because everything is dead. You can all waste your time if you want to but trust me, she will not listen to anything you say and will be posting again not too long from now how her new fish died again. Some people are just too blockheaded to be in his hobby.

[Conceyted]

Uhh so basically any equipment that was used with copper can no longer be used anywhere else? I have a salinity monitor and 3 of my pumps in there right now! Grrr... this cant be! Are you sure I cant thouroughly clean them and use them elsewhere. Also, after the fish come out of copper quarentine, how can I add them back to the main display in a way that avoids getting any copper they have on them into the tank.

Originally posted by Sk8r
Conceyted, honestly, I wouldn't: copper is a poison, and the reason it works to kill ich is that ich is more sensitive to it [and smaller] than the fish. But it's not good for the fish. You should maintain qt for 4 weeks...be sure you give enough time for a cycle to complete and manifest. I do know that some lfs's used to use copper on all incoming fish, but it infuriated reefers, because if just a little copper drips through with your fish into the display tank it can kill specimens...you do have to watch that. The other problem is that if your specimen then shows some disease other than ich, something that needs antibiotics, then you have to get them out of the copper and start with the antibiotics, and the fish is already a little queasy from the copper treatment---

The short answer is, yes, some do use copper as a general preventative and the fish in general survive and thrive. SOme don't, for the reasons given above. If you do, watch your evaporation and be careful of levels: it's easy to overdo when maintaining a qt tank over time: the stuff gets into tank seams and glues and equipment, and tends to build up in odd places. Don't use equipment that's been coppered in any other tank.

[Vin7250]

i gotta ask you this....i remember helping yuou out not too long ago with your tank and you said its VERY new.....when did you set this up???if its new like im thinkin then you need to just slow down.....how many fish are in this systeM???

[Sk8r]

conceyted, ask Randy in the Chemistry forum on that one to be absolutely sure: he's a pro chemist, and will give you a definitive answer, and if there is any remediation for your equipment.

What I do on fish or specimens that have been somewhere I don't want touching my main tank: I do a small water change on the main tank, divvy up the water I drew out into several intermediate 'baths' of the same temp as the tank I'm acclimating the recently qt'd fish TO, then using my hand, I sequentially dip the fish into as many as 3 'baths' on their way to the display, where I turn them loose---a second is all it takes, just diluting whatever's on them way down to non-significant. HTH. And I hope Randy has a positive answer on the majority of your equipment.

[arizona tech]

she was playing with fire when she got that foxface and was using no sick-meds, people are here to help you, and not steer you in the wrong direction,so please take a deep breath, and chaulk it up to experience, and remember nothing good happens fast in this hobby

[courtneyclv]

Hi Ralphie,
First of all, I would like to say that I really appreciate you making such a public comment about me on this board. My fiancee, which is not stupid by the way, never went online. I am the only person that goes on this website. I am not abnoxious, but rather, very meticulous and want to do my hobby the correct way. I also do not appreciate you stating that I must be crazy since I am making up things in my head. Thank you, you are very mature...

I wasn't playing with fire when I added the foxface but was when I tried the meds..that were a scam. My tank was fallow for 4 weeks, as suggested to me and all that was in there was a firefish. I was also told to try the nosickfish.com meds by another member who pmed me. (and no I dont believe it was a salesperson)

My memory did not fade, but after doing many hours of research online, and reading countless articles about the ich parasite, I have come up with the conclusion that it can in fact 'come back' if there is stress in the tank. I hear different things from everyone, every single time I am on this site. I go to this site to get advice and believe me, am using it. The problem is, there no definitive way of doing things and every person does something different with their tank..that is why I get confused. (like above..some people always have copper in the QT and some do not)

Ralphie, you also state that I am blockheaded and do not listen to anyone's advice. If needed I can reiterate ALL of the things that people have told me to do on this site. I have done them all with no luck. I went fallow like told to do for four weeks and it did not work. Now I will try eight.

So to those of you that have written, trying to help my chronic ich problem that I have gotten (for the second time)..Thank you for your help. I do listen, I do what you suggest, and I will keep asking for advice if Ralphie likes it or not

Courtney

[Freed]

Your tank is not fallow if you have fish in it. Fallow means WITHOUT ANY FISH AT ALL. You say it was fallow but you had a fire fish in there= NOT FALLOW. Must be fallow for at least 4-6 weeks but longer is better.