kat79
New Member
So, let me start by saying, "Bare with me, I'm horribly new to this."
My husband was recently deployed to Afghanistan; leaving me in charge of his 55 gal. saltwater tank. To make a REALLY long story short, our relationship has almost always been long distance, so I've never had the chance to get familiar with maintaining a saltwater aquarium before this. Although he (the new husband) gave me a crash course before he left, I'm running into some unfamiliar territory.
This tank has been up and running for quite a while (almost a year) prior to adding any fish (despite one shy little three-striped damsel). We've recently added three blue damsels, a yellow tang and two ocellaris clownfish. First of all, one of the clownfish is refusing to eat anything (flakes, pellets, frozen or live brine shrimp). Despite keeping to one corner of the tank, and seemingly always having his mouth open, he seems to be acting fine. His color is good and he's fairly active. I'm hoping his lack of eating is just due to stress (we've only had them a week). HOWEVER, and more importantly, I'm more concerned about the yellow tang who now has about a half-dozen white specks near his tail and a few on his dorsal and pectoral fin. He is eating GREAT! No signs of sickness or distress. He is bright and alert, and acting completely normal. But what could these spots be?!? I'm in the process of trying to get some pictures, but I can't seem to get anything clear enough to see any detail. Besides the obvious ich and lymphocystis, is there ANYTHING else this could be? It's definitely not the "lateral line" disease thing either. There is no pattern to the white spots --- and they don't cover his entire body (definitely NOT on or near his gills or eyes).
I tried to check the water levels last night, and this is what I got: (bare with me! -- not a fan of the "match-the-color tests")
Salinity: 1.022
pH: 8.1-8.2
Nitrite: definitely less than 0.1 -- the color really didn't match anything on the scale
Nitrate: around 5
Ammonia: around 0.1 at 30 minutes???? Not sure about this one
The temperature of the tank has been fluctuating between 77-81. Not sure what the deal is with that....
And if it helps, the tank has a protein skimmer and seems to be pretty well circulated (two power heads running during lighted hours).
Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated. And again, PLEASE understand that I'm not an expert and not entirely sure what I'm dealing with here. If I left something out, please let me know -- I will do my best to answer any questions. I just don't want my husband's tank to go to the pooper while he's away.
P.S. And no, we didn't quarantine the fish like we should have. We didn't have an established QT tank, our time was EXTREMELY limited and these were basically our first fish anyway. THANKS!
My husband was recently deployed to Afghanistan; leaving me in charge of his 55 gal. saltwater tank. To make a REALLY long story short, our relationship has almost always been long distance, so I've never had the chance to get familiar with maintaining a saltwater aquarium before this. Although he (the new husband) gave me a crash course before he left, I'm running into some unfamiliar territory.
This tank has been up and running for quite a while (almost a year) prior to adding any fish (despite one shy little three-striped damsel). We've recently added three blue damsels, a yellow tang and two ocellaris clownfish. First of all, one of the clownfish is refusing to eat anything (flakes, pellets, frozen or live brine shrimp). Despite keeping to one corner of the tank, and seemingly always having his mouth open, he seems to be acting fine. His color is good and he's fairly active. I'm hoping his lack of eating is just due to stress (we've only had them a week). HOWEVER, and more importantly, I'm more concerned about the yellow tang who now has about a half-dozen white specks near his tail and a few on his dorsal and pectoral fin. He is eating GREAT! No signs of sickness or distress. He is bright and alert, and acting completely normal. But what could these spots be?!? I'm in the process of trying to get some pictures, but I can't seem to get anything clear enough to see any detail. Besides the obvious ich and lymphocystis, is there ANYTHING else this could be? It's definitely not the "lateral line" disease thing either. There is no pattern to the white spots --- and they don't cover his entire body (definitely NOT on or near his gills or eyes).
I tried to check the water levels last night, and this is what I got: (bare with me! -- not a fan of the "match-the-color tests")
Salinity: 1.022
pH: 8.1-8.2
Nitrite: definitely less than 0.1 -- the color really didn't match anything on the scale
Nitrate: around 5
Ammonia: around 0.1 at 30 minutes???? Not sure about this one
The temperature of the tank has been fluctuating between 77-81. Not sure what the deal is with that....
And if it helps, the tank has a protein skimmer and seems to be pretty well circulated (two power heads running during lighted hours).
Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated. And again, PLEASE understand that I'm not an expert and not entirely sure what I'm dealing with here. If I left something out, please let me know -- I will do my best to answer any questions. I just don't want my husband's tank to go to the pooper while he's away.
P.S. And no, we didn't quarantine the fish like we should have. We didn't have an established QT tank, our time was EXTREMELY limited and these were basically our first fish anyway. THANKS!
