I just can't keep fish!

kris walker

Active Member
This is long, and I'm sorry for that.
Man, this really stinks. I introduced 4 green chromis into my coral-only tank last week. Now one has what appears to be a cotton-like tuft on his mouth. Funny, cause he was the healthiest looking one out of the 4 of them. But anyway, I looked at the Mardel fish disease chart, and diagnosed him as having "Body Fungus", which is really a bacterial infection. My prevoius attempt was the introduction of a damsel into the tank 2 months ago. It died a week later mysteriously--no external body markings, so presumably due to internal bacterial infection.
It may be that bacterial infections of some sort or another are plaguing my tank. I am assuming this is all in my tank prior to introducing the fish (both 2 sets of fish were bought at separate LFS's). So my question to all of you is what is causing this? For filtration, I have a protein skimmer, 45 lbs LR, 2 in CC, and macroalgae. I also have an emperor filter with pads and inactive carbon.
Do you think not having the carbon active is the problem? If I have active carbon, will it keep the "nonbenefitial" bacteria levels down? Do any of you reef keepers have healthy fish and not use carbon at all (or just once a month like some of you do)?
QT doesn't isn't an issue here because there were no other fish in tank prior to their introduction. So the main tank was an unmediated QT tank.
Finally, I don't want to move this to the disease forum, since 99% of my tank are full of corals, and since I've been following guidelines for keeping corals healthy, and not necessarily fish.
Oh, and I do not vacuum my CC because the critters get most of that junk or it seems to break down naturally (benefits of light to no fish bioload).
Parameters:
0/0/0 ammon/trite/trate
0.2 phosphate
450 ppm Ca
11.5 dKH
8.0 pH
78 F
1.022 s.g.
Thanks,
kris
 

deucey

Member
I never have used activated carbon on my reef tank....i just use a protien skimmer, live rock, live sand and a wet/dry........no probs so far......and i have a 7g reef been set up for over a year now and no activated carbon there either....everything looks great.....i donno about the fish fungus though...good luck with it...hope it gets well and stays well.....
 

beachbaby

Member
Hi Kris, I can't help with your question but I feel for you. Seems like the tanks are an ongoing learning experiment. Don't be discouraged. :) Hopefully someone will have good advice for you. By the way, are you the one who left the board for a while to finish up school? Hope it worked out for ya!
 

kris walker

Active Member
Thanks Deucey for the information. Your reply gives me hope.
Beachbaby, thanks for the support. It's times like these that I need it the most! :) And yes, I was the one who wanted to leave for awhile until I could get a grip on the amount of time I spend here. I think I am getting better, as I've been able to trim down the time to about 1 hour per day, 2 at most. It's all about balance, as I'm starting to understand.
Mark, thanks for your report. I'm not sure if keeping active carbon is my problem or not (in light of Deucey's report), but it seems it couldn't hurt. You're right, those fish do pick a little, but thankfully not nearly as much as true damsels (and the damsel I had was by himself 2 months ago). I am hoping I am just getting bad fish that have picked up something at the store, and now it is blossoming into something in my tank. I can't explain it otherwise, unless it has something to do with the fact that I don't vacuum my CC.
Thanks everyone,
kris
 

hockeyplyr

Member
Hey I do feel for you, Here are a couple of ideas hope they help.
1) Dont try adding any fish to the tank for quite a while at least a month. as far as I know most deaseses dont have very long life cycles without a host. So if you wait you will reduce the chance that if your show tank is infected fom your last dead fish you wont infect healthy fish.
2) When introducing directly to the tank (w/o using QT tank) what I do is first I always wash the outside of bags from LFS before floating in my water. And I never pour water from that bag into my show tank what I do is put a cup of water into bag every 5 to 10 min and drain it into different container as it gets full then I net what ever is inside and put it into my tank.
3) Inspect visualy any fish you buy very well
4) A QT tank is probably your best solution you can obrerve fish and watch for any signs of ilness before introduction to your tank. I will admit that I haven't always done this myself and have had good success with the method I described above.
5) Try a UV sterilizer I have used one for a year and have had great success. It will kill anything water born before it has time to find a host. They are alittle pricey though.
Well I hope some of these sugestions helped
Good luck.
 
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