I just dont know what to do!!!

[shoorty069]

Im about to quit with my salt water tank and totally start over. We recently put fish in which in time accquired ich. Now, all of our tanks fish are dying. First the Long Nose Butterfly, then my Coral beauty, then all of my Clownfish(2 clarkiis and 1 percula). Then the hardiest of all fish, an orange tailed blue damsel, which weve had since we started to cycle the tank. Then, my striped damsel, and now my bangaii cardinalfish is dying. The only things left in my tank are my 2 blue and pink shrimp gobies, which another question arises about that. We bought one from a LFS, and then about a month later bought another one from SWF.com. Now, about 2 months later, the older one wont leave the new one alone. All his fins have bite marks everywhere. Even my cardinafish has bite marks. Im worried if i do solve this ich problem, i wont be able to stick anything in with this goby terrorizing all my fish. Oh, right after the butterfly fish died, we started putting organic suppliments which on the bottle says it helps prevent and remove ich, but its organic, since we have LR. Can anyone help me out before i decide to empty out my eitire tank? I was thinking of making a hospital tank of some sort and hold the live rocks in there while we fix whatever the flip is going on in this tank. Oh, more good news(sarcasm) the cardinal fish died, i just looked.
ryan...

 

[carshark]

WELL, where do i begin, first the damsels you used to cycle the tank obviously wont make it! that is a cruel practice, their gills are burned from ammonia among other things......second how big is your tank? third how much live rock do you have? do you have a refractometer? do you have inverts? stop using chemicals, please!!!! hyposalinity will save your tank and fish here, the ick will not go away completely it will be there for the duration that you have fish in there. also what are your water perameters like? did you check compatibility charts before adding fish in a community? there are a lot of factors i see here, this will be a long thread it seems, i dont wanna flame you here but you are set up for it, please need loads more info, ok it sounds like your tank is not safe what are your water perameters??? second how is your feeding schedule? water changes..what kind of water did you use? what kind of salt do you use? how do you maintain this tank? if you dont care about the two fish you have left take them back to your LFS leave the tank empty of fish for a minimum of six weeks, get your water correct, all levels(nitrite,nitrate,ammonia,) at 0, get your ph to 8.2 your temp to 84 degrees while on this empty stage to ensure along with no fish that all ick dies, heat, no host=no ick! or if you want to keep these organisms do hyposalinity to your tank, if you dont know about this process post your water perameters, and ask me for info....did you do a water change after each fish died? did they have any blotches and bumps white or black, discoloration heavy breathing, etc etc, i need more info

 

[oceanist]

IMO , telling somebody they did something th wrong way by usings damsels to cycle is kind of wrong , people learn from different people , and people have different views , we could go as far as saying spraying ants with ant killer is wroong , or killing mesqioutos with off is wrong but we dont . if your going to use damsels use damsels , thats bassically what there sold for , i mean really who says , let put damsels in our expensive salt water tank

 

[carshark]

https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=177209

 

[shoorty069]

But the damsels have been in there for...almost 6 months now...im not using chemicals, its organic. Its a 55 gallon tank, all of the water levels came out normal, and all of this was still happening. Should i maybe get a ultraviolent light filter? someone saidd that kills bad bacteria and such.
EDIT--they did show heavy breathing, and white dots all over their bodies. I feed the fish daily with flakes/pellets/brine shrimp. All the fish we have added, we consult the LFS manager to see if theyre okay. Basically the guy knows us by name now. Hes helped us out alot. Were using a emperor400 filter with 2 biowheels. the temperature is at a steady 83*. I change about 10 gallons of water every other week. We have to do a major one (about 20 gallons.) after we finish with the organic suppliment the manager of the LFS suggested to use.

 

[carshark]

some say they are good, some say not, i tend to lean towards not neccessary on the UV sterilizer, 9 times out of 10 organic treatments dont even work, are they working for you? back on the UV's they do kill those parasites however they also kill valueable organisms and some pertinent water minerals.. so its a toss up id say, so i lean towards not neccessary..if you properly QT all new fish and medicate properly there isnt a need for one, your money would be better spent on filtration, live rock, and better lighting..

 

[shoorty069]

I thought for a while the organic stuff was working, but obviously not. I didnt want to put the copper in because it would kill my liverock and we dont have a hospital tank or a qt tank, though, i am planning on getting one this week after this catastrophe. would copper kill live sand? just for future reference.
Oh, and thanks, maybe ill stay away from the UV then...unless someone says otherwise.
ryan

 

[jmick]

When will people wise up and start to use quarantine tanks! If you put all new fish in quarantine for at least a month you will not infect established tanks and have massive loss. Now that your tank/tanks are infected you need to set up a hospital tank and put all fish in and treat.
I highly recommend letting existing tank/tanks run fallow for 6 weeks to ensure that the ich dies out and doesn’t linger around. As long as there are fish in the infected tanks the ich will remain a problem and it’s highly likely it will continue to attach and kill new fish.

 

[carshark]

well its a judgement call they arent neccessarily harmful, but they really arent that beneficial either, i mean if you can monitor certain minerals that it strips as well, and you dont have a coral set up they arent worth the price, couple things, a.) did you turn off your skimmer during this process of "organic" treatment? b.) did you do a water change between treatments? c.)did you remove active carbon from your filtering system?you may have overloaded your system if you did not perform water changes, the active carbon and skimmer strips these treatments. also did you measure accurately based on live sand live rock and decorations? there are too many variables when treating your main tank thats why QT's are so much more easier to gauge the proper therapuedic amount of medication. yes copper will kill live sand as well as live rock, so the amount of die off can be severe as well when doing chemical treatments, hyposalinity will do the same thing, but without adding toxins into your system. the chemicals are also toxic to your fish, just becasue it wont kill them doesnt mean it doesnt harm them. people may disagree with me on the use of UV sterilizers but as i stated before, if you properly QT any new addition before adding them to your display, provided your system is clean of any disease, they arent even usueful. just my 2 cents on UV's

 

[carshark]

Originally Posted by Jmick
When will people wise up and start to use quarantine tanks! If you put all new fish in quarantine for at least a month you will not infect established tanks and have massive loss. Now that your tank/tanks are infected you need to set up a hospital tank and put all fish in and treat.
I highly recommend letting existing tank/tanks run fallow for 6 weeks to ensure that the ich dies out and doesn’t linger around. As long as there are fish in the infected tanks the ich will remain a problem and it’s highly likely it will continue to attach and kill new fish.
in a nutshell.....plain and simple we are on the same page...

 

[lennon]

Originally Posted by Oceanist
IMO , telling somebody they did something th wrong way by usings damsels to cycle is kind of wrong , people learn from different people , and people have different views , we could go as far as saying spraying ants with ant killer is wroong , or killing mesqioutos with off is wrong but we dont . if your going to use damsels use damsels , thats bassically what there sold for , i mean really who says , let put damsels in our expensive salt water tank

Just my 2 cents on that....Mosquitos can cause illness that can KILL..Ants are destructive and not of any purpose for anyone really...
Using Damsels for this seems cruel when there are other alternatives to getting the same results without having to use them. Try a piece of shrimp...already dead..

 

[oceanist]

allthough in regard to my last reply IMO damsels shouldnt be used either , Just MO though however this isnt the question , i just didnt want to come of sounding cruel