lost 2 hippos in 2 mos overnite white spots all over

[dlttltstar]

Hi I'm new here we have a 120g reef setup well established but moved 2 mos ago to new home. We are learning, not much experience my brother gave us the setup water, rock, fish and all. we added 2 anenomies, 5 yellow tangs, 1 clown, 2 stripped wrassies, 5 cleaner shrimp, mandarine goby, pink spotted goby and we have several star sifters snails and crabs live rock and sand ,oh and 1 yellow tail butterfly. The first regal we bought right away showed spots all over, glazed eyes so we did a 4 min fresh water dip didn't make it, the second one looked great for 3 days then overnite was covered in white spots I think velvet. We treated with kordons reef safe ich prevention and have always fed garlic exteme, we had been giving the yellow tangs oral antbiotics for what looks like cotton puffs on fins and body. now my new madarine goby is looking funny white spots and what looks like boils. the hippo we moved to qt after finding him on the power head filter this morning and he did not make it. we just cant seem to be able to net these sick fish. What are we doing wrong please help!!!!
tracy

 

[elfdoctors]

Welcome to the Boards.
You will find lots of good (and occasional bad) advice on these boards. However, it is obvious that you have been given bad advice so far. Read lots of threads (particularly in the new hobbyists section). You also should consider purchasing a book (e.g. The Conscientious Reef Aquarist by Robert Fenner).
You might want to slow down and do more research before you buy any more critters for your tank. You have picked some more delicate fish which require more experienced handlers.
It is a good idea to establish a quarantine/hospital tank. Perhaps one of the best benefits from quarantining all your fish is to discourage impulse purchases at the LFS. You can better research anything you are considering buying.
Your other fish are probably also infected by ich. Any new fish may also become ill. Sometimes the ich is easiest to see on your darker colored fish.
The mandarin is least likely to have ich. They have mucous which is toxic to ich. However, when they acclimate to a new tank, they often can produce lots of slime (which will pick up small granules of sand). However, they have their own specific requirements (tank established >6 months with more than 100 pounds of live rock and a good copepod population). Anemones also have particular light requirements. (Your anemone only has ~2% chance of being alive in a year as most people do not care for them properly - while it can live for centuries in the wild).
It is usually not recommended to treat your main tank with any antibiotics. There are no reliably effective reef-safe ich treatments.

 

[dlttltstar]

Thank you for your reply. We were not patient enough and are now learning a valuable lesson. When we moved the tank with live rock we also moved all the water in 5 gal buckets in an enclosed trailer. We thought since It had set for 2 weeks and all the water levels were perfect it was time for some action in the tank. We did purchase additional lighting corallife setup 72" with actinic, 10,000k, and lunar to go with the 50/50 compacts from what I have read the anenomies are healthy if they are slightly brown. They eat well we feed them every 2 days. I havn't seen the mandarine goby yet today to see how he looks. All other seem to look ok except for a couple of tangs with a white fluff on their fins.
Thanks again it looks like this tank is now going to be my new hobby with hubby at work and I have more time.
Tracy

 

[beth]

There are too many tanks in that tank. Two at the very most in that size tank.
The only way to treat ich effectively can not be done with a tank with LR. Take a look at the FAQ Thread and the topics there on hyposalinity and ich.