Please Help My Fish Are Sick!!!!!

[chentiell]

Hello, I need help. I am 6 months into this hobby, still learning of cousre. I left the house and was gone for about 3hrs. when I came back my fish were all acting like they were stressed out. their color was off and my blue and yellow angel looked to have some type of white on her, my Pacoso trigger was laying on the bottom of the tank on the side of the glass. I do have other fish which were acting strange as well. I tested my water which seems to be fine. nitrates-5, nitrites-0, ph-7.8 (off as always), ammonia-0. Salinity is at 1.022, and temp is at 76. I did a 15% water change R/O water . They started acting a little better except for my trigger who did swim a little but then went and hid behind some rock and won't come out, which is very unusual for him, any my angel still has that whitish look to her. By the way my husband bought me a star fish from the lfs a couple of days ago. Please let me know what to do, I do not want to lose my babies.

By the way they are twitching, what does that mean? I have 1 star fish, 1 trigger, 1 angel , 3 tangs, 1 tiny mimic, 1, clown, and 2 small damsels, that I could not catch. I also have 2 hermit crabs, and 3 tiny hermit crabs. my tank size is 110.

 

[fishrich]

Sounds like ich to me... Im sure someone with more experience will help you more than I but I would start to lower my salinity. It will add oxygen to the tank which will help the fish not to mention help you start the process of hyposalinity. There is a great thread at the top with step by step instructions on how to do it. Make sure you take any inverts out as well as live rock etc. Good Luck!

 

[chentiell]

Thanks so much for the response. I did just read the forum from Beth, but I have a question what should I do with my LR. should I set up a seperate tank or just lower my salinity in the entire tank and leave everything in there. Also I don't know what to do with my star fish or my crabs. I am assuming that they have ick as well, is that right?

 

[fishrich]

My understanding is you should remove the live rock and inverts. They can't handle the lower salinity. If you have a qt tank you can move the inverts to it. Ich is a fish only disease but live rock,inverts could carry it. But it will die off without a fish to host upon.

 

[m0nk]

Are you sure it's ich? Are you seeing any white spots or are they scratching against the rocks? If you're sure it's ich, I wouldn't move the LR and inverts, you should move the fish to the QT and do your hypo there.

 

[nigerbang]

Originally Posted by m0nk
Are you sure it's ich? Are you seeing any white spots or are they scratching against the rocks? If you're sure it's ich, I wouldn't move the LR and inverts, you should move the fish to the QT and do your hypo there.

I didnt see any mention of that..and before I went hypoing tanks I would make damn sure its ICK and not something else..

 

[m0nk]

Originally Posted by NigerBang

I didnt see any mention of that..and before I went hypoing tanks I would make damn sure its ICK and not something else..
Right on.
chentiell, it's really important that you know what's specifically wrong before performing a treatment. It honestly doesn't sound like ich to me, and because of freshwater fish keeping, a large number of saltwater "diseases" have been improperly diagnosed as ich. Saltwater ich is actually a parasite that lives on fish hosts. Beth or Sepulation will hopefully see the thread and chime in with an idea what it could be, but please don't perform hypo without a specific diagnosis. Changing the salinity in any way right now could stress the fish out and make things worse.

 

[sepulatian]

Chentiell, your water parameters need to be stabelized. Your PH is low, as is your temp and the SG is too low for inverts. What are you using to measure the SG? Your PH should be at 8.2, temp at 79-82, and SG at 1.025 or 1.026. Can you tell us when each of these fish were added and what was added last? What are you using for water flow? A lower PH usualy indicates that there is not enough flow. The fish will become stressed from the parameters jumping. If they are faded in color and hiding then that usualy indicates some type of stress. Please give us some background information on your tank.