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Me too Len, that really sucks. You've had some crappy luck with this tank. 
My 52x28x28" 176 gallon (re) build thread
- Thread starter Len
- Start date
My lesson is: don't use FWE, QT all your fish, and there is a very good reason to add fish slowly, even after your tank has cycled (ammonia and nitrite read zero). I'm sure if my tank was more mature, the die off wouldn't have caused the small ammonia spike that further stressed my fish (which already hated the FWE treatment) and caused the bacterial infections.
SLOW AND STEADY ... AND QT PEOPLE!
SLOW AND STEADY ... AND QT PEOPLE!
This is the second FWE treatment I've done, and both times lead to fin rot (and labored breathing). This was done on my old, established tank.
I theorize that FWE is technically fish safe, but it stresses fish severely and makes them susceptible to bacterial (and other parasitic) infections. I know other people who have had the same thing happen after FWE.
I theorize that FWE is technically fish safe, but it stresses fish severely and makes them susceptible to bacterial (and other parasitic) infections. I know other people who have had the same thing happen after FWE.
It may be a little late but here is a post about using FWE by Mark Peterson from WMAS. His recommendations are a little different than the directions on the product.
Fish are great Flatworm eaters if they are hungry enough. Besides the Six-line, other fish that eat flatworms are Yellow-tail Blue Damsels, Mandarins and some other wrasses, one especially good wrasse whose name I don't recall now, but I believe it starts with the letter M.
Show us your tank by posting a few pics. It could help us help you.
To get fish to eat things like Flatworms, it is sometimes necessary to stop the feeding. Let them go hungry and they will search for other food in the tank.
There is another medication, much cheaper than FW Exit. It is a pig medication called Levamisole.
When using any medication, we have found that it is better to utilize a sequence of increasingly larger doses. I have discussed this here on the MB many times regarding Flatworm Exit. Basically you start with a 10% dosage (1 drop FW Exit per 10 gallons) and see if the flatworms start to wiggle and move around. If they don't show signs of irritation in about 5-10 minutes, add another 10% dosage. When you see some flatworms releasing their hold and floating around the tank, wait 30-45 minutes and then add a bag of AC (Activated Carbon) in a place of good flow, typically this is near an intake or if you have a HOB filter use that. Don't use a so called "AC Reactor" That works too slowly.
The next day remove the AC and repeat the procedure above. This dosage will probably reach 50% before the remaining flatworms start to die. Repeat this each day until the dosage has reached 100-200% and no flatworms are left.
Don't forget to add the AC after the last, largest dosage.
There are two extremely important reasons for using Flatworm Exit according to this slow dosage procedure rather than the manufacturers directions.
1. ** Some tanks have so many flatworms, many of them hidden, that the full dosage overwhelms the tank with dead flatworms releasing lethal toxins into the water and even with major water changes, fish and coral may be lost. The slow dosing procedure puts NO fish or coral at risk of death.
2. The trouble and effort of siphoning flatworms and doing a massive water change is completely unnecessary with the slow dosing method.
Edited by Mark Peterson - February 25 2009 at 9:28am
Fish are great Flatworm eaters if they are hungry enough. Besides the Six-line, other fish that eat flatworms are Yellow-tail Blue Damsels, Mandarins and some other wrasses, one especially good wrasse whose name I don't recall now, but I believe it starts with the letter M.
Show us your tank by posting a few pics. It could help us help you.
To get fish to eat things like Flatworms, it is sometimes necessary to stop the feeding. Let them go hungry and they will search for other food in the tank.
There is another medication, much cheaper than FW Exit. It is a pig medication called Levamisole.
When using any medication, we have found that it is better to utilize a sequence of increasingly larger doses. I have discussed this here on the MB many times regarding Flatworm Exit. Basically you start with a 10% dosage (1 drop FW Exit per 10 gallons) and see if the flatworms start to wiggle and move around. If they don't show signs of irritation in about 5-10 minutes, add another 10% dosage. When you see some flatworms releasing their hold and floating around the tank, wait 30-45 minutes and then add a bag of AC (Activated Carbon) in a place of good flow, typically this is near an intake or if you have a HOB filter use that. Don't use a so called "AC Reactor" That works too slowly.
The next day remove the AC and repeat the procedure above. This dosage will probably reach 50% before the remaining flatworms start to die. Repeat this each day until the dosage has reached 100-200% and no flatworms are left.
Don't forget to add the AC after the last, largest dosage.
There are two extremely important reasons for using Flatworm Exit according to this slow dosage procedure rather than the manufacturers directions.
1. ** Some tanks have so many flatworms, many of them hidden, that the full dosage overwhelms the tank with dead flatworms releasing lethal toxins into the water and even with major water changes, fish and coral may be lost. The slow dosing procedure puts NO fish or coral at risk of death.
2. The trouble and effort of siphoning flatworms and doing a massive water change is completely unnecessary with the slow dosing method.
Edited by Mark Peterson - February 25 2009 at 9:28am
Tank update:
My sole surviving black tang is doing well now, but still has a little stress-induced ich. I am going to try and remove him this weekend to my QT tank and administer some type of treatment, leaving the tank fish-less for a month to let the parasites die off.
My few corals (including sps) are doing fine. My watermelon chalice might even have a chance of pulling through.
I had about a week's worth of brown algae on my rocks and sand, but that's subsided in the past couple days. I'm keeping up I hope I avoid the green hair algae stage and jump directly to coralline.
All in all, tank has made the corner and is heading in the right direction. 8)
I'd take pics, but not much (other then a little more brown on my rocks) is different then my previous pics.
My sole surviving black tang is doing well now, but still has a little stress-induced ich. I am going to try and remove him this weekend to my QT tank and administer some type of treatment, leaving the tank fish-less for a month to let the parasites die off.
My few corals (including sps) are doing fine. My watermelon chalice might even have a chance of pulling through.
I had about a week's worth of brown algae on my rocks and sand, but that's subsided in the past couple days. I'm keeping up I hope I avoid the green hair algae stage and jump directly to coralline.
All in all, tank has made the corner and is heading in the right direction. 8)
I'd take pics, but not much (other then a little more brown on my rocks) is different then my previous pics.
More pics soon, I promise
Tank is doing ok. I have a lot of bacterial blooms (at least this is what I think it is ... intermittent cloudy water, some brown snotty strings which could be bacteria or dino). Other then that, everything tests out fine. Tang is still a little covered in ich, and I can't remove him to treat it but he's not badly infected either. I'm just going to feed him well and let it get better on its own; he eats a whole cube of hikari mysis a day!
Tank is doing ok. I have a lot of bacterial blooms (at least this is what I think it is ... intermittent cloudy water, some brown snotty strings which could be bacteria or dino). Other then that, everything tests out fine. Tang is still a little covered in ich, and I can't remove him to treat it but he's not badly infected either. I'm just going to feed him well and let it get better on its own; he eats a whole cube of hikari mysis a day!
Some quick and dirty pics of my QT with new frags in them.
QT tank is a simple 10 gallon with a sponge filter powered by a Maxijet 600. There's a 50W heater, and the tank is lit by a 7W Azoo LED clip-on light (which is perfect for this tank since it can swing away to allow full access to the tank). There's eggcrate at the bottom to prevent corals from sliding around, and a 2" PVC elbow for fish to hide. That's about all there is to it.
QT tank is a simple 10 gallon with a sponge filter powered by a Maxijet 600. There's a 50W heater, and the tank is lit by a 7W Azoo LED clip-on light (which is perfect for this tank since it can swing away to allow full access to the tank). There's eggcrate at the bottom to prevent corals from sliding around, and a 2" PVC elbow for fish to hide. That's about all there is to it.
Attachments
I picked up 14 frags from Vivid Aquariums today. Pricey/rare frags, but their staff was awesome, and their 800g show tank (which most of these frags came from) contained some of the most amazing (and healthy) corals I've seen. List of stuff I picked up:
Pink Boobies Chalice
Emerald Eye/Miami Hurricane Chalice
Mummy Eye Chalice
Riddler Chalice
Purple Monster Acro
Pink Lemonade Acro
Gatorade Acro
Red Planet ORA Acro
Purple Plasma ORA Acro
Vivid's Rainbow Delight Acro
A.carolinia
A.effloresce
A.turaki
Season's Greetings Monti
The Chalices really put a major hurt on my wallet (as did the purple monster frag). But I'm trying to justify it by planning a lot less frags this time around (letting them grow to big colonies). Besides, if I can frag each just a couple times, I made my money back
Pink Boobies Chalice
Emerald Eye/Miami Hurricane Chalice
Mummy Eye Chalice
Riddler Chalice
Purple Monster Acro
Pink Lemonade Acro
Gatorade Acro
Red Planet ORA Acro
Purple Plasma ORA Acro
Vivid's Rainbow Delight Acro
A.carolinia
A.effloresce
A.turaki
Season's Greetings Monti
The Chalices really put a major hurt on my wallet (as did the purple monster frag). But I'm trying to justify it by planning a lot less frags this time around (letting them grow to big colonies). Besides, if I can frag each just a couple times, I made my money back
Attachments
The Escaped Ape":3d0fh4x1 said:
They offered to mount them for free, but I declined. I'll either mount them myself or just mount them to my aquascape. The less new rock I add to the tank, the less chance of pests I get.
When I heard Pink Boobies, I had to get it
It turns out to be the hottest chalice right now. It's the second one from the bottom (on the right column). It looks kind of orange in the photo.sfsuphysics":3hnggs98 said:
Yeah, the LED is not very strong. I was planning on QT'ing a week, but I think I'll do it for just 3 days to see if any eggs hatch. I couldn't find any egg clusters on my first inspection. Vivid does have a couple FW (I think it was AEFW) that was stunned off by my multiple dip process (FWE->TMPCC->ReVive), but I expect just about any high volume SPS operation to have them. That's why I'm QT'ing and dipping everything.
Which one's the legendary purple monster?
BTW, I only see 12 frags there and you listed 14. Or am I miscounting somewhere?
I can see what you mean about not wanting the plugs. They're never the most natural of shapes either, making them take longer to blend in.
BTW, I only see 12 frags there and you listed 14. Or am I miscounting somewhere?
I can see what you mean about not wanting the plugs. They're never the most natural of shapes either, making them take longer to blend in.
There's 14 The Red Planet frag is overlapped by the big Purple Plasma frag in the front left. The monti frag is top left corner. The Rainbow Delight is overlapped slightly by the efflo.
The Purple Monster is the thin dark purple thing bottom middle. The growth pattern changed a lot in their grow-out tank (lower flow), and it's not quite as purple either. But I expect it'll return to form in my tank under bright lights and high flow. I could've gotten a frag from their main tank on this one, but it would have been a much smaller frag (1/2"). I was pleasantly surprised by how large a frag he made for me from the grow out.
The Red Planet frag is overlapped by the big Purple Plasma frag in the front left. The monti frag is top left corner. The Rainbow Delight is overlapped slightly by the efflo. The Purple Monster is the thin dark purple thing bottom middle. The growth pattern changed a lot in their grow-out tank (lower flow), and it's not quite as purple either. But I expect it'll return to form in my tank under bright lights and high flow. I could've gotten a frag from their main tank on this one, but it would have been a much smaller frag (1/2"). I was pleasantly surprised by how large a frag he made for me from the grow out.
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