Starting Over - few questions

[acarrion]

A week ago I posted a message asking for help because my fish where dying of ich. After a week of taking all possible measures to fix the situation, I lost 8 fish and know have a 10-gallon hospital tank with my three remaining fish (a purple tang, a purple damselfish and a pink spotted shrimp goby).

In my main tank (a 55-gallon tank with a mini reef and chiller), I have an anemone, a cleaner shrimp, a fire shrimp, a chocolate chip starfish, an orange starfish (don’t know the name), and two corals (polyp and mushroom). ALL of them seem to be doing great. The corals look better than ever.

my first question is: should i add any other cleaner type fish or invertabrates to the main tank or should i wait 4-6 weeks for the tank to be completely disease free?

Also, I understand that I should leave the fish in the 10-gallon tank for six weeks. Is this ok - the three of them there for that long? The temperature in that tank is over 80 degrees because i dont have a chiller for that tank. I originally had the tank in my bedroom with an AC but it got way too cold. while the temperature is on the high side it remains pretty constant (and during my last post one of you told me that it was better to keep the temp. constant) and the fish have definitely gotten better - should i keep them there?

as always, thanks for your help.

Ana

 

[keethrax]

A week ago I posted a message asking for help because my fish where dying of ich. After a week of taking all possible measures to fix the situation, I lost 8 fish and know have a 10-gallon hospital tank with my three remaining fish (a purple tang, a purple damselfish and a pink spotted shrimp goby).

In my main tank (a 55-gallon tank with a mini reef and chiller), I have an anemone, a cleaner shrimp, a fire shrimp, a chocolate chip starfish, an orange starfish (don’t know the name), and two corals (polyp and mushroom). ALL of them seem to be doing great. The corals look better than ever.

my first question is: should i add any other cleaner type fish or invertabrates to the main tank or should i wait 4-6 weeks for the tank to be completely disease free?

Also, I understand that I should leave the fish in the 10-gallon tank for six weeks. Is this ok - the three of them there for that long? The temperature in that tank is over 80 degrees because i dont have a chiller for that tank. I originally had the tank in my bedroom with an AC but it got way too cold. while the temperature is on the high side it remains pretty constant (and during my last post one of you told me that it was better to keep the temp. constant) and the fish have definitely gotten better - should i keep them there?

as always, thanks for your help.

Ana

How high over 80 degrees are we talking? Constant is almost always better than widley varying even if the constant temp is somewhat outside of the standard accepted "correct" temps.

Fish are genreally more tolerant of temperature than some inverts, but if you're pushing 90 degrees or somethng, I'd try to figure out something. It wouldn't take an expensive heater to keep that tank warm if you put it back in the AC room. But if you're talking low 80s, I wouldn't worry about it.

How big is the tang. If it's still pretty small, I'd say you might be able to pull it off. Another 10 gallon tank'd only be like 10 bucks form walmart or the like, and you could split it out to twoo quarantine tanks as well (though you'd need to come up with filtration for it too). I'm sure you could find some use for an extra tank afterwards. I know I always can...

Don't forget to feed the tang Nori or seomthing since it won't be able to effectivly graze much out of the smaller tank.

 

[acarrion]

the temperature is between 82 and 83. the Tang is not that big at all (two - three inches). pardon my ignorance, but what is nori? (as you can see i am pretty new to all this)

 

[ChrisRD]

my first question is: should i add any other cleaner type fish or invertabrates to the main tank or should i wait 4-6 weeks for the tank to be completely disease free?

I'd recommend you don't add any other fish (potential hosts) into the main tank for at least 6 weeks.

Also, I understand that I should leave the fish in the 10-gallon tank for six weeks. Is this ok - the three of them there for that long?

Personally I would have used something larger than a 10 gallon, but if they don't look stressed and they're getting better I'd stick with what you're doing.

The temperature in that tank is over 80 degrees because i dont have a chiller for that tank. I originally had the tank in my bedroom with an AC but it got way too cold. while the temperature is on the high side it remains pretty constant (and during my last post one of you told me that it was better to keep the temp. constant) and the fish have definitely gotten better - should i keep them there?

As long as the temps are stable in the Q-tank you should be fine at a bit over 80. Again, things seem to be progressing well, so stick to your plan.

HTH and good luck.

 

[fireblade]

nori is dried seaweed sheets. You can find it at your lfs or most grociery stores sell it for sushi. Get a letuce clip from your lfs or use an elastic to hold it to a small rock from your tank. My yellow tang loves it. I read somewhere to only leave it in your tank for about half an hour but my lfs said its ok for up to 2 hours.

 

[acarrion]

thanks for all the advice!