criscash78

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Location
Hamilton N,J,
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I'm going to start out by explaining my setup fish, and routine. I have a 75 gallon tank. I have 2 marineland emperior 280 biofilters, 2 marineland 400 circulation pumps, and 6 54 watt lights for coral. I have an R/O system in my house for water. My levels are 8.4, ammonia is 0, no2 0, no3 0. I started the tank with 90 pounds of live rock that was cured for 8 months and 40 pounds of live sand. I let the tank cycle for 6 weeks before adding fish. I added 2 osc clownfish then 2 weeks later added a grey poma angel and yellow wrasse. 2 weeks later I added 1 firefish and 1 bicolor angel. I feed my fish 3 times a day. I only feed them 1 krill cube a day. I belive this is not to much food. Every week I take 10 gallons out and put 10 gallons back in. When I do this every week I make the 10 gallons in a 20 gallon tank I use for this. I have a heater and circulation pump in it. I start 2 days before the change by adding the salt to the water and letting it circulate keeping the salinity and temp same as my tank. I keep my salinity around .023 since my fish store is the same. I keep my water temp at 76. I run my lights 12 hours on and 12 hours off. I have 3 actnic bulbs for the blue color and 1 bright 20,000k and 2 10,000k yellow hue lights. 2 weeks ago I picked up 2 sand sifting starfish and a leather. I finally made a bad decession according to everything I read. A friend of mine was moving and offered to give me 1 blue hippo tang, 1 blue powdered tang, 1 6 striped wrasse, 3 blue green chromis, and 1 amonenti. I have a brown algae break out. I believe diotodes. I also noticed my blue powdered tang looks like he has sand all over him. I did stir up some sand removing the brown algae with a turkey baster. I can not tell if its the itch. He is not breathing fst or itching. I'm wondering if anyone else has had a fish have sand all over him and put it thru stress by removing it to the hospital tank? I would also like any and all constructive critisism on my fish keeping and did I put my fish at risk by taking all te free fish. One more thing. My grey poma angel only bothered the bicolor angel a little when added it. It chased him around and 4 hours later they looked like friends hanging out. When I added the powder blue hippo the grey poma hated him. Both fish are 4 inches and the biggest fish in the tank. I removed the grey poma and put him in the 4 gallon breeder. Can I now put him back in and expect a different outcome?
 
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New York
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Hey,

I will start off by agreeing and saying you have added way too many fish in such a short time. We all make mistakes but it was a poor decision that you need to learn from.

2 things happened (pending your fish are indeed sick with ich)

1. Your original livestock previously introduced ick too your tank. Then once you added the new livestock the tangs which are very susceptible got ich.

2 The new livestock were previously infected with ick and were stressed from the move. At which point the ich population was introduced, increased and became more visible on stressed livestock.

Truth is we cannot diagnose without photos. I'm no fish disease expert but I know it can be a number of things, but know Tangs are usually first to catch ich. I would not count on it being sand.

If you determine you have ich and that you would like to treat your livestock then you will need to remove all fish from the direct tank and leave it without fish for 6-8 weeks to insure the parasite dies in the tank.

As for treatment, you have two options ... Hypo salinity and/or copper treatment.

Please note, some species do not handle copper very well and hypo salinity can be tough.

My advise is too keep them well fed and decide on your plan of action.

Bringing them to a local reefer or store that can treat them would be a great option if you cannot do so.

Id also like to mention that plenty of people keep tanks with ick as long as your fish stay healthy and fed.










And to touch base on some
Other things...

Your light schedule is excessive. I run my lights 8 hours a day max. In my opinion 12 hours is asking for algae and high electricity bills for no reason.

With that amount of livestock I would suggest running a skimmer.


Good luck

Jonny
 
Last edited by a moderator:

criscash78

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Location
Hamilton N,J,
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thank you for your input. I tried to take pics of tang but the white specs did not show up in the pics well enough for me to waste anybodies time looking. I already started removing the fish to my 40 gallon breeder. they look like sardines.
 

rambler67

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Location
parsippany nj
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well first off welcome to MR.

second i have to agree with jonny that you did put to many fish in to fast and if it looks like sand it is most likely ich. next a hippo and a powder blue tank shouldn't be i a 75 to start with and even worse in the same tank plus you didn't mention if you feed them any type of veggies witch the tangs need. also having 2 angels in a 75 is also a bad idea they will most likely start fighting and stressing each other out and if not they are not reef safe any way.
 

Awibrandy

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Location
Far Rockaway
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Welcome to the MR family!!!
I see you started out GREAT! It was just the taking in of your friend's fish to got you in to trouble.:(
Please do not take the advice you are getting here as condemnations. For the most part it is legitimate advice as most have a great deal of respect for the lifes we have chosen to keep in glass boxes.
You have 11 fish in a "smallish" glass box, especially with the 5 larger ones. Do you plan on upgrading to a larger tank? If the answer is no, I would suggest you find homes for at least 3 of them. Especially the tangs..
Possibility of Ich; how long have you seen the spots, and is it on the one fish? You have already been advice on how to care for them if it is ich.
First ~ a 40 breeder as you already know is way to small to keep all those fish in. They will only get further stressed.
Second ~ DO NOT do both "hypo and copper". Do one or the other, but definitely not simultaneously.
Wishing you all the very best in your en-devour..
 

dherrera83

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Location
Manhattan
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You were doing so good!!! It happens... Just make sure not to introduce any chemicals to your display tank. use the 40 breeder to nurse them till they are 100%. But with that amount of fish you need to get a skimmer and make sure to cut your lights back alittle or even cut them off completly for about three days. This will help with the algae.
 

criscash78

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Location
Hamilton N,J,
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I appreciate all the input. I stayed up all night researching ick. I kept an eye on my powder blue hippo and around morning the white spots were gone. The fish only had them for 7 hours. I read up on ick and found out when lights go out it drops off of fish. This parasite is actually damn smart. It drops off were the fish go to rest every night. It multiplies and returns for more and more. I?m starting to think it was stress since I moved some live rock around and was cleaning the algae with a turkey baster. I wanted to remove a live rock that my grey poma makes his home at night and when scared. I guess I created a lot of stress for the little guys when I turned their home up side down.The powder blue is back to normal and eating good. I checked all off my levels and nitrates are just above 0. Someone gave me 2 snails, 1 conk, 1 cucumber, 1 crab today to do my clean up. I lowered my light times to 8 hours on. I left the grey poma angel in the 40 breeder and 3 chromis in there also. I?m waiting to pick up a 150 gallon tank I bought used with the live rock in it. This is the next big task I have to remove my fish from the 75 when I get it home and move the 75. The 150 has to go there. I will then put the fish back in the 75. I want to let the 150 run for a month and slowly add the fish in starting with the chromis and cleaners. Is this the proper way to do it? I was also wondering how hard it is on the fish being in the 75. The blue hippo is only 2 inches, the powder blue is 3.5 inches. I also hope that I can put my grey poma angel in the 150 and he will leave the powder blue hippo alone. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated. Someone asked if I use algae. Yes I do I rubber band green algae to a live rock for the hippos and angels.They wont eat it if its attached to a clip on the side of the tank. They pull it out of the clip. I guess they like it to be as natural as possible.
 

Awibrandy

Old School Reefer
Location
Far Rockaway
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That is so good to hear/read!!! Excellent, you will be fine once you get that 150 going.:) Thanks for posting the fish sizes, that is a great help to those of us that were saying they don't belong in your tank.:) They are still small enough to stay in the 75 for a short period of time. Yes, the poma & the hippo will probably be fine in the 150 with so much more room.;)
 

criscash78

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Location
Hamilton N,J,
Rating - 100%
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I was wrong about the fish being stressed. I'm thinking they have velvet. ooidium. All of a sudden both hippo's have the white dots and twice as much as before. What should I do? I have a 38 gallon tank but cannot make O/R water fast enough to fill it. can I pull my display tank water into the 38.
 

rambler67

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Location
parsippany nj
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you could use water from the display tank but you have to make sure you have enough water left in it to keep everything wet and running for what ever else you have left in it. you could go to walmart or the supermarket and get water. If they have white dots sound more like ich to me. but most likely ether way cooper is going to be the most effective on ether disease.
http://www.aboutfishonline.com/articles/marinevelvet.html
If they are still eating try soaking the food in garlic it help boost there immune system.
 

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