Been reading a lot of forums online and its time to join forums and learn from my mistakes made and get help from fellow reefers.
Sad day today (actually every day since last 10 days), here's my last few months.
I am fan of marine fish and reef and wanted to be success-full, but till date it ain't happen yet. In my small apartment i started to have fish tank (originally bought it for fresh water, a 10gal) but changed mind and give it a try on pico reef after learning other peoples do it, setup is all good with live rocks corals and pair of maroon clown, changed water every week and all is well for 5+ years. even though loosing corals once a while for no reason i know, i just replace them and continue (I would say lack of my knowledge in maintaining the water parameters which i know now, i think) . So overall is good.
Moved to bigger house, it was just easy to move the 10 gal without any distraction, I added a small blue damsel for fun becaz the clowns just hanged around the same place and months later all were still fine like it was before. Now i thought why can't my dream of setup of decent size reef tank, I wanted to be successful in the setup so i took enough time to research read and take notes, here is how it started:
- Got Red Sea 350 Reefer tank, 71gal (93 gal total),
- quality live rocks, some rocks (dead) that had saved from past, some dry rocks
- in June 2018 started rock curing in plastic bins, monitored thru out the curing stage (i even baked the dry rocks before starting the process for an hour to be sure)
- setup the tank mid July with live sand reef snow flakes 3-4" sand bed
- Kessil A360WE two of them, and Kessil H90 Refugium light
- Bugglemaggus protein skimmer
- Sicce return pump
- Neptune apex 2016 setup (pretty much most of their stuff, WAV, DOS, FMM, LSM"¦) (its so awesome though with tech)
- Two little fishes phosphate reactor
With all the above i took enough time to research, read and setup this new tank. I was proud of myself when i finished it, I was starring at it as i liked it so much. BTW, i decided to pick the route with no water changes at all and just maintain water parameters using dosing and other supplements and only maintenance would be cleaning devices, all inspired by a youtuber named NewYorkSteelo and FarmerTy from *********. Also before i can move my pair of clown to the new tank, the bigger clown (3" size) died, and I don't know why, I wished it stayed to see my new setup for her.
Anyway, end of July I moved my entire setup including the live rocks, sand, and one clowns and damsel from my 10 gal to the new tank, added 20 gal of Nutrisea sea water along with my mixed salt water. All was good an stable until mid Sep 2018, Neptune Apex really helped to keep track of all water parameters, i checked with Hanna checker for Alk,Phos,Ca,Mg,Ammonia and Nitrate, every parameter is absolutely in range. I entered the phase of brown alage and added the proper clean up crew including Serpent and bristle sea star, days later all alage is cleared and the clean-up did a good job and my tank looked very clean. (so far I haven't setup carbon reactor yet, i have one ready to setup)
My plan is to have fish only tank for a year and see how well i can maintain the water parameters and then start introduce LPS and SPS a year later.
Oct mid, i said to my Wife and daughter we can add fish and we went few places in different days to find some
- Sep 16th: First stop at Ocean Gallery in NJ: we bought Foxface, Flame Angel
- Sep 19th: Been search for find my lost big maroon clown and found it in Aquardise NJ, 3"+ and looked good (I expected some fight with my small clown when i introduced but they were happy and hanging together to my surprise)
- Oct 13th: stop at Absolute Fish, a very famous in NJ, we got yellow tang, blue hippo tang and Royal Gramma. (also looked so great)
Tank setup looked great with all these fishes swimming around and friends/neighbors when visited said its spectacular and I was proud of myself.
But it didn't last long:
Oct 15: my daughter said that the small clown fish is missing, we were looking and found the serpent sea star eating them along with other snails joining the serpent. I wasn't sure if the clown died and serpent took it or serpent grabbed him while sleeping. 1st death in the tank. two days later to replace the dead small clown i went to Aquatic Obsessions and bought a nice very active maroon clown 1 1/2" size (wild caught) while i was there i saw Bluestreak cleaner wrasse cleaning other fishes and the store person told me about the cleaner so got two of them at the same time.
Oct 20th: Royal Gramma was spinning with the water flow and noticed is not well and minutes later it died (since i got it i was hidden inside rocks and never came out)
Oct 21st: First sign of symptom that we noticed white spots on Blue tang, Yellow tang, I have heard about Ick and by end of the day i see both the tangs where covered with lot of white spots and yellow tank was just hiding under rock for very long time, just came out to eat thats pretty much it. I was online researching how to get rid of the ick, different people have different solutions, confused, finally picked Seachem Metroplex and focus and soak with food and feed for immunization. also gave them seaweed, It did and all ate them, started feed twice daily
Oct 22nd: Yellow Tang dead in the morning and blue tang looked bad with lot of white stuff and by night i knew its next
Oct 23rd: Blue Tang dead in the morning. since all the fishes i got from Absolute fish on Oct 13th where dead and we doubted they had the ick already and we didn't know (but it looked very good when we bought it at the store). Then i started watching all other fishes very closely to see any signs, i found one or two spot on Foxface in the gills and big clown fish gills tails or torn a bit and also noticed fungus like brown patch in gills on big clown fish. I researched online and it sounded symptom of brooklynella. At this time i got series and realized something seriously wrong in the tank, a disease and if don't treat them soon all will be gone.
After all my research i decide to do this as per this forum. https://www.ultimatereef.net/threads/emergency-disease-fighting-101.830752/ treating with Chloroquine phosphate. I looked everywhere and i was not able to get or find this prescription drug, but finally one fish store carried "œNew Spectrum Ick shield bath powder" which is Chloroquine phosphate. so far i was only searching and buying and didn't add anything to the DT yet.
Oct 25th: Big Maroon Clown, Cleaner Wrasse dead (wife called and said not doing good and min later its gone)
I started the setup of hospital tank, in so hurry had to pickup a 20 gal tank, salt and all necessary items to move other fishes soon to the tank. while i was doing it my wife called and said the small wild caught clown is not doing good, i told her to catch it and give a fresh water dip and put it a separate container with Metroplex + Kanaplex medicine in the water, she did.
Oct 26th: when i return home the clown was doing ok and i started setting the hospital tank while my wife moved all the fishes to that small 6 gal container. 5 hours later the setup of the hospital tanks was ready and moved all the fishes from the 6gal container to 20gal hospital tank, added the Ick shield powder (Chloroquine phosphate) 0.6 grams as per instruction.
Oct 27th: Small Maroon Clown died in the morning in the hospital tank
Oct 27th: FoxFace in the night
Oct 28th: Flame Angel and Wrasse, saw in the morning dead.
Today 28th my hospital tank is empty, and the effort we put to save them did not help saving the rest of the fishes. Forget to note, while moving all the fishes from the display tank we couldn't catch the blue damsel at all and its still in the DT and i see no sign of any ick to him, but I believe the parasites is still present in the display tank.
WHAT DID GO WRONG?
I knew one big mistake i made, I took so much time to see every detail in setting up the tank but I ignored to quarantine store bought fish, Its too late when i realized that.
The reason i am telling my story is to understand what had happen, was something wrong with my setup (I doubt), does one of the fish got the diseases into my tank that lead to take all other lives? or in effort of saving the last 4 fishes i tried Chloroquine phosphate treatment went wrong and killed the rest?
I had fishes for 5 years and i had seen minor ick occasionally come and goes in few days
Please share your thoughts, after all this I am not ending my hobby, i consider a lesson learnt and will proceed with my setup.
What i plan to do now is try catch the one left damsel from the DT and put it in Hospital tank so the DT can go thru fallow time to parasites to die off (as i read)
and leave the tank running without any fish for a month (even though there are snails, crabs and star fish), am I right?
Sad day today (actually every day since last 10 days), here's my last few months.
I am fan of marine fish and reef and wanted to be success-full, but till date it ain't happen yet. In my small apartment i started to have fish tank (originally bought it for fresh water, a 10gal) but changed mind and give it a try on pico reef after learning other peoples do it, setup is all good with live rocks corals and pair of maroon clown, changed water every week and all is well for 5+ years. even though loosing corals once a while for no reason i know, i just replace them and continue (I would say lack of my knowledge in maintaining the water parameters which i know now, i think) . So overall is good.
Moved to bigger house, it was just easy to move the 10 gal without any distraction, I added a small blue damsel for fun becaz the clowns just hanged around the same place and months later all were still fine like it was before. Now i thought why can't my dream of setup of decent size reef tank, I wanted to be successful in the setup so i took enough time to research read and take notes, here is how it started:
- Got Red Sea 350 Reefer tank, 71gal (93 gal total),
- quality live rocks, some rocks (dead) that had saved from past, some dry rocks
- in June 2018 started rock curing in plastic bins, monitored thru out the curing stage (i even baked the dry rocks before starting the process for an hour to be sure)
- setup the tank mid July with live sand reef snow flakes 3-4" sand bed
- Kessil A360WE two of them, and Kessil H90 Refugium light
- Bugglemaggus protein skimmer
- Sicce return pump
- Neptune apex 2016 setup (pretty much most of their stuff, WAV, DOS, FMM, LSM"¦) (its so awesome though with tech)
- Two little fishes phosphate reactor
With all the above i took enough time to research, read and setup this new tank. I was proud of myself when i finished it, I was starring at it as i liked it so much. BTW, i decided to pick the route with no water changes at all and just maintain water parameters using dosing and other supplements and only maintenance would be cleaning devices, all inspired by a youtuber named NewYorkSteelo and FarmerTy from *********. Also before i can move my pair of clown to the new tank, the bigger clown (3" size) died, and I don't know why, I wished it stayed to see my new setup for her.
Anyway, end of July I moved my entire setup including the live rocks, sand, and one clowns and damsel from my 10 gal to the new tank, added 20 gal of Nutrisea sea water along with my mixed salt water. All was good an stable until mid Sep 2018, Neptune Apex really helped to keep track of all water parameters, i checked with Hanna checker for Alk,Phos,Ca,Mg,Ammonia and Nitrate, every parameter is absolutely in range. I entered the phase of brown alage and added the proper clean up crew including Serpent and bristle sea star, days later all alage is cleared and the clean-up did a good job and my tank looked very clean. (so far I haven't setup carbon reactor yet, i have one ready to setup)
My plan is to have fish only tank for a year and see how well i can maintain the water parameters and then start introduce LPS and SPS a year later.
Oct mid, i said to my Wife and daughter we can add fish and we went few places in different days to find some
- Sep 16th: First stop at Ocean Gallery in NJ: we bought Foxface, Flame Angel
- Sep 19th: Been search for find my lost big maroon clown and found it in Aquardise NJ, 3"+ and looked good (I expected some fight with my small clown when i introduced but they were happy and hanging together to my surprise)
- Oct 13th: stop at Absolute Fish, a very famous in NJ, we got yellow tang, blue hippo tang and Royal Gramma. (also looked so great)
Tank setup looked great with all these fishes swimming around and friends/neighbors when visited said its spectacular and I was proud of myself.
But it didn't last long:
Oct 15: my daughter said that the small clown fish is missing, we were looking and found the serpent sea star eating them along with other snails joining the serpent. I wasn't sure if the clown died and serpent took it or serpent grabbed him while sleeping. 1st death in the tank. two days later to replace the dead small clown i went to Aquatic Obsessions and bought a nice very active maroon clown 1 1/2" size (wild caught) while i was there i saw Bluestreak cleaner wrasse cleaning other fishes and the store person told me about the cleaner so got two of them at the same time.
Oct 20th: Royal Gramma was spinning with the water flow and noticed is not well and minutes later it died (since i got it i was hidden inside rocks and never came out)
Oct 21st: First sign of symptom that we noticed white spots on Blue tang, Yellow tang, I have heard about Ick and by end of the day i see both the tangs where covered with lot of white spots and yellow tank was just hiding under rock for very long time, just came out to eat thats pretty much it. I was online researching how to get rid of the ick, different people have different solutions, confused, finally picked Seachem Metroplex and focus and soak with food and feed for immunization. also gave them seaweed, It did and all ate them, started feed twice daily
Oct 22nd: Yellow Tang dead in the morning and blue tang looked bad with lot of white stuff and by night i knew its next
Oct 23rd: Blue Tang dead in the morning. since all the fishes i got from Absolute fish on Oct 13th where dead and we doubted they had the ick already and we didn't know (but it looked very good when we bought it at the store). Then i started watching all other fishes very closely to see any signs, i found one or two spot on Foxface in the gills and big clown fish gills tails or torn a bit and also noticed fungus like brown patch in gills on big clown fish. I researched online and it sounded symptom of brooklynella. At this time i got series and realized something seriously wrong in the tank, a disease and if don't treat them soon all will be gone.
After all my research i decide to do this as per this forum. https://www.ultimatereef.net/threads/emergency-disease-fighting-101.830752/ treating with Chloroquine phosphate. I looked everywhere and i was not able to get or find this prescription drug, but finally one fish store carried "œNew Spectrum Ick shield bath powder" which is Chloroquine phosphate. so far i was only searching and buying and didn't add anything to the DT yet.
Oct 25th: Big Maroon Clown, Cleaner Wrasse dead (wife called and said not doing good and min later its gone)
I started the setup of hospital tank, in so hurry had to pickup a 20 gal tank, salt and all necessary items to move other fishes soon to the tank. while i was doing it my wife called and said the small wild caught clown is not doing good, i told her to catch it and give a fresh water dip and put it a separate container with Metroplex + Kanaplex medicine in the water, she did.
Oct 26th: when i return home the clown was doing ok and i started setting the hospital tank while my wife moved all the fishes to that small 6 gal container. 5 hours later the setup of the hospital tanks was ready and moved all the fishes from the 6gal container to 20gal hospital tank, added the Ick shield powder (Chloroquine phosphate) 0.6 grams as per instruction.
Oct 27th: Small Maroon Clown died in the morning in the hospital tank
Oct 27th: FoxFace in the night
Oct 28th: Flame Angel and Wrasse, saw in the morning dead.
Today 28th my hospital tank is empty, and the effort we put to save them did not help saving the rest of the fishes. Forget to note, while moving all the fishes from the display tank we couldn't catch the blue damsel at all and its still in the DT and i see no sign of any ick to him, but I believe the parasites is still present in the display tank.
WHAT DID GO WRONG?
I knew one big mistake i made, I took so much time to see every detail in setting up the tank but I ignored to quarantine store bought fish, Its too late when i realized that.
The reason i am telling my story is to understand what had happen, was something wrong with my setup (I doubt), does one of the fish got the diseases into my tank that lead to take all other lives? or in effort of saving the last 4 fishes i tried Chloroquine phosphate treatment went wrong and killed the rest?
I had fishes for 5 years and i had seen minor ick occasionally come and goes in few days
Please share your thoughts, after all this I am not ending my hobby, i consider a lesson learnt and will proceed with my setup.
What i plan to do now is try catch the one left damsel from the DT and put it in Hospital tank so the DT can go thru fallow time to parasites to die off (as i read)
and leave the tank running without any fish for a month (even though there are snails, crabs and star fish), am I right?
