aquarium health declining

[cnote23]

I performed a water change a few weeks ago on my FOWLR and forgot to turn on the canister filter. Shortly afterward the fish began to develop red patches on their skin. I assume this was a bacterial infection caused by the ammonia spike. I have since lowered the ammonia levels via partial water changes and, of course, turning on my canister filter. The problem now is my fish won't eat very much. I have a yellow tang who rarely comes out of the rocks to eat his seaweed or anything else. My clownfish won't eat very much either and, because of this, have begun to develop HLLE. I know they won't be able to fight off the infection if they don't eat enough. I can't quarantine because I don't have room for another tank. I would prefer not to treat the main display with antibiotics because of its large size (125 gallons) as this would be very expensive and possibly make problems worse. My question is, how can I get the the fish to eat enough to build up their strength and fight off infection? My food supply consists of Rod's, frozen Prime Reef, formula 1, 2 , prime reef, brine shrimp plus, and spirulina flakes.

Water paramaters:

ammonia: 0 ppm

nitrite: 0 ppm

nitrate: 5- 15 ppm

calcium: 400 ppm

pH: 8.1

specific gravity: 1.024

temperature: 78 F

 

[wooden_reefer]

Your problem may or may not be with the canister filter stopage.

What is the filtration in the tank? Is the canister filter the only source of filtration or circulation? If there are other biological filtration and circulation, ammonia may not have surged quickly.

bacterial infection is the result of fish being overcome with pathogenic bacteria. If a fish have had exposure to the bacteria for a long time, it is much less likely to happen. If a fish does not, it is more likely and is more dependent on the concentration of the bacteria in the water.

A tank is a confined space and bacteria can become concentrated. This is why UV properly used can be important.

Once bacterial infection has taken hold, treatment with drug is usually necessary.

Some antibiotics is milder on nitrification bacteria than others.