coral beauty

[kcfehring]

I have a coral beauty that has been in a hospital tank along with a lawnmower blenny for about a month. They have been in there for almost a month -two weeks of that time being treated with cupramine after all of the other fish in my dt died.

They have been doing well and eating then yesterday I noticed some places around the eyes of the coral beauty that looks like the color is bleaching from her scales. If you could imagine eyebrows on fish this is kind of where the bleaching is occuring.

I have been having a terrible time getting the nitrites/nitrates down and wondered if that could cause something like this. Any ideas?

 

[jjmcat]

What are your nitrates at?

 

[kcfehring]

Nitrites are at 0.50 and nitrates are around 40 - 50. I have been doing 10% water changes about twice a week but the last one I did was 20% and still I can't get them down. I am trying to make sure all of the copper is out of the tank and then I was thinking about putting in some live rock and maybe some calurpa from my refugium to help with biofiltration thinking that this might help bring them down.

 

[TulsaReefer]

It's very hard to significantly lower nitrates (and nitrite) with small water changes. If your at 50 and do a 20% change, your still at 40, which isn't much of a change. If you want to lower nitrates significantly you'll have to do larger changes, such as 50% changes. Some will argue that this is stressful, and can be, especially if you don't have the new water closely matched (pH, hardess, temp, etc.) to the existing water. Since this is a hospital tank without corals, I'd probably do a big change (50%, or even more) since typically fish aren't that troubled by large water changes, again as long as the water is well matched, make sure at least the pH and temp are almost exactly the same as the tank if possible.

I've not experienced nitrates at that level affect fish negatively in a short period of time (weeks, maybe a few months). I had nitrates > 50 for 4 months on my tank, and while some of my corals were not happy, my fish didn't seem to be too troubled by it. You might want to try to soak your food with Selcon or other suppliment that is high in fatty acids, it can't hurt, and at worst your fish will get fatter. Pygmy angels are typically rock pickers, and by not having rock to forage from your coral beauty may be missing some nutrients needed.

 

[papagimp]

If you have nitrite in the tank, sounds like it's not filtering effectively enough for the bioload in their. Now what's causing the added bioload if not the fish...? not a clue. Do you wear gloves when working on the tank?

 

[kcfehring]

No, but I never put my hands in the tank. I don't know what to do. I swear if it is not one thing it's another with these tanks! I have the same emperor biowheel on this 20 gallon tank as I did on the 44 gallon tank and I never had nitrites in it. I am thinking about doing a 50% water change, taking out the pvc, putting in some live rock and calurpa from my refugium and see if that doesn't help with the biofiltration as well as getting the lawnmower som algae. I think I need to do an innerlibrary loan on some good fish/reef books at my library and do some more reading. It is just frustrating because I will read one book and turn around and the next says something different. Oh well, I'll just keep plugging along! LOL

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Kim, didn't you just have an ich outbreak within the last few weeks in your main display? If so, you just cross contaminated your QT tank by adding stuff from the display (IE biowheel).

 

[papagimp]

Well, be sure to read up on the nitrogen cycle, most references say the same thing about all that. Nitrites are the byproduct of our filtration getting rid of ammonia, so if ya got nitrites present, either a bad test kit or the filtration isn't working quick enough to convert it to nitrates. Is this 20g a new setup? Is it the hospital tank? Did it have sufficient time to cycle?

 

[papagimp]

I"d recommend you run to the store and get some of seachems PRIME. When my tank was going through all it's messes, and nitrites/ammonia were both toxic enough to killeverything in the tank, this stuff really did seem to make a difference, like I mentioned previoulsy, 6-7months of ammonia and nitrites being off the charts and only lost 1 fish during all this. I like the PRIME.

 

[kcfehring]

I bought a new biowhell and put it in my sump for a week getting some good bacteria on it and then put it in the hospital tank and used cupramine so it would have killed any ich from anything in the hospital tank. Also, the emperor filter, thermometer, and powerhead that are being used in the hospital tank were never used in my 55 gallon display tank.

I think that there was not enough time to build up a good bacteria load and then with no live rock or sand there is nothing to help break down the nitites and nitrates. The hospital tank where the angel is was new and did not have time to cycle because I had to get the fish out of the display tank quickly because it was killing all my fish (lost 5). That is why the biowheel was put in the sump - hoped to get some bacteria on it to help with cycling. Is there any way to speed up cycling? I thought just time...

I use the same test kit for my display tank as I do for the qt and I get different readings so I think that it is correct.

I am using prime. Every time I do a water change I put in two drops for every gallon just like the instructions say. My ammonia used to be high but as soon as I put in the activated carbon to pull out the copper my ammonia went way down.

 

[papagimp]

Don't do two drops per gallon, do the recommended dosing for detoxifying the nitrites, it says you can overdose up to 5 times the ammount, that's what I did, I overdosed probably 4x the recommended.

Definatly sounds as though the filter did not have sufficient time to colonize with bacteria, also, not sure but does anyone here know if the cupramine and/or copper will hurt the bacteria? I wanna say it will, but I'm not 100% on that. Keep in mind, seeding the filter with bacteria and having sufficient bacteria on the biowheel are two completely different things, after just seeding it, it'll still need to build up enough to handle the bioload, sounds like it's overloaded at the moment.

 

[kcfehring]

I think you are right. I think I just don't have enough bio filtration. I know that you aren't supposed to use cupramine on live rock - so probably it would kill it on the biowheel too, but I did not know what else to do, and that is what someone I trust suggested. I will try putting in more prime since I will be doing a large water change. I'll try the four times as much....that's alot of drops!!! LOl

From what I understand the activated copper will pull out the copper in my tank. The carbon has been running for two weeks and I have changed the carbon twice (once a week) and a couple of days ago I added a small hermit crab and it is still alive so I am going to add a snail this week and if it survives I am going to put in the live rock from my refugium on a bare bottom and take out all the pvc. I am hoping that this will help.

 

[papagimp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11075271#post11075271 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kcfehring

From what I understand the activated copper will pull out the copper in my tank.

I'll assume you meant activated Carbon will pull out the copper. Not sure on that, I've always used Polyfilters when copper was an issue. I know that stuff will pull some out but I think carbon is more for organics, may be wrong, don't listen to me on that until somebody else confirms.

 

[kcfehring]

No, Really I meant activated copper! This is what happens when you begin to lose your mind! LOL I did mean carbon - and the cupramine bottle and the person that suggested it said it will pull it out. Though I have been adding small inverts just to make sure the carbon is pulling it out and that they can survive.

 

[djc1026]

I'm going to throw my .02 in the mix here, hopefully it isn't too harmful.

-I don't believe the copper will effect the bacteria on the biowheel, if it did then copper would disturb the denitrifying bactera in an empty QT tank.

-Carbon will likely help in the removal of copper, but not very effectively by itself.

-If you have readings of nitrites and nitrates at the same time, a couple of things could be happening here. 1) tests are no good 2)something is very awry adding amonia and nitrites or most likely 3) The tank has not finished cycling, in which case you are getting nitrite and nitrate readings from your tests. Many common nitrate test actually test for the combined concentration of nitrite and nitrate. In established, cycled tanks, nitrite is virtually 0, so the reading is all nitrates. In your case, the nitrate reading may actually be the nitrites, just on the nitrate test...that's all.

-I second the larger WC as being more helpful and I doubt the readings/levels are what's effecting the fish. Nitrites, can become toxic at levels of .5 ppm, but that would be over a longer period of time I believe. Fish are fairly resistent to the changes in the nitrogen cycle...It's even more telling that your crab is alive, who is more susceptible to elevated levels.

Anyway, that's my input, hope some of it's useful.

Dave

 

[Serra]

Several thoughts:
The reason you don't use rock in the Q-tank is that it is porous and will absorb some of the copper thus making the dosage iffy at best.

Have you been feeding a herbiferous food to these two?
Have you considered marine head and lateral line erosion? See if this could be it in the early stage: http://images.google.com/imgres?img...ish&start=20&ndsp=20&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&sa=N

Stop adding inverts. That just increases the bioload. Keep us posted please.

 

[kcfehring]

Thanks Serra! I do think that is what it looks like thankfully it is not to bad yet so maybe I can take care of it before it gets bad.

I have been feeding them mostly emerald entree because it is the only algae based food I have. I usually put some garlic in it. I have tried both wrapping and clipping brown and green algae sheets to the pvc and I have tried the steamed broccoli. Neither fish will have anything to do with them.

I noticed that one of the causes could be a deficiency in Vitamin C and I have some Reef Plus from Seachem that is a concentrated vitamin a Amino Acid supplement. It does have vitaming C but the bottle makes it sound like it is more for coral then anything else...do you think it might help?

Another thing that "might" cause it is high nitrates, but the don't really say what high is, so tomorrow I think I will do a 50% water change to help bring those down a little.

Another ideas is that activated carbon could be the cause so do you think I should take it out? I think for sure after a 50% water change tomorrow there shouldn't be any more copper in the water. (I have already done two 20% water changes since I put in the activated carbon) When I do put in the live rock I know their will be algae on it soboth of the fish will have some fresh food to eat.

 

[Serra]

Kim-
Something you might try....I take scissors and cut the Nori sheet into teeny tiny pieces and put it in a brine shrimp net with the frozen cubes then run them under cold water to melt the food. The nori absorbs the water and my fish will eat it then. If I rubber band a blanched broccoli floret to a piece of rock mine will pick on it.

 

[papagimp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11079713#post11079713 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kcfehring
Another thing that "might" cause it is high nitrates, but the don't really say what high is....

Fish can handle surprisingly high nitrate levels, An article in CORAL magazine I was reading last night (issue about anemonefish) one guy was saying his clownfish broodstock can handle over 100ppm without apparent effects to the livestock (fish only, bare bottom systems) and his grow out are about the same, the only time he worries about high nitrates is in his larval rearing tanks, keeps those under 20ppm. We tend to think of nitrates as high when they show up at all due to the fact that many of us keep corals and other delicate inverts but when it comes to fish only systems....you really have to be sloppy to have nitrates "too high".

fwiw, last CB I owned rarely ate the veggie foods, he would nip at the algae on the rocks (sporadic plots would pop up occasionally and he'd take em out quickly) but other than that, he wanted what everyone else was getting, mysis, krill, plankton, ect. ect. Never touched any of the seaweeds I tried either. He was always very nicely colored, fat and healthy. (i did soak alot of foods in phyto, not sure how much help that did though).

 

[kcfehring]

Well, I did a fifty percent water change today, put in the higher dosage of prime and my nitrites were still off the charts. The ammonia, phospates, pH, and were good and nitrates were down. So I am thinking I only have a couple of alternatives.

1. Put both fish back in the dt. (It has been a month since the whole ich debacle).

2. Take the fish out of the ht, do a complete water change and put in some live rock that I am sure has cured. (No way to do that here because I don't trust that my local lfs has cured rock)

3. Do the same as above except put in live rock from my refugium and pray that all the ich is gone and I am not contaminating my qt.

Who wants to vote?!! LOL If I do the first I think I will still restart the qt with whatever rock I can get and just cure it in the qt. It will be way more than a month before I'kk be buying any fish. I'll think I will recheck the water in the morning and then make a decision.