Disaster in my 180

[percula99]

Let me start off by saying I am an experienced aquarist, in the hobby well over thirty years, reefing for nine. I am a victim of my own success as I never get sick fish...ever. I did lose a lot of fish back in 2002 when we had the BIG power blackout but that was due to lack of circulation/oxygenation. Since then I have not had an incident of any kind. The picture below is a couple of years old, but it does show a picture of the tank in better times.

This incident started with one of my heniochus scratching his eye and getting popeye from it. He was quite stressed out and stayed facing a back corner for days and didn't eat. After a week he started to recover and started swimming around more. I noticed a slight case of ich on him at the time but there was no way of catching him as I have over 250 pound of live rock and many large corals. It would have meant tearing everything down and I wanted to avoid that at the time. I also couldn't medicate the tank bacause of the corals and invertebrates, so I decided to leave him alone. The ich went away and all seemed well. Then about two weeks ago both my Heniochus and my three Ocellaris clowns showed signs of ich. It quickly spread to my Powder Blue, Purple and Mimic Tangs. I have since lost both heniochus, the Powder Blue and one Ocellaris Clown. The other aren't going to be too long before they follow. Through this my school of Green Chromis and my Orane Spot Goby are totally unaffected.

I am not writing this so people can get on here and berate me for not doing this, or not doing that. It's too late for that now. I am more concerned with how to proceed from here. I am wrestling with the idea that even tough I didn't want to I will now have to tear down the reef so I can get the school of Chromis and the Goby out so I can medicate them with copper in a seperate 25 gallon QT tank. I will rebuild the reef and wait until the Ich life cycle passes and they die off due to lack of a host. My water parameters are pristine and I use a six stage RO unit for every drop of water that goes in my tank. There has not been an addition to my tank in over two years so I didn't import the ich. As stated, any suggestions of how to proceed would be appreciated.

 

[john rochon]

well, thats not good news. actually, your fish probaly did not scratch its eye, it was a crypt[ich] attaching itself to the eye which intern cause a secondary infection [popeye].

ich can be in a tank, on a fish for a long time without it showing.
its when something in the tank stresses the fish [water issues,
additions etc] that the balance is in the ''ichs'' favor. then only then will it really show.
have you added a single frag,snail,crab,rock in the last 2 years?
because crypto can and will come along for the ride.
now, what to do?? hmm thats a tuff one.
you could remove all fish into a proper qt for 3 months
you could leave it alone and see if the remaining fish develop partial or complete immunity.
chances are now ich will always be there unless you run fallow for months.
I'm in the SAME boat. I bought a few fish and one was so big that QT'ing wasn't an opption. BOOM the powderblue came down with ICH bad as did most of the others. lost it and an anthia.

 

[percula99]

Hi Johnny, thanks for chiming in. I did buy a candy coral a week before the entire tank outbreak, but my heniochus had already shown the original signs of ich before I bought it. So that is not it. My previoius coral addition was an Alveopora in late May.

I do agree with your comment that ich can be in a tank or on a fish for a long time without it showing itself. My friend started another thread about that same subject.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1482764

My surviving fish are hanging on for now, so tearing down the tank won't happen until next weekend at the earliest.

 

[percula99]

Bump

 

[limitdown]

Check this article for tips and tricks on catching fish.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/sp/index.php
I've personally used the "Light Trick" with good success. The fish get totally stunned when you switch on all of the lights in the middle of the night.
This could save you the hassle of a complete teardown.

 

[RossW]

Re: Disaster in my 180

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13468648#post13468648 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by percula99
I am wrestling with the idea that even tough I didn't want to I will now have to tear down the reef so I can get the school of Chromis and the Goby out so I can medicate them with copper in a seperate 25 gallon QT tank.[/IMG]

If that is the path you decide to go, of removing all of the remaining fish, have you considered using traps to try and catch the fish instead of tearing down. Personally, I would try a couple traps for a few days or more before I tore a tank like yours down.

 

[percula99]

Thanks RossW. You have been to my place and seen my tank so you know what a daunting task tearing it down would be. It is an absolute last option.

Thanks for the article limitdown. I kind of like the idea of draining the tank and leaving a puddle in the middle of the front open section where the fish could swim into, and I could catch them there. That is inspired. I just hope the fish read that article also. I don't know that the "lights" trick would work as I often sit in front of the tank on Saturday mornings and wait for the VHO actinics to come on. I really can't find the chromis at first because they are scattered throughout the rock work. They don't huddle down for the night as a group. If worst comes to worst, I could always use a shopvac and suck them out of the tank. I got that one from one of my co-workers who knows nothing about keeping an aqaurium. I did think it was funny though.

 

[e55MD]

percula99

I recently had an ich outbreak in my 400 gallon. I purchased a used 240 gallon aquarium as a hospital tank, I removed all my live rock from my 400 gallon, drained it and caught all my fish. My DT is in its 5th week of running fallow. The ich is now all cured after a 3 week Cupramine treatment.
It is a real pain but your only chance of ridding your DT tank of ich is to remove all your fishes. Don't waste your money on any of those"reef-safe" products either- they don't work. Good luck!

 

[percula99]

Well it has been a week since I last posted on this subject. Unfortuntely all my prized fish have died except for the school of Green Chromis and my Orange Spot Goby. They still show absolutely no sign of having contracted ich. In hindsight I wish I had torn down the reef to try to save them, but I can't change what I did now, no matter how much I regret it. It's too late for that. All I can do now is move forward.

I do have a bit of positive news at least. I tried draining the tank and leaving a small clearing in the sandbed as limitdown suggested. I had drained almost all the water out of the tank and was just about to call it quits because I could see one of my Blood Shrimp getting stuck in sand when the first of the Chromis darted out of the rocks looking for deeper water. Then the second. I tookout a small net and caught them and put them in a nearby QT I had set up. I was able to catch them all as well as the Goby. The whole process took about an hour, minus clean up time. They are all in QT now. Thanks limitdown for the suggestion.

I don't know what to do with the Goby though as he is a sand sifting goby and now has no sand bed to eat from. I am thinking of offering him for free to anyone who would take a chance on him. I will post a warning about the ich outbreak he survived so anyone willing to take him will know up front of the danger. I feel it it his only long range chance of surviving. Seeing as he never seems to have contracted ich,do you think this is a "responsible" thing to do?

 

[RossW]

Sorry about your fish, they were beaut's.

With regards to the goby, is there no chance he will shift to flake or pellet during the 6 weeks of QT?

 

[percula99]

Thanks Ross. They were beauts. I had them all from between 2-1/2 years to 8 years so I really miss looking at them in the tank. I still have an awesome tank, thanks to not having to tear it down, but there is just no life on the reef (the way I like to see it at least).

I may not post the Goby up for a new home just yet. I will try to see if he does eat the food I feed the Chromis. He may?? He has been known to eat the stray piece of food that floats by the bottom, but his steady diet is what lives in the sand bed.