Fish going down in my 120 gallon??????

zrs6v4

zrs6v4

In Memoriam
I have a 120 gallon probably been going for about 4 months now, I keep my water levels here.. PH-8.1,dkh-11,calcium-400+, nitrates-10,nitirites-,ammonia-0, salinity-1.025.
I have about 160 lbs of live rock and a 5" argonite sandbed.
here are the fish I have/had... Chevron Tang, 2 small false percula clowns, serpent star, yellowheaded sleeper, and a blenny.. I also have a few soft corals, a derasa clam, a bubble tip anenome, a peppermint and cleaner shrimp..


anyway here is the problem starting last week my chevron tang which I have had a month got ick really bad, he has had ich once before and got over it.. he had it about a week and worsened. well 4 days ago I took my tank apart and caught him and QT'd him in my 10 gallon with water from the 120 and a maxijet 600.. I used copper and the next morning he was dead. I measured correctly, and my temp was good.. it was probably just to late for him anyway.. well yesterday I woke up to my blenny almost dead so I took him out and last night my goby was nearly dead as well.. So all that I have left is my 2 clowns, corals, and inverts..

here are my questions???/
1- I dont get how ick works why when one fish gets it they all
get it?
2- what would you do in my case?
3- I have heard I need to take my fish out and QT them for 6 weeks to kill the parasites, but would that include my corals, inverts, anenome, clam?
 
Ich has a life cycle of about 14 days, it can be present on the fish and the next day be gone. That have you thinking that it is gone.
When in reality the ich life cycle is starting again and are wating to hatch.
Once the ich hatches the outbraek begins again.


The only safe way to rid yourself of ich in a reef, is to get all the fish out and QT them.
The inverts, corals will be fine.
You will have to leave the tank fallow or fishless for about 6 weeks so the ich doesnt have anything to host off of.
The ich will be in the substratem rockwork etc.

You heard right with the 6 weeks, the crals and iverts wont be affected during this time.

The one main cause of a ich outbreak is stress, changes in water quality, temp swings, basically anything that can cause stress.
You might even buy a fish that has ich but the fish isnt showing signs of it.
Everytime I would be interested in a fish, I will have the LFS hold the fish for 2 weeks on a deposit to ensure it is healthy, and eating.
The main stress point of LFS buying is the fish gets shipped to them, have the time isnt acclimated properly, and then is purchased. Withing that 2 week time period, the fish can get adjusted to the LFS tank.

When you do QT the fish, they will still carry the ich parasite unless treated. I dont like to use copper myself as it is really easy to overdose.
The hypo salinity method has worked great for me and I havent lost anything.
 
ok I have 2 small clowns to QT and 3 1" green chromis... I have a 10 gallon QT tank and a maxi jet 600. what type of cheap filter can I use(brand)? can I QT these fish together? Is the tank big enough? how big of a heater do I need?
 
10g is kinda small for that many fish. Worst thing about it is if your parameters start getting out of whack (i.e. like a sudden ammonia spike), they go out of whack fast. You can get a simple HOB filter and run on it with some carbon (if you're not using meds). Are you going to hypo them? Make up a bunch of SW and plain RO/DI water to have around for water changes, topoffs, and salinity alterations. That's another thing to think of is with evap off a tank that small, if you do hypo it might be difficult to hold it at the salinity it needs to be at. I haven't tried hypo on a 10g before.
 
I've got a 29g so that I could handle somewhat larger fish individually, or up to a few not so large fish at the same time if need be. If I had a major emergency that I had to hospital tank everybody, though, I'd have to recruit my future topoff 20g tank into service along with the 29g for all my fish. I have 2 fish in my QT right now that I just got, don't know if you saw the pic of one in the local forum.
 
oh a 29 huh, The only thing is that would be hard to gather enough water fo that setup for me.. I might try a 20g.. I definetly will check out your new fish.. thanks.. link is being read now...
 
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