Hi All, pretty new to the hobby with SO MUCH to learn!
Hi All, pretty new to the hobby with SO MUCH to learn!
Sorry so long..... I inhereted my daughters marine biology project last year, a small reef tank with a red rose anenome, two mated clowns, and a puffer fish. Once she got her A and got tired of batteling that horrid snot algae she lost interest. I replaced her tank with a 70 gal and stand worthy of being in the living room that had the filtration system built in to it and skimmer in the back, etc. I'm thinking fish space wise its probably a 55 gal tank. We started adding to it over the year and got rid of the puffer fish which I hated to do but caught him nipping at the anenome so he had to go! We've always purchased our fish from a private person that makes a living on taking care of salt tanks and quarantines everything prior to us receiving it from him.
Last month my fish started disapearing, first my mandarin, then my bicolor blennie, orchid dotty back then my yellow tang! At first I thought it was the damn little lobster having his own buffet. Everyone looked good, no spots that I saw, they all ate well, up until the eve before they disappeared. Then one night my yellow tang looked pale, I thought it was because the preprogrammed lights had been off and it was night time for him, he seemed to yellow up as the light was on but a few days later I caught the lobster munching on him. When I pulled him and put my husbands cheater glasses on I then noticed a few tiny spots on it. So did our male clown fish and blue tang. We went on Reef Central and started reading as well as called our fish person who told us there is a horrid amount of cryocrypton going around. We set up a hospital tank and have been treating with cupramine for 30 days now, planning on waiting the 72 days that everyone seems to recommend. All I have left is my blue tang, two mated clown fish and a coral beauty.
The DT has the anenome, 3 cleaner shrimps, a fire shrimp some nessarious, hermit crabs, long spine urchin, pin cusion urchin and lobster but he may go too. Everyone looks good and water testing perfect although the algae is starting to grow on the live rocks..... In the hospital tank everyone looks great although the blue tang still seems very stressed and scared.
Once everyone gets thru this, what is the quarantine protocol for the new fish? Do I treat them with cupramine too? I don't want to go thru this again. I also want to add Blennies and QT is bare except for a little tube for them to hide in.
Thank you for your time and experience, its been a wild ride. Love that my hubby got into this as well even tho he thought I was nuts, he set up a total a RODI system etc. Wonderful being married to an engineer :bounce1:
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