New to the hobby - Badger
New to the hobby - Badger
Hi all - I have been keen on fish keeping all my life. I did cold water, and tropical fish when I was young, had a large Koi pond when I was not so young, and in July 2016, I finally took the plunge to do what I have always wanted to do... salt water.
I did a lot of reading online, and decided to go for a reasonable size tank to start off with. My logic was that I was bound to make mistakes, and more water volume would give me extra buffer to sort it out before things started dying. I was looking for a 75 gallon setup (2nd hand), but found a good 90 gallon deal. Basically, the guy who owned it had gone through the setup process, and had introduced 2 fish (tomato clown / domino damsel), and lost interest.
Fast forward to today, where I have learned a painful lesson. If you're new to the hobby, and have read about quarantining everything before putting it in your DT, heed the advice! I had a wonderfully healthy tank, with: 1 x tomato clown, 1 x coral beauty, 2 x anthias (male & female), 1 x blue tang, 1 x fox face, 4 x chromis, 1 x watchman goby, and 1 x royal gramma basslet. I introduced some new zoanthids, and a brown powder tang, and boom, a tank full of ich.
I tried using Kick Ich, but I'm not convinced it does anything. Fish started dying, so I pulled them all out into a quarantine tank, and am treating them with copper. My intention is to leave the tank fallow for 2 months, then put them back. I now only have the fox face, goby, and 4 chromis left. My blue tang is hanging on as I write, but does look like she'll make it to the morning.
![Frown :( :(](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png)
I guess this is a a lesson learned type introduction. But I have the marine bug now, and I hope you can take something from my advice. In case you missed it, when you buy something new, quarantine it for a month before putting it in the display tank. If it's a fish, you might want to treat with copper for good measure. If it's coral, dip it.
Cheers,
Badger