Just bought 13 fishes, should I treat them?

[huili001]

Ok, the LFS had a 50% off sale and I end up buying a bunch of them. I got two yellow tailed purple damsel, one violet velvet damsel, one royal gramma, one bi-color dotty back, one firefish, one purple firefish, one lawnmower Blenny, one six-line wrasse, three green chromise( four died already), one yellow watchman goby. They are now in my QT. I read somewhere saying that about 20% of the fishes from LFS have diseases. So with so many fishes, the chance of them having ICH or Velvet would be high, right? Should I go ahead and treat them with copper regardless of their health condition? Especially four green chromise died within 3days. They die very fast. In the morning they are eating, and at night when I got home one die, and another and another.

Thanks

 

[Rognin]

Ok, the LFS had a 50% off sale and I end up buying a bunch of them. I got two yellow tailed purple damsel, one violet velvet damsel, one royal gramma, one bi-color dotty back, one firefish, one purple firefish, one lawnmower Blenny, one six-line wrasse, three green chromise( four died already), one yellow watchman goby. They are now in my QT. I read somewhere saying that about 20% of the fishes from LFS have diseases. So with so many fishes, the chance of them having ICH or Velvet would be high, right? Should I go ahead and treat them with copper regardless of their health condition? Especially four green chromise died within 3days. They die very fast. In the morning they are eating, and at night when I got home one die, and another and another.

Thanks

You bought 13 fishes at once and plunked them into the QT?

Maybe check your ammonia... that's a huge bio load to add all at once...

 

[gone fishin]

Thats alot of fish and IMO the makings of a pretty agressive tank. At this point I would be concerned about keeping the ammonia down rather than treating them with something. Just my 2 cents

 

[huili001]

Thanks. The QT is a 30g, I thought it would be ok with small fishes. But I will keep an eye on the water quality.

 

[huili001]

Both ammonia and nitrile are still 0. The tank is mature, with a skimmer. Hope it is OK. I know I went a little overboard. I do worry about the chromises died. They didn't look sick at all. They are very very small though. They all died within three days, ans the guy in LFS said it happens quite offen for the chromise, doesn't mean they are sick, may just be stress during shipping. Is it true?

 

[wooden_reefer]

It is absolutely OK to buy as many fish as you can IF you had planned ahead and if you are good at disease control.

Did you and are you?

I generally aim to buy as many fish for a setup at once to QT all at once. This is the best way.

I did and I am.

Do you have a large enough QT setup with robustly cycled medium and UV setup already waiting to recieve the new fish?

 

[wooden_reefer]

If you need to just now ask this type of question you likely are not prepared and are not experienced with disease control, IMO.

 

[huili001]

I have a QT set up for this, but am not an expert on disease control. I read about it a lot, but never seen many diseases except ICH. Some people say don't treat if there is no sign of disease. I tried to buy those more disease resistant kinds, but can't see why the chromise died.

 

[Mrscribbled]

Chromis have been doing very poorly lately. I'll bring in a dozen and usually 5 will croke just as you describe. Some kind of illness in there natural environment I suspect.

 

[wooden_reefer]

I have a QT set up for this, but am not an expert on disease control. I read about it a lot, but never seen many diseases except ICH. Some people say don't treat if there is no sign of disease. I tried to buy those more disease resistant kinds, but can't see why the chromise died.

How did you cycle the medium for QT for 13 even many smalll fish?

 

[huili001]

Thank everybody for your concerns. My fishes and i thank you guys very much.
I'm OK taking care of the fishes, just haven't seen many diseases personally. Books and pictures are a little different than real things. That's why i'm so concerned about the chromises since they don't look or act sick at all. Thank Mrscribble for letting me know that they are doing this lately. I feel much better now.
I have a filter, a skimmer, an air pump. Nothing fancy, but the QT never had any ammonia or nitrile problem after initial set up long time ago. I always have it running, adding small amount of food to it to keep well, do a water change several days before buying new fishes. The nitrate is not high either. I don' t get the nitrate too low because I want some natural alge for the lawnmower Blenny to enjoy.
When i got new fishes, I try to encourage them to eat a verity of food. So I usually feed with dry food soaked with garlic or selcon first. Some won't take it, then I give some frozen mysis. If in case I notice the spike of ammonia or nitrile, I cut down on selcon and pellets and do a water change. Usually I don't have problems. I feed small amount twice a day. So their living enviralment is pretty good. But I'm really not sure about diseases. No confidence at all.

 

[hobbzz]

I would pull the poor firefish. You picked all of the most aggressive small fish and two of the weakest. I think you would be very lucky if they didn't get outright killed or at least bullied to starvation.

I second the other ideas.

 

[huili001]

They seem to be ok. Although a lot of them are aggressive, they are not too bad when they are young. There are a lot of hiding places, so far so good. But I will keep an eye on them and pull them out if they turn mean. I do have a separate damsel tank. So far the dotty back is the only one that's hiding, but he comes out to eat during feeding time.

 

[Dmorty217]

Honestly all of those fish are hardy fish and if they are eating a variety of food should have strong immune systems and never show signs of any disease ever. That is too many in most QT. I would get some like the blenny, firefish, and gobys out of the QT

 

[Foreverfishy]

Huili, I could tell you from personal experience do not put the damsel with that firefish. That damsel will attack it. Okay I know your quarantine tank is 30 gallons, what about your main display? Hope it's over a 100gal.

 

[wooden_reefer]

In a QT, to reduce aggression and the consequence of it, you can pack the QT tank with hiding places. I mean not just a few but numerous.

The old coffee mugs in my office disappear for this reason, cheaper and more functional than LR.