MinnFish
Member
You got to love some of those LFS advice:sad2:
Nitrates too high?
- Thread starter ThisCityIsDead
- Start date
You got to love some of those LFS advice:sad2:
As far as I know GAC does not directly remove nitrates, but it does help to remove organics which will become nitrates. OK, it's a stretch, but perhaps that's what your LFS meant.
ThisCityIsDead
New member
I just got back from the Lfs and they also have never heard of the whole carbon thing. I bought two snow flakes and a yellow tang as well as a blue tang (hippo)
sc50964
New member
whiteshark
Active member
That is a lot of fish to add at once. And two of them require a significantly large sized tank. How big is your tank?
whiteshark
Active member
GAC - Granulated (ganular) Activated Carbon.
GFO - Granulated (granular) Ferric Oxide.
ThisCityIsDead
New member
Really? I was told 4 was pushing it but it'd be ok. My tank is 75G. I know the tangs, esp. The blue tang, and will outgrow the tank. They are only 1.5 inch each. Maybe the yellow is 2 inches.
whiteshark
Active member
Well the LFS goal is to sell things, so they will usually tell you that it's alright to make a sale. Not all are like that, but many are.
What I worry about is stress on the tangs from a possible ammonia spike from adding all those fish (and the associated food they will require) at once. When tangs, especially hippos, get stressed they tend to get ich, which can then spread to your clowns. You may be OK as the tangs are small and the tank is big enough for now, but I wouldn't take the risk. If you do keep them, and they do alright, you WILL have to rehome them (the yellow and hippo tangs) when they get bigger.
What I worry about is stress on the tangs from a possible ammonia spike from adding all those fish (and the associated food they will require) at once. When tangs, especially hippos, get stressed they tend to get ich, which can then spread to your clowns. You may be OK as the tangs are small and the tank is big enough for now, but I wouldn't take the risk. If you do keep them, and they do alright, you WILL have to rehome them (the yellow and hippo tangs) when they get bigger.
ThisCityIsDead
New member
Oh snap! I hate ich. All of my fresh water fish would suffer from ich. It was a pain. I'm hoping the tang does fine. When the guy was pulling the tang out, the tang decided to "play dead". He said it was a defense mechanism. True/false?
ThisCityIsDead
New member
Update: it has been nearly 5 hours since the fish were released into the tnk. Here is what happened.
I released the yellow tang first, follow by the blue. Lastly, the two clowns. When the blue was released, it swam next to the yellow. The two swam together only around a corner of the tank. The clowns joined right after.
The four fish swam together for about an hr. The yellow tang decided to swim on its own and broke away from the clowns and the blue. The blue tang seems to follow the clowns. It is swimming up and down like the clowns are. If the clowns swim away from the corner, it follows. So far, the clowns aren't moving away from the same corner. I turned the moonlight off and the blue tang separated from the clowns. The clowns moved over to the center of the tank and are, what seems, making themselves comfy on the sand bed. It seems as if they are digging themselves a hole to sleep in. The tang went off to live rock and found itself a crack where it is sleeping? As for the yellow tang, it is swimming freely around a rock.
Why is the tang so attached to the clowns? The yellow was too, but is now on its own.
I released the yellow tang first, follow by the blue. Lastly, the two clowns. When the blue was released, it swam next to the yellow. The two swam together only around a corner of the tank. The clowns joined right after.
The four fish swam together for about an hr. The yellow tang decided to swim on its own and broke away from the clowns and the blue. The blue tang seems to follow the clowns. It is swimming up and down like the clowns are. If the clowns swim away from the corner, it follows. So far, the clowns aren't moving away from the same corner. I turned the moonlight off and the blue tang separated from the clowns. The clowns moved over to the center of the tank and are, what seems, making themselves comfy on the sand bed. It seems as if they are digging themselves a hole to sleep in. The tang went off to live rock and found itself a crack where it is sleeping? As for the yellow tang, it is swimming freely around a rock.
Why is the tang so attached to the clowns? The yellow was too, but is now on its own.
Saltliquid
New member
Wow you have a lot learn, just like I did but hopefully not like I did, the hard ways! That’s too many fish at one time for a new system, so you may loose all or some of them over the coming weeks.
Read up on the white spotting protist parasite some times called ich and what some mutate into called velvet. These both do well with substrates to achieve part of their life cycle and live part of their life cycle quite well on tangs due to small gill plates which reduces oxygen and brings on stress, then stress weakens their external immune system, then parasites are not repelled well, plus their tiny scales allow easier access to the flesh for these parasites.
Blue tangs I see when diving, are up to 2 feet long and when I collect them they are as small as 10 mill in length some times in the stag horn coral heads, depending on what i want at the time. Personally all your fish but the blue tangs are okay and will grow slowly due to smallish tanks size if they survive the new tank syndrome, you see blue tangs are morons, so they will find it hard to settle into small spaces as they grow.
Blue tangs are a schooling fish, they prefer mates that have defence mucus as clown fish do like they have to live in the stinging coral during their youth, a little like anems and yes they will lay and sort of play dead.
Read up on the white spotting protist parasite some times called ich and what some mutate into called velvet. These both do well with substrates to achieve part of their life cycle and live part of their life cycle quite well on tangs due to small gill plates which reduces oxygen and brings on stress, then stress weakens their external immune system, then parasites are not repelled well, plus their tiny scales allow easier access to the flesh for these parasites.
Blue tangs I see when diving, are up to 2 feet long and when I collect them they are as small as 10 mill in length some times in the stag horn coral heads, depending on what i want at the time. Personally all your fish but the blue tangs are okay and will grow slowly due to smallish tanks size if they survive the new tank syndrome, you see blue tangs are morons, so they will find it hard to settle into small spaces as they grow.
Blue tangs are a schooling fish, they prefer mates that have defence mucus as clown fish do like they have to live in the stinging coral during their youth, a little like anems and yes they will lay and sort of play dead.
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ThisCityIsDead
New member
The tangs developed ich. The ich spread to the clowns:/. It's so sad. They are all Being QT. How much of a chance do they all have of surviving.
Ich is relatively easily treatable, if you do it right. Hippos are incredibly susceptible to ich, so not surprising that it was infected. Also, hippo will be constantly stressed in a 75 gallon tank (far too small) so unless you properly fallow the tank it will continue to get re-infected.
ThisCityIsDead
New member
Even though the hippo is a tiny thing right now? It doesn't even swim at all, it stays in one side of the tank and that's all it does all day. Then it finds a crack on the rock and sleeps. Hmmm:/. I purchased some Kent garlic and nori. Going to try and boost its immune system.
whiteshark
Active member
My fears confirmed huh? Well, that is a shame, but hopefully it serves as a lesson. And hopefully you learned that you can trust the posters on this site too. I've honestly never had to deal with ich so I'll leave treatment recommendations to someone else who has, but I will say I doubt garlic will do anything. I think that is a bit of an old wives tale.
ThisCityIsDead
New member
Yes. It's not that I didn't trust you, I deffinantley take everything most people, if not all, leave post on here. I'm completely new to the saltwater world. I knew that when I got home from work, the clowns didn't have any visible ich. (White spots). The yellow had few, and the blue had less than this morning but still had a considerately amount.
Saltliquid
New member
When in quarantine, bring up cupramine levels or what ever you can find with a copper chloride base,(not copper sulphate, its harder with out lots of experience) or chloroquin quickly up to three times the recommended levels and they should be fine, Quarantining of fish is absolutely useless with out a good treatment "always" in that water!!!! You have 2 to 4 days till white spot is possibly getting ugly then 10 to 15 days till velvet finishes them off, hopefully not, that's just the worst case scenario. But let me say this quite strongly, they have the best chance of survival with the invertebrate killer (protists are invertebrates) called copper chloride!
Hope it works out, back in my day of treatments, all I had that actually worked was that pretty blue powder from the chemist and my secret ingredient from the super market to keep it in suspension.
sc50964
New member
Found the following article today that detailed the effects of nitrate to various marine organism and the various ways to reduce nitrate. Interesting read. One of the ways is the usage of carbon.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/8/chemistry
