No Such Thing as Just Leaving Work Early

[cayenne]

Just because I never have the luck to pull off such things, I decided to leave work early yesterday and start the weekend off. Been travelling all week so I figured I deserved it...

So I get home go over to the tank and low and behold my Gramma is out in the open dragging it's body all over the rocks and my Scopas Tang is covered in spots. It looks like I have an outbreak of Ich from something. It looks like the spots are darker on the Scopas but it could be that he is more of a two tone color that it is showing up that way.

Guess I get to spend my holiday setting up a hospital tank

 

[LuvinLife]

Yikes! Sorry to hear that Landen. I hope you can get the ich under control. Hopefully you will get things settled and still have time to enjoy your weekend.

 

[cayenne]

Thanks Heather. I got the saltwater mixing in the Hospital tank right now, waiting on more RO to be made so I can top it off. Should be able to move fish over in the morning...

Worst part is, I know I won't be able to get all of the fish out of the tank without pulling the rock / coral out, which I really don't think I am willing to do.

 

[cayenne]

Unfortunately, my Kole Tang didn't make it through the night. He never even made it to the hospital tank. He wasn't showing any signs of anything so he may have been the furthest along

 

[cayenne]

Just to continue my rant, because I need to keep my sanity this weekend.

Hospital tank is up and running. Unfortunately my Royal Gramma made it for about 6 hours after acclimation and gave up. The rest of the inhabitants are looking better and eating well.

This was after it took me nearly 10 hours to get all fish out of my display tank. 4 hours of that was trying to get my Yellowtail Damsel. I ended up tearing down the aquascape and had to leave two rocks because my anemone had anchored his foot between the two. Of course the damsel was playing hide and seek in one of those.

Anyway, long, long day, and a loss of two fish. Has really turned into a crappy holiday weekend. Now it's a waiting game for 6-8 weeks with the tank fishless. From my reading that should kill off the parasites.

 

[NbMaxx13]

Do you have a UV Sterilizer? I have 2 extra , if you are trying to find one...

 

[cayenne]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12889057#post12889057 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NbMaxx13
Do you have a UV Sterilizer? I have 2 extra , if you are trying to find one...

Eric,

Reading up on them right now. Seems like everyone has differing opinions if they are useful or not... I am planning on putting one on after this mishap even if it is only a slight preventative measure.

What size do you have? It will be going on a 140

 

[J. Montgomery]

Dang, man. Sorry to hear that

 

[CeaHorseMaShell]

sorry I ran upon this late, in the future you might try garlic extract. Kent Marine makes a really good one called garlic extreme. It is reef safe, I've used it a lot. Ich can be worsened by stress, so it would probably be better to leave them in the display tank and use the garlic, I've always had really good luck with that method. It will also save you a lot of effort.

Good luck
Michele

 

[cayenne]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12889180#post12889180 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by J. Montgomery
Dang, man. Sorry to hear that

Thanks Josh. I know it's part of the adventure, but sometimes it just plain sux...

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12889967#post12889967 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CeaHorseMaShell
sorry I ran upon this late, in the future you might try garlic extract. Kent Marine makes a really good one called garlic extreme. It is reef safe, I've used it a lot. Ich can be worsened by stress, so it would probably be better to leave them in the display tank and use the garlic, I've always had really good luck with that method. It will also save you a lot of effort.

Good luck
Michele

Thanks Michele, I always feed garlic extreme twice a week as a preventative measure. I don't think it is a cure as it is more of a proactive approach to keeping the fish healthy. Whatever got into my system wasn't going to play around so neither was I. I had already lost the Kole and I didn't want to wait longer and lose more of them. It's a risk and more work setting up the hospital but hopefully it will pay off.

 

[J. Montgomery]

Did you add any new fish recently?

 

[NbMaxx13]

Landen ... I have 2 different UVS and am not sure what they are rated for , I will find out sometime when I get home and shoot you a PM...

 

[cayenne]

Well all of the remaining inhabitants of the hospital tank are looking good so far. Everyone is eating and there are only a few spots on the Scopas and one Clown so positive progress has been made.

Melanie and I have been discussing where we want to go with the tank long term, now that the main DT is barren of fish for 6-8 weeks. We have decided to take a different approach, so not all of the fish will be returning to our tank so I will have a couple up for adoption once they are healthy again.

Josh,
The most recent addition was the Kole, so I suspect he was the culprit or the stress of adding him brought it on.

Eric,
Thanks for looking, PM me when you find something.

 

[ServantSoldier]

How are you treating them?

 

[coolfish5]

As far as UV sterilizers go, I would think somehting in the 25watt range would be ok. Aqua Ultraviolet rates those 150gallon for salt water. Although UV will probably not remove a disease from the tank, it does help to reduce the spread, by killing the free floating parasites or bacteria.
Hospital/quarentine is also a great method to reduce the chance of disease introduction to your display. I have used garlic only and still lost fish. I think its best to use with another method (copper or hyposalinity in a quaretine tank).
I have had good luck with just a bare bottom tank, a plastic plant or two for the fish to hang out around (easy to disinfect) and a HOB filter. Fill it with system water so cycling is minimised, then add RO to adjust for hypo.
Best of luck with the other fish, sorry to hear about the tang.