Hello All!
I posted the same question over in the "new to the hobby" page and was suggested to post it here after a few recommendations. I have a 45 gallon tank with a few coral frags and a couple different fish but about a month ago I added a bicolor angel. He was an active swimmer, ate regularly and was very healthy. Then a few days ago I noticed he was hiding a bit more than usual, so I ran water tests and everything came back as normal for my tank. The ammonia was 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0.25, SG 1.023, pH 7.8, temp 78°F calcium 420ppm and phosphates 0. So I fed the tank, flicked on my blue light and went to bed. This morning I turned on my day lights and found my bicolor laying on his side and breathing heavily. So I broke out the quarantine tank filled it with tank water and added some copper cause I do remember seeing him floating around my cleaner shrimp and letting him pick at his gills and body so I thought it was maybe an ich breakout. Please help! He's one of my favorites! I was told my SG and pH were a little low and should work on bringing that up but not until after I can solve this issue. I was also told I should take him out if the copper cause I'm not sure what it is yet and should just quarantine him and watch for a couple days while doing regular water changes. However, I don't think he'll last that long as he's already barely hanging on to life. The tank itself is only a couple months old but the sand and rock all came from my old tank that was almost a year old. I also used as much of my tank water as I could to fill the new tank and was able to fill it with about 25 gallons b4 I had to start making fresh saltwater. I only use distilled water in my mixing and the salt I use is reef crystals by instant ocean.
I posted the same question over in the "new to the hobby" page and was suggested to post it here after a few recommendations. I have a 45 gallon tank with a few coral frags and a couple different fish but about a month ago I added a bicolor angel. He was an active swimmer, ate regularly and was very healthy. Then a few days ago I noticed he was hiding a bit more than usual, so I ran water tests and everything came back as normal for my tank. The ammonia was 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0.25, SG 1.023, pH 7.8, temp 78°F calcium 420ppm and phosphates 0. So I fed the tank, flicked on my blue light and went to bed. This morning I turned on my day lights and found my bicolor laying on his side and breathing heavily. So I broke out the quarantine tank filled it with tank water and added some copper cause I do remember seeing him floating around my cleaner shrimp and letting him pick at his gills and body so I thought it was maybe an ich breakout. Please help! He's one of my favorites! I was told my SG and pH were a little low and should work on bringing that up but not until after I can solve this issue. I was also told I should take him out if the copper cause I'm not sure what it is yet and should just quarantine him and watch for a couple days while doing regular water changes. However, I don't think he'll last that long as he's already barely hanging on to life. The tank itself is only a couple months old but the sand and rock all came from my old tank that was almost a year old. I also used as much of my tank water as I could to fill the new tank and was able to fill it with about 25 gallons b4 I had to start making fresh saltwater. I only use distilled water in my mixing and the salt I use is reef crystals by instant ocean.
