lauremf2002
New member
Okay, let me start from the beginning. My alk was very low (6) and I entered all my parameters into a reef chemistry calculator and determined that I needed to add about 8 1/2 tsp of baking soda to my 120 gallon tank to brink it up. I realized that I could not add all of this at once so I did a drip for about 2 hours and added half of the solution I had mixed (the 8 1/2 tsp of baking soda in 1 gallon of rodi water). Being lazy, I did not take my tanks Ph before or immediately after doing this. I figured the drip was being pretty cautious and I would be fine. The next day as soon as the lights came on I went to check the tank and saw that my female clown has some small white spots on her gills, eyes and fins and on large white patch on the back of her left fin. I immediately thought she had ich. I took my Ph and it was at 8.0. Not knowing what is was before I added the alk mixture I figured this was probably better already than it had been and that it could have been much lower the day before. I added some Ions Balance and it came up immediately to 8.2. By the next day we were back at 8.4. Anyway, long story, I think I must have stressed her and this seamingly mild case of ich would probably resolve itself. Well a few days went on and she appeared to get a little better. Everyone else in the tank was doing fine so I didnt worry. Fast forward. I have been gone for 3 days and tonight I come back to find she is worse and now the male clown also has symptoms AND the Kole tang has what appears to be fin rot on his lower fins! It no longer looks like ick to me at all. The white patches are just too big. My mandarin still seems unharmed but I am now fearing the worst and dont want to lose my entire fish population. I dont have a qt tank and dont think I could catch them anyway (also, I have always had terrible luck with qt tanks because I cant afford a big enough tank or big enough filtration to support even the smallest fish for any length of time. In the past I have always made the fish sicker or just plain killed the poor thing when trying to quarantine it.) Any ideas what this could be and how I could treat it would be helpfull. I was thinking I would buy a couple of cleaner shrimp to be safe but other than that I am at a loss.
