OP
OP
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2009
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April 2021 - The Avoidable Mistake
In March I purchased a couple new fish I consider my personal favorites. An Achilles Tang and a Blonde Naso Tang.
This is where I make a critical mistake. First a little background.
A number of years back I had a weird disease outbreak in my tank and lost a lot of prized fish. After that I became a strong believer in QT. I quarantined EVERYTHING. Fish, Coral, Inverts... If it went in the display, it went through QT.
Back to present, I was incredibly discouraged that after all of my efforts to keep my tank disease free, I saw ich spots on my Fowleri. In a moment of weekness, I ordered the Achilles and Blonde naso, acclimated them, and dropped them in the tank. They both looked healthy and clear of any disease....
A few days later, I started to notice ich spots on the Achilles. Another couple days later I started to notice more spots on the Fowleri. Then the Yellow Belly Regal, then the purples, then the yellows... Over 2 weeks it got REALLY bad. I finally broke down and decided I needed to act. By this time the Achilles was looking terrible and completely covered.
This brings up to 4/4/2021, 2 days after contracting Covid and feeling about the worst I have ever felt in my life, I begin the process.
My frag tank and display are plumbed together, but luckily I designed it in such a way, if the need ever arose, I could easily separate them. Well, it arose... I replumbed the frag tank and separated the 2, pulled all the corals from the display, and pulled all the fish from the frag tank and put them in the sump for the display.
Once I disconnected the 2 systems, I decided it was time to deal with another little problem I was having... Planaria Flatworms in the frag tank. It was pretty bad so I pulled all the rocks, corals, frag racks, everything from the tank and dipped them separately in Flatworm Exit to remove the majority of the flatworms. I also performed a %80 water change and manually removed what I could see in the empty frag tank.
Once everything was dipped separately I put everything back in the frag tank and then did a full tank flatwork exit treatment as well to try to catch the last remaining stragglers.
Frag tank done... On to the display.
Once all the corals were pulled I started down the road of treating the entire display with CP. This is no small feat treating a biologically established 700g system. I chose CP because I have a Zebra Moray Eel and a Dogface Puffer in the sump and copper would likely be a death sentence for them. The puffer I could remove but the eel is near impossible to get out of the tank. CP it is.
I started treatment that day, on 4/4/2021. I dosed the tank with a full dose of CP at 60mg/Gallon. I then proceeded for the next 2 weeks to do a %10 maintenance dose every day since CP degrades in a biologically active tank.
Everything was looking good, until 4/20/2021. I saw ICH on the Achilles! I made it 16 days, but ich re-appeared. The only answer I could come up with was CP was degrading faster than I had thought. After a little spreadsheet math, on 4/21/2021, I repeated the full dosage again and this time around I tripled my daily dose to counteract the degradation.
That brings us to today. Second time around, spots are slowly disappearing on the Achilles, but he has developed a bit of lymphocystis. That should clear up once the CP treatment is over, but I am watching him closely. All fish are eating like pigs and doing well so far so I am going to stay the course!
No other fish are showing signs of ich at this point, so I am hoping I am in the home stretch. 2 weeks to go!
In March I purchased a couple new fish I consider my personal favorites. An Achilles Tang and a Blonde Naso Tang.
This is where I make a critical mistake. First a little background.
A number of years back I had a weird disease outbreak in my tank and lost a lot of prized fish. After that I became a strong believer in QT. I quarantined EVERYTHING. Fish, Coral, Inverts... If it went in the display, it went through QT.
Back to present, I was incredibly discouraged that after all of my efforts to keep my tank disease free, I saw ich spots on my Fowleri. In a moment of weekness, I ordered the Achilles and Blonde naso, acclimated them, and dropped them in the tank. They both looked healthy and clear of any disease....
A few days later, I started to notice ich spots on the Achilles. Another couple days later I started to notice more spots on the Fowleri. Then the Yellow Belly Regal, then the purples, then the yellows... Over 2 weeks it got REALLY bad. I finally broke down and decided I needed to act. By this time the Achilles was looking terrible and completely covered.
This brings up to 4/4/2021, 2 days after contracting Covid and feeling about the worst I have ever felt in my life, I begin the process.
My frag tank and display are plumbed together, but luckily I designed it in such a way, if the need ever arose, I could easily separate them. Well, it arose... I replumbed the frag tank and separated the 2, pulled all the corals from the display, and pulled all the fish from the frag tank and put them in the sump for the display.
Once I disconnected the 2 systems, I decided it was time to deal with another little problem I was having... Planaria Flatworms in the frag tank. It was pretty bad so I pulled all the rocks, corals, frag racks, everything from the tank and dipped them separately in Flatworm Exit to remove the majority of the flatworms. I also performed a %80 water change and manually removed what I could see in the empty frag tank.
Once everything was dipped separately I put everything back in the frag tank and then did a full tank flatwork exit treatment as well to try to catch the last remaining stragglers.
Frag tank done... On to the display.
Once all the corals were pulled I started down the road of treating the entire display with CP. This is no small feat treating a biologically established 700g system. I chose CP because I have a Zebra Moray Eel and a Dogface Puffer in the sump and copper would likely be a death sentence for them. The puffer I could remove but the eel is near impossible to get out of the tank. CP it is.
I started treatment that day, on 4/4/2021. I dosed the tank with a full dose of CP at 60mg/Gallon. I then proceeded for the next 2 weeks to do a %10 maintenance dose every day since CP degrades in a biologically active tank.
Everything was looking good, until 4/20/2021. I saw ICH on the Achilles! I made it 16 days, but ich re-appeared. The only answer I could come up with was CP was degrading faster than I had thought. After a little spreadsheet math, on 4/21/2021, I repeated the full dosage again and this time around I tripled my daily dose to counteract the degradation.
That brings us to today. Second time around, spots are slowly disappearing on the Achilles, but he has developed a bit of lymphocystis. That should clear up once the CP treatment is over, but I am watching him closely. All fish are eating like pigs and doing well so far so I am going to stay the course!
No other fish are showing signs of ich at this point, so I am hoping I am in the home stretch. 2 weeks to go!
