BryFerr+4
New Member
Greetings,
Hoping to get some help and advice.
I have a 20 long nano reef tank that just had the bubonic plague hit and wipe out all of my fish. I had two Ocellaris clowns, a watchman goby and a small blue damsel (not really mourning that fish) as livestock in the tank along with a normal sized cleanup crew of assorted Trochus, Nassarius and Margarita snails, some assorted blue and red hermits and Emerald Crab.
Tank his been up and running for over six months and everything to this point has been fine. Running an Aquaclear 70 with Chemipure Elite and filter floss along with a protein skimmer that is doing a fine job removing gunk. Have plenty of flow with multiple powerheads and have been also doing 10% weekly water changes. Also using RODI water for topoffs and the other other things I dose in the water are Seachem Reef Complete and Phytoplankton.
For corals, I have been taking it pretty slow and letting my tank get established but I currently have a blasto, an acan, a small favia frag and a couple mushrooms. I do have coraline algae well established and growing in the tank so things on that end look good. All my corals seem to be doing fine.
My latest parameters were:
Ammonia = 0
Nitrites = 0
Nitrates - 0.05
Calcium = 450
Phosphate = 0.04
Ph = 8.0
Salinity = 1.026
Temp = 78 degrees
Other than my fish dying the only other thing I have been fighting with are the normal algae outbreaks. Went through the diatoms and all of that but for the past month I have been fighting green hair algae. I am running two AI Prime 16's and I reduced my light times and intensity a bit and have been picking out algae as much as possible. That stuff sure grows fast though, my poor CUC just cannot keep up with it. I really don't think that the algae would cause my fish to die. I have been testing weekly for any ammonia spikes or anything abnormal.
So, for the fish dying, I am thinking it was either brook or velvet but only one of my clowns showed any symptoms and even after getting them all in my QT and starting treatment, they all still died overnight. The only one that was left in the tank was my watchman goby that I couldn't get to without moving all my live rock. He hung on for another day but found him being devoured by my CUC this morning. It was weird because only the one clown showed any signs of disease when it died and the rest looked fine. Sucks loosing all your fish but it happens.
I am pretty sure disease took these fish out BUT I do have to say that I did start dosing my tank with Vibrant a couple of weeks ago. I do not want to start a flame war or anything because I have done my research and after looking through the forums, I have seen some people swear that Vibrant killed their fish. Whether it was a factor or not in my case... I cannot say. I do know that it is helping to knock out my algae issues right now and I will continue to dose my tank with it for the time being.
So for my main question... should I go ahead and continue to add the remaining coral frags to my tank while it is sitting fallow for at least the next three months? I have a lot of real estate left to add more blasto's, a few soft corals and a nice little zoa garden on one of the rocks. Will I need to reset my 90 day fish clock with every coral frag added to the tank or should I be fine as long as I dip my corals? Can fish diseases like brook, ich or velvet ride in on coral frags? I really would like to complete my coral setup for that tank now and then start adding in a couple of fish after the fallow period is up. Does this sound like a decent plan or am I missing something that I haven't thought of.
Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.. I am sure someone on here has maybe gone through something similar.
Thanks much!
Hoping to get some help and advice.
I have a 20 long nano reef tank that just had the bubonic plague hit and wipe out all of my fish. I had two Ocellaris clowns, a watchman goby and a small blue damsel (not really mourning that fish) as livestock in the tank along with a normal sized cleanup crew of assorted Trochus, Nassarius and Margarita snails, some assorted blue and red hermits and Emerald Crab.
Tank his been up and running for over six months and everything to this point has been fine. Running an Aquaclear 70 with Chemipure Elite and filter floss along with a protein skimmer that is doing a fine job removing gunk. Have plenty of flow with multiple powerheads and have been also doing 10% weekly water changes. Also using RODI water for topoffs and the other other things I dose in the water are Seachem Reef Complete and Phytoplankton.
For corals, I have been taking it pretty slow and letting my tank get established but I currently have a blasto, an acan, a small favia frag and a couple mushrooms. I do have coraline algae well established and growing in the tank so things on that end look good. All my corals seem to be doing fine.
My latest parameters were:
Ammonia = 0
Nitrites = 0
Nitrates - 0.05
Calcium = 450
Phosphate = 0.04
Ph = 8.0
Salinity = 1.026
Temp = 78 degrees
Other than my fish dying the only other thing I have been fighting with are the normal algae outbreaks. Went through the diatoms and all of that but for the past month I have been fighting green hair algae. I am running two AI Prime 16's and I reduced my light times and intensity a bit and have been picking out algae as much as possible. That stuff sure grows fast though, my poor CUC just cannot keep up with it. I really don't think that the algae would cause my fish to die. I have been testing weekly for any ammonia spikes or anything abnormal.
So, for the fish dying, I am thinking it was either brook or velvet but only one of my clowns showed any symptoms and even after getting them all in my QT and starting treatment, they all still died overnight. The only one that was left in the tank was my watchman goby that I couldn't get to without moving all my live rock. He hung on for another day but found him being devoured by my CUC this morning. It was weird because only the one clown showed any signs of disease when it died and the rest looked fine. Sucks loosing all your fish but it happens.
I am pretty sure disease took these fish out BUT I do have to say that I did start dosing my tank with Vibrant a couple of weeks ago. I do not want to start a flame war or anything because I have done my research and after looking through the forums, I have seen some people swear that Vibrant killed their fish. Whether it was a factor or not in my case... I cannot say. I do know that it is helping to knock out my algae issues right now and I will continue to dose my tank with it for the time being.
So for my main question... should I go ahead and continue to add the remaining coral frags to my tank while it is sitting fallow for at least the next three months? I have a lot of real estate left to add more blasto's, a few soft corals and a nice little zoa garden on one of the rocks. Will I need to reset my 90 day fish clock with every coral frag added to the tank or should I be fine as long as I dip my corals? Can fish diseases like brook, ich or velvet ride in on coral frags? I really would like to complete my coral setup for that tank now and then start adding in a couple of fish after the fallow period is up. Does this sound like a decent plan or am I missing something that I haven't thought of.
Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.. I am sure someone on here has maybe gone through something similar.
Thanks much!
