Yea I think your right, the spots didn't look white with my blue lights on, once I shut them off and turned on the white lights now the dots are white. I have never delt with any diease before. I do not have a qt set up. What are the risks to my other fish?
Seems like I really don't have a choice but to qt. For the long run it seems to be smarter. Being a newbie and tank being about 5 months old I am not happy about this experience. My dt tank has lps, softies, shrooms everything but sps. Am I ok to leave them and the clean up crew in the dt tank and just take the fish out?
); but FWIW I think you are making the right choice by treating/going fallow.
You always have a choice (even bad choices are still choices
Corals/inverts can remain in the DT while going fallow. Only all fish need to be removed. Continue to maintain your reef tank as you normally would. Feed your corals/inverts occasionally and throw in a pinch of flake every 2-3 days to maintain bacteria levels.
The 15 gal QT should work, but you are going to need to either do WCs or use a small HOB with seeded bio-media to control the ammonia. What kind of HOB filters do you have on hand?
I copy & pasted this from my "How to QT" article:
The use of “seeded” bio-media can help to break down ammonia. I personally use an Aquaclear HOB power filter, utilizing the “foam insert” i.e. sponge it comes with. I “seed” the sponge (or multiples) in a high flow area of my DT’s sump (or you can put it behind your rocks) for at least one month prior to QT. This one month allows time for enough beneficial bacteria to transfer onto the sponge, so that it may be used as biological filtration once placed back in the power filter and used in QT. An alternative (albeit expensive) way to instantly seed your sponge is to pour some Bio-Spira, Seachem Stability or Dr Tim's Nitrifying Bacteria over it just prior to use. Below is a pic of the Aquaclear HOB power filter and correlating “foam” sponge (you can buy additional sponges cheaply):
Just an update.. unfortunately the green goby didn't make it. Right before the qt transfer he broke out with ich again and this time it was worse. After battling the first breakout he just wasent strong enough to hang on untill the qt was ready. Unfortunately one of my designer clowns just came down with ich. I noticed 3 spots today, all 4 fish should be in the qt tank by tomorrow or Wednesday the lasted with copper. First loss to a diease and it sucks. I was treating with Dr. Medicated food in the meantime while in dt and he was eating and became more active then bam next day spots all over him and he stopped eating, lost color, started to turn brown. [emoji17]
Yes, losing fish to disease does suck. But you are figuring out what to do about it and moving forward, QT'ing all future fish purchases will greatly diminish the chance of this ever happening again in your DT. I say "greatly diminish the chance" because I do not believe in 100%. Not in anything.
Hey Humblefish sorry one more question came to mind as I read and re-read your posts. You stated that you can test the water for ammonia as long as it's not medicated? So since I'll be using a copper medication will my ammonia tests be inaccurate? I do have a ammonia alert badge also in there but was also planning on testing the water once - twice a day.Sorry to hear of your loss.
