Hi all,
My Red Sea Reefer XXL 625 G2 has been up and running for about 10 months now and I'm not sure how to continue from here. I feel like it has been plagued with ich issues. After the fishless cycle went as planned, I introduced a couple of clowns, a royal gramma and a lawnmower blenny. Everything went fine for a month. So I added some more small fish. A few snails. 2 months later everything was still fine.
Then I introduced a powder brown and a blue tang. Not even a week later, the PB got a bad ich infection that spread to the blue as well. I resorted to hyposalinity to get rid of the ich. Everything went well and 6 weeks later I raised the salinity again (6 weeks after the last visible signs of ich). All fish were doing well but I added a uv sterilizer with the right flow to combat ich.
The tank ran fine for many months but it was very empty. So I bought a coral beauty and a white tail bristletooth tang.
Both fish were quarantined in separate systems. My fish store (and comments on this forum) told me that dwarf angels do not tolerate copper treatment. So the tang got the fill quarantine treatment with copper and praziquantel. The angel only received praziquantel and two weeks of additional observation.
After 6 weeks of quarantine, the fish were introduced to the main tank. It didn't take more than 2 days for the angel to get infected and a few days later the white tail bristletooth was covered in ich. The blue tang also got a few spots and started rubbing. The powder brown also developed spots.
So I went into hyposalinity again as soon as spots appeared on both the angel and the bristletooth but it was too late.
The bristletooth died after a week of hypo. Now even the powder brown is dead...
My problem is that I'm losing all confidence in myself and my tank.
I want a full reef tank with corals but because of all these issues, I haven't even considered starting with corals.
Do I give up and sell all the equipment?
Do I convert the system to freshwater and go back to african cichlids (which I love and kept very successfully for 10 years).
Do I tear down the whole system and sterilize everything and start over?
Do I power through the hypo and HOPE that it will be better from now on?
My concern is that I'll be stuck in the nasty ich cycle after added new fish...
Will I be flushing thousands of euros down the toilet over the next years if I continue like this?
My Red Sea Reefer XXL 625 G2 has been up and running for about 10 months now and I'm not sure how to continue from here. I feel like it has been plagued with ich issues. After the fishless cycle went as planned, I introduced a couple of clowns, a royal gramma and a lawnmower blenny. Everything went fine for a month. So I added some more small fish. A few snails. 2 months later everything was still fine.
Then I introduced a powder brown and a blue tang. Not even a week later, the PB got a bad ich infection that spread to the blue as well. I resorted to hyposalinity to get rid of the ich. Everything went well and 6 weeks later I raised the salinity again (6 weeks after the last visible signs of ich). All fish were doing well but I added a uv sterilizer with the right flow to combat ich.
The tank ran fine for many months but it was very empty. So I bought a coral beauty and a white tail bristletooth tang.
Both fish were quarantined in separate systems. My fish store (and comments on this forum) told me that dwarf angels do not tolerate copper treatment. So the tang got the fill quarantine treatment with copper and praziquantel. The angel only received praziquantel and two weeks of additional observation.
After 6 weeks of quarantine, the fish were introduced to the main tank. It didn't take more than 2 days for the angel to get infected and a few days later the white tail bristletooth was covered in ich. The blue tang also got a few spots and started rubbing. The powder brown also developed spots.
So I went into hyposalinity again as soon as spots appeared on both the angel and the bristletooth but it was too late.
The bristletooth died after a week of hypo. Now even the powder brown is dead...
My problem is that I'm losing all confidence in myself and my tank.
I want a full reef tank with corals but because of all these issues, I haven't even considered starting with corals.
Do I give up and sell all the equipment?
Do I convert the system to freshwater and go back to african cichlids (which I love and kept very successfully for 10 years).
Do I tear down the whole system and sterilize everything and start over?
Do I power through the hypo and HOPE that it will be better from now on?
My concern is that I'll be stuck in the nasty ich cycle after added new fish...
Will I be flushing thousands of euros down the toilet over the next years if I continue like this?