Journey to a full stock of fish; troubles and lessons learned from a 50% success rate – Part 1

[colossal_tater]

Some Background

I wanted to do a small series of posts where I walk through all the fish I've cared for in my pursuit of fully stocking my 40 gallon. It has taken me a little over a year to reach my goal for fish in my tank and it was not an easy path. I'll go through the problems I faced and give the lessons I learned from each death. I'd love to hear from similar stories or to point out anything I could have done better. I absolutely hate causing any harm and each death made me question why I was even doing this. So I really hope to get better and better and pass any knowledge I can along.

The First Disaster – Velvet Death

I started cycling dry marco rock in a trash can around the end of June, 2019 with some bottled bacteria and ammonia. I set my tank up with that rock around the beginning of August and added my first fish after finishing the cycle on August 20. I had already read all about QT, but I figured that I would just go fallow if anything happened and treat the fish since QT almost takes as long as going fallow for ich. Narrator: "He had to go fallow"

Fish	Lifespan	Source of fish
Firefish	August 20, 2019 - September 21, 2019	LFS A
Bangaii Cardinal	August 22, 2019 - Present	LFS A
Yellow Watchman Goby	August 31, 2019 - September 22, 2019	LFS B

Pictures to honor the fallen (although the Bangaii is still alive and doing awesome!)

The Saga

I chalk most of this first disaster up to inexperience and naivety. I was so excited for my first fish after waiting 2 months to setup my tank and cycle, and I found a beautiful firefish. He came from LFS A which was a brand new LFS. The owner was also a freshwater guy and didn't have much experience with saltwater, but I wasn't even concerned about this at the time. The firefish I got looked great, but I saw flashing and obvious ich on many of the fish in the other tanks. All the tanks were on a connected system. I just docked this in my mind for later, but I knew this was risky.

I think another big issue in general was that I was feeding only Hikari frozen brine shrimp. Not even the spirulina stuff, just the straight up candy. This was what the LFS was feeding, and I wanted the fish to have a nice transition, but I never got more food to feed them since the seemed to like the brine shrimp so much.

After three weeks, the firefish started flashing into the sand and rocks. It was happening every 5 minutes, but I didn't see any visible issues on his body so I decided to wait it out. Big mistake! A few days later, the yellow watchman goby started flashing as well. I was really worried now, but, again, I decided to try to wait it out because it was impossible to catch them without tearing down my rock work.

Within a week of the firefish starting to flash, he died with no trace. The next day the yellow watchman goby started acting incredibly weird and breathing heavy. By the end of the day he was dead. I saw no issues on either of their bodies, so after some research I decided it was most likely velvet. I took the Cardinal out and created a QT setup and treat with copper. I was absolutely devastated and this is when I started getting serious about QT.

Lessons Learned

• Only buy from an LFS with experience that you can trust
• Feed better things than just brine shrimp!
• Don't even risk getting fish from a system that has obvious disease. MAYBE if you are going to QT, but never if you are going to just drop into your tank
• If you notice a persistent problem with a fish and that problem is linked to a common parasite/disease, start treating the fish
• Always QT!

Conclusion

Let me know what y'all think about this series. If you like it, I'll keep posting. In total, I have gotten 16 fish and am currently at 8 healthy fish, so basically a 50% success rate. I've learned even more since this first disaster and I'm at the point I think I'm doing alright. I'd love to hear your similar stories!

 

[DC Reefer]

Nice write-up. I think this helps bring home the importance of QT as well as buying healthy fish. I would continue with the updates as I think it will really help people from making the same mistakes. Also I think I would be hard pressed to buy a fish that I thought had any sort of parasite/disease

 

[mindme]

I recently had a similiar experience. I have been in the hobby for 10 years and I guess I had just been getting lucky not quarantining my fish.

I setup a new 180g tank. I had some fish already that were healthy in a small tank. Had them all for well over a month, some of them multiple years. I moved them into the 180g. Then I ordered some more fish online.

The fish I ordered arrived, I acclimated them etc. I put them into the tank, and everyone is getting along great. But they are a little timid, and like to hang out under one of the many overhangs in the aquascape, which I just attribute to being in a new tank.

A few days later, one of the tangs I ordered dies. No visible signs. Ok, put in for a reorder. Suddenly multiple fish I ordered have died. what the heck. My existing fish at this point seem fine and healthy. More fish arrive, I put them in the tank.

They all die within a few days. But finally one of them shows signs which I think is velvet. But it's too late. Suddenly existing fish just start dying. My aquascape is heavily cemented, extremely heavy and there is no way I can take it out and keep it. Large overhangs etc.

At this point I'm like well gotta go fallow and QT. So I setup a QT tank.

I managed to catch the sailfin struggling one night, no doubt he would have died the next morning. But he was hanging out in the back of the tank near the top. I was able to scoop him out in the middle of the night.

Gave him a FW dip and put him in the QT tank. Add cupramine because it's all the LFS had. The next day I give him a 2nd FW dip. He's sluggish after the dips, but I can tell he's doing much better from it. 2 days later get the copper to medication levels. This coming Tuesday will be 2 weeks at medicated copper levels. He's doing great overall, eats constantly etc. I have another QT tank ready for him to be transferred in on Tuesday and I'm going to treat it for other stuff. Might as well I figure.

Unfortuntely, all the other fish died in the tank, except for a YWG that I've had for over 3 years. And the bad part is - he's still in the tank. He shows no symptoms, but I can't be fallow with him in there. I've tried a trap and everything else, but he's like nah I'm good. So I'm pretty much waiting for him to either finally get it, or maybe I'll be able to capture him. Sometimes he likes to sleep up against the glass. Almost had him night before last but my net got caught on a rock.

If I get him out, I'll start the fallow time period. If not and he doesn't show symptoms, I'm going to try a black molly around new year and see how it goes.

But yeah, all my future fish will be QT I guess. It's not my first choice, I'd rather get healthy fish. But after watching more fish die over the past month than my previous 10 years combined, I'm done watching them die.

So that's my story on why I QT now.

 

[Weasel1960]

Thanks. Nice article, very informative, look forward to more. Am a newbie as well so am following this. Have seen reference to several fire fish deaths lately so wondering how hardy are they?