My First Upgrade:72 Bowfront

[BoneXriffic]

After reading all this, awesome tank and sorry for the cycle. Could the corals initially have been bleaching from a sudden transition to suck a strong light or did you acclimate to it?

 

[john.m.cole3]

Nothing bleached but all zoas and LPS were unhappy right off the bat. I had to break in the bulbs for 50 hours before I could dim them. I was impatient to transfer everything over to say the least. My monti browned out bc the lights were so low and he didn't have good flow, but that was a new coral from a local T5 user. I gave my zoas to a local guy and they survived. My LPS are now acclimated to the new light and have added more pieces since then. My fish dying is what's stressing me out right now. I think my wrasse will be dead in the morning. He hasn't eaten in 2 days even w/ my garlic that came in today. Losing fish is exhausting... But disease is no longer allowed in my DT and I'd rather lose a fish in QT than lose the whole gang in the DT. Fallow period for 2 months and 5 days to go. Success in on the horizon

 

[jsker]

I am back and forth on QT tank. I have not used one in the past. I would have to look into the setup needed and try it next time I add live stock.

 

[john.m.cole3]

Crap crap crap I thought he was going to Beat It ... he was almost done with the second round of prazipro and I was going to start copper on Sunday . Is this just ich @Humblefish @melypr1985

 

[jsker]

Crap crap crap I thought he was going to Beat It ... he was almost done with the second round of prazipro and I was going to start copper on Sunday . Is this just ich @Humblefish @melypr1985

If any body would know, it would be @Humblefish and @melypr1985 for this one.

 

[jsker]

Boy you and @brandon429 were right, I pull out a lot of fish doo with the vacuum today. Going to do another on Saturday and back off till my next water change so I do not stress kids in the tank again.

 

[john.m.cole3]

Boy you and @brandon429 were right, I pull out a lot of fish doo with the vacuum today. Going to do another on Saturday and back off till my next water change so I do not stress kids in the tank again.

great idea! Aquaforest recommends you do 10% weekly water changes. I do the same. I am receiving a new box of regular Instant Ocean Salt today and am considering switching over to their brand (my components come in on MONDAY!!!!!!!).

What salt are you using @jsker

 

[melypr1985]

Crap crap crap I thought he was going to Beat It ... he was almost done with the second round of prazipro and I was going to start copper on Sunday . Is this just ich @Humblefish @melypr1985

They are so hard to spot ich on! Darn stress colors make it difficult to see. I see some spots that could be ich on the fins though. Can you give me a brief run down here? I skimmed through your thread and it seems that you've been losing fish left and right. Did you remove all the fish into QT? Have you treated with anything besides prazipro at this point? How long ago did you remove the fish (if you did) from the DT?

 

[jsker]

great idea! Aquaforest recommends you do 10% weekly water changes. I do the same. I am receiving a new box of regular Instant Ocean Salt today and am considering switching over to their brand (my components come in on MONDAY!!!!!!!).

What salt are you using @jsker

I am using the Reef Salt from Aquaforest. Chris and Richard over at saltysupply were suggesting that with the component 1+2+3 dosing pro biotic was a waste. They also suggest that when one mixes the por biotic, the mix only has about a 24 hour shelve life. to bad you can not send back the IO? and when you order the Aquaforest order the 25kg amount, it is a great deal. When I mix a 5 gal bucket with the Aquaforest I use 5 1/3 cups to get a 1.025 ish mix. I have gone through a bunch of salt this and last week with change over to the sump, vacuuming. My parameter are holding steady. I am going to test tomorrow to see were everything is at though.

 

[john.m.cole3]

They are so hard to spot ich on! Darn stress colors make it difficult to see. I see some spots that could be ich on the fins though. Can you give me a brief run down here? I skimmed through your thread and it seems that you've been losing fish left and right. Did you remove all the fish into QT? Have you treated with anything besides prazipro at this point? How long ago did you remove the fish (if you did) from the DT?

All fish have been removed from DT. 8 days ago I had all 6 fish in a 46 gal QT, made sure they were still eating and dosed my first round of praxi, took 5 little fish out to a 10 gal to start TTM, did a 20% change in the 46 and started the 2nd round of prazi. the flame hawk died 3 says ago, and the wrasse was dead today in the small tank. The foxface in the 46 was eating and looking better until last night he didn't eat/ Today he looks like the pic above. I just did a FW dip for 5 minutes w/ him, did a 20% wC and put 80 drops of cupramine in the 46 gal. About to do a copper test. 0.2 is what I'm shooting for if I'm not mistaken. The foxface ate 3 pellets before the dip. I have a clown, firefish, and engineer goby in the small tank and they are all eating and looking good. This is stressful.

 

[melypr1985]

All fish have been removed from DT. 8 days ago I had all 6 fish in a 46 gal QT, made sure they were still eating and dosed my first round of praxi, took 5 little fish out to a 10 gal to start TTM, did a 20% change in the 46 and started the 2nd round of prazi. the flame hawk died 3 says ago, and the wrasse was dead today in the small tank. The foxface in the 46 was eating and looking better until last night he didn't eat/ Today he looks like the pic above. I just did a FW dip for 5 minutes w/ him, did a 20% wC and put 80 drops of cupramine in the 46 gal. About to do a copper test. 0.2 is what I'm shooting for if I'm not mistaken. The foxface ate 3 pellets before the dip. I have a clown, firefish, and engineer goby in the small tank and they are all eating and looking good. This is stressful.

Ok. Good overview... thanks for that. I'm sorry for the troubles... I know it's hard. Now what was the last thing you added to the tank and when? Even if it was an invert or coral.... Do you have any pictures of the other fish? What about syptoms like heavy breathing, flashing/scratching, hiding from the light?

Oh and you should shoot for .5 with cuppramine. .3 is lowest therapeutic level, but keeping it at .5 gives you a little wiggle room for mistakes.

 

[john.m.cole3]

Last fish added to DT was the infested flame hawk (never ran a QT until now, shame on me...). He lasted 36 hours. A week later my blenny was dead and looked like gills exploded and the foxface was swimming fast and had a white spot or 2. I knew what was happening... removed all rocks, drained most of the water and put the foxface, 2 clowns, wrasse, firefish, and engineer goby in my old 46 gal tank that had already been cycled. Used an airstone, small powerhead, HOB filter with quilt batting, and a heater. Made sure fish ate for a day and dosed 2.5 tsp of prazipro. My mocha clown died the next days (pics are above in this thread) again looked like gills exploded. Humblefish said it looked like flukes. After 5 days of prazi I moved the 4 little fish to a 10 gal w/ 5 PVC pieces, heater, and airstone. I use a new airstone w/ every tank transfer. The guy that sold me the original flame hawk replaced him and I put him in QT with the little fish. The hawk and wrasse didn't eat despite garlic soaked foods both frozen and pellets. I did a 20% WC in the 46 and started another round of prazi Monday around 2. Today the foxface looked like he does now. I FW dipped for 5 minutes while performing a 20% WC, returned him to the 46 QT and dosed cupramine 80 drops. Copper test kit didn't read anything 10 minutes after dosing. I had to go back to work and that's where I'm typing from now (sshhhhhhhh), lol

 

[melypr1985]

Last fish added to DT was the infested flame hawk (never ran a QT until now, shame on me...). He lasted 36 hours. A week later my blenny was dead and looked like gills exploded and the foxface was swimming fast and had a white spot or 2. I knew what was happening... removed all rocks, drained most of the water and put the foxface, 2 clowns, wrasse, firefish, and engineer goby in my old 46 gal tank that had already been cycled. Used an airstone, small powerhead, HOB filter with quilt batting, and a heater. Made sure fish ate for a day and dosed 2.5 tsp of prazipro. My mocha clown died the next days (pics are above in this thread) again looked like gills exploded. Humblefish said it looked like flukes. After 5 days of prazi I moved the 4 little fish to a 10 gal w/ 5 PVC pieces, heater, and airstone. I use a new airstone w/ every tank transfer. The guy that sold me the original flame hawk replaced him and I put him in QT with the little fish. The hawk and wrasse didn't eat despite garlic soaked foods both frozen and pellets. I did a 20% WC in the 46 and started another round of prazi Monday around 2. Today the foxface looked like he does now. I FW dipped for 5 minutes while performing a 20% WC, returned him to the 46 QT and dosed cupramine 80 drops. Copper test kit didn't read anything 10 minutes after dosing. I had to go back to work and that's where I'm typing from now (sshhhhhhhh), lol

Ok at this point I dont think you need to worry about flukes. Let me as one more question. Do the spots go away after a couple days or hours? Which of those time frames would be important too.

 

[john.m.cole3]

Yhe initial breakout got worse over 2 days and began to resolve over the next 2 days. There was a solid week where I thought the spots were not the main issue. The foxface was swimming more gracefully, eating nori, frozen, and pellets. I have an ammonia badge on that tank also and it reads zero/yellow

 

[melypr1985]

OK. So I'm leaning strongly to ich/ velvet at this point. Some of the pictures look like velvet and the quick death as well. Either way, you can cover yourself by just going copper on all the fish for 30 days straight. If using cuppramine, you'll need the seachem test kit and aim for .5. If your fish stop eating and seem to not tollerate the copper at all, then pull it all out and get them eating again before trying again. Coppersafe is a new favorite of mine... it's a little more mild for the fish and requires the API test kit.

Also, leave the tank fallow for the full 76 days just to be sure it's all gone. Hopefully you wont have any bacteria infections pop up out of this. I'm sorry for your losses and hope your able to get this under control.

 

[john.m.cole3]

Will the salifert copper test kit won't work w/ cupramine? I'm in the middle of TTM at the moment for the 3 little guys left. Tonight will be transfer #3. Should I transfer them all back together and let them all get cupramined?

 

[melypr1985]

salifert is good for tested cheleated copper, not ionic. Cuppramine is ionic copper.

Personally I like TTM better than using copper. Do you have a way to finish TTM with the ones you started, use cuppramine on the ones left and then have a clean place for them all to go after treatment for each? If not, then I would combine them into one treatment... pick your favorite. If it were me in your shoes, I'd go with copper on all, since it's a bit of a difficult call one whether you have velvet or a bad case of ich here. Copper would treat both and TTM only treats ich

 

[john.m.cole3]

salifert is good for tested cheleated copper, not ionic. Cuppramine is ionic copper.

Personally I like TTM better than using copper. Do you have a way to finish TTM with the ones you started, use cuppramine on the ones left and then have a clean place for them all to go after treatment for each? If not, then I would combine them into one treatment... pick your favorite. If it were me in your shoes, I'd go with copper on all, since it's a bit of a difficult call one whether you have velvet or a bad case of ich here. Copper would treat both and TTM only treats ich

Good to know. So I need Seachem test kit for copper then?

Update: the foxface is dead. I transferred fish over to a fresh 10 gallon (3rd transfer). I'll do 5 transfers total to be safe. Then run copper for 30 days while the DT sits fallow. It's almost easier in a way to move on once the fish passes instead of constantly stressing about it...

 

[melypr1985]

So I need Seachem test kit for copper then?

Yes. I think there is another you could use, but I can't think of it.

 

[john.m.cole3]

I think I have dinos........