Hugh Mann
Valuable Member
Been around since I believe February, give or take a few weeks, and I have yet to make a post on the Meet and Greet, so here I am, and here's my story.
My name is not Hugh Mann, despite that being a name you can trust. I got into the Marine aquarium world when a friend of mine showed me pictures and talked about his tank and experiences. So I decided to give it a shot. Did plenty of reading and decided FOwLR, specifically aggressive-ish fish is for me. Bought a used tank and other equipment, started up a 55 gallon for maybe $350, including rock and sand. I Kickstarted my cycle with water, rock and old filter media from my friend's tank, and one week later I had my first three fish. Marine Betta, Dwarf Fuzzy lionfish, and a greyfaced moral eel. Thought the eel was a mislabeled GDM, and it was just listed as a "White Moray Eel", and looked very similar to one, and I couldn't find any information about a "white moray". Turns out the colours were just very faded, probably because it was housed in a tank with a 5 foot Tesselata Eel and this guy was maybe 12".
Anyways, everything was great, a bit of stress because the Betta took forever to get eating. After a month it came time to add more fish, and I did. Perhaps overstocking, I added a Tomini, Lemonpeel, flame hawkfish and cleaner wrasse. And everything was eating and healthy.
Then the ugly stages hit, Diatoms. A thick layer of diatoms over everything, I hold off, being told it will go away on its own, but it's getting worse and worse, a thick mat over everything, so I go and buy a couple snails to deal with it. After about a week however, my Tomini and Lemonpeel died overnight, from seemingly healthy. Perameters were just fine, other fish looked just fine and healthy.
Couple of days later of course, it indeed starts going away on its own, and immediately replaced with hair algae, so I go and get myself a tuxedo urchin and some gsp because I could. Impulse bought a Coral beauty, thinking worst case it may help diagnose the cause of the previous deaths as the rest are still looking just fine. Three days later the coral beauty is dead, the Lionfish is looking really rough and the others have become recluses. Shortly after the lion dies, and the black mollies I bought as feeders as exhibiting the spots of Velvet. I finally have my diagnosis. Unfortunately due to my work schedule, my lfs being an 8 hour round trip away, and limited medications being in Canada, I was very limited in general treatment options. Fortunately, the guy that got me into the hobby had a bottle of coppersafe. Using freshwater dips to buy time, I clear out all my sand and rock into bins to wait out the fallow. In bin with most of the rock, I also placed my eel, as the copper would likely kill it, but left by itself, it might recover.
Skip forward 5 weeks, my treatment is almost over, but quite suddenly, my Flame Hawk dies. The general consensus being secondary infection. Tomorrow is my last day of treatment and fallow. I'm going to give it an extra few days to the weekend, and then I'll begin the process of removing the copper. Fallow will also be completed, and I can return to normal before too long. I also have a tiny Maroon clown now, sitting alone in a proper QT tank. My survivors, Marine Betta, Cleaner Wrasse and eel are happy, healthy and eating well.
And I have you all to thank for that. For all the tips, advice and general information over the last six weeks, I genuinely don't think it would have gone as smoothly as it has without you. So on behalf of myself, and my survivors, thank you.
My name is not Hugh Mann, despite that being a name you can trust. I got into the Marine aquarium world when a friend of mine showed me pictures and talked about his tank and experiences. So I decided to give it a shot. Did plenty of reading and decided FOwLR, specifically aggressive-ish fish is for me. Bought a used tank and other equipment, started up a 55 gallon for maybe $350, including rock and sand. I Kickstarted my cycle with water, rock and old filter media from my friend's tank, and one week later I had my first three fish. Marine Betta, Dwarf Fuzzy lionfish, and a greyfaced moral eel. Thought the eel was a mislabeled GDM, and it was just listed as a "White Moray Eel", and looked very similar to one, and I couldn't find any information about a "white moray". Turns out the colours were just very faded, probably because it was housed in a tank with a 5 foot Tesselata Eel and this guy was maybe 12".
Anyways, everything was great, a bit of stress because the Betta took forever to get eating. After a month it came time to add more fish, and I did. Perhaps overstocking, I added a Tomini, Lemonpeel, flame hawkfish and cleaner wrasse. And everything was eating and healthy.
Then the ugly stages hit, Diatoms. A thick layer of diatoms over everything, I hold off, being told it will go away on its own, but it's getting worse and worse, a thick mat over everything, so I go and buy a couple snails to deal with it. After about a week however, my Tomini and Lemonpeel died overnight, from seemingly healthy. Perameters were just fine, other fish looked just fine and healthy.
Couple of days later of course, it indeed starts going away on its own, and immediately replaced with hair algae, so I go and get myself a tuxedo urchin and some gsp because I could. Impulse bought a Coral beauty, thinking worst case it may help diagnose the cause of the previous deaths as the rest are still looking just fine. Three days later the coral beauty is dead, the Lionfish is looking really rough and the others have become recluses. Shortly after the lion dies, and the black mollies I bought as feeders as exhibiting the spots of Velvet. I finally have my diagnosis. Unfortunately due to my work schedule, my lfs being an 8 hour round trip away, and limited medications being in Canada, I was very limited in general treatment options. Fortunately, the guy that got me into the hobby had a bottle of coppersafe. Using freshwater dips to buy time, I clear out all my sand and rock into bins to wait out the fallow. In bin with most of the rock, I also placed my eel, as the copper would likely kill it, but left by itself, it might recover.
Skip forward 5 weeks, my treatment is almost over, but quite suddenly, my Flame Hawk dies. The general consensus being secondary infection. Tomorrow is my last day of treatment and fallow. I'm going to give it an extra few days to the weekend, and then I'll begin the process of removing the copper. Fallow will also be completed, and I can return to normal before too long. I also have a tiny Maroon clown now, sitting alone in a proper QT tank. My survivors, Marine Betta, Cleaner Wrasse and eel are happy, healthy and eating well.
And I have you all to thank for that. For all the tips, advice and general information over the last six weeks, I genuinely don't think it would have gone as smoothly as it has without you. So on behalf of myself, and my survivors, thank you.
