This hobby is very discouraging.

jda · May 13, 2023

I had a few people ask, so I wanted to expand on how I handle new fish. I have a few tanks with some softies and just for new fish introductions - 50g lowbow that I keep my colorado sunbursts in, 40 breeder and about a 80g frag tank that pretty much just does fish anymore. These all have sand and real live rock. I keep the parameters at reef levels with full clean up crew, water changes, carbonate & calcium dosing and traces. I have a few nice fish that are the welcome party. In one tank, I have a small blue angelfish, a few nice damsels and smaller powder brown tang - the blue is about ready to be moved on... it is starting to grow quickly. In another, it is a ORA (or some sort of captive) orange lined rabbitfish and recently a small female watanabei angelfish. These are my walmart greeters. I have the rock stacked up to where the fish can get away and hide completely, if they want - no caves, arches, PVC or unnatural stuff made for us. These welcome fish come to the top when they see me and eat out of my hand. The new fish quickly follow their lead and usually within a week, all new additions are doing the same thing at least for frozen and usually pellets and flake too. Once they grow a bit and will fight for flake, pellets and frozen, as well as not being scared of me, they can go into a larger tank. If they are passive eaters or not eating more than one food, they stay longer.

I never do copper or hypo or anything. If I get an angelfish from a unknown indo source, I do dip for flukes outside of the tank.

My tips for healthy fish:

Buy direct from the diver, if you can. This is easy with Atlantic fish, but has been a struggle since Hawaii has been shut down. I used to get the best fish out of Honolulu. Research your LFSs wholesaler and see if you like how they treat their fish - I like my fish to stay at 35ppt or full strength reef water. I don't like my fish to have been in copper at the wholesaler, or at least not my wrasses, butterflies and a few others. If they have been in copper, I want to know the level, but I usually avoid these.
Captive Bred fish are a good.
Have a welcome fish to show your new fish how to act in captivity. Keep your welcome fish well fed and having no reason to be jerks.
Real hiding spots work better. I just pile up live rock and let them fully escape. Painted tank backs and sides seem to help too.
Varied diet - duh
I would have a welcome tank with sand, rocks and whole ecosystem to welcome new fish. If you want to do hypo or copper, then do that later once the fish are healthy and eating well. I do this for corals too... dips and stuff later on once they adjust. Unless you are going to have a full-blown coral, invert, rock, etc. QT, then I don't see the point of meds or hypo on fish if you can otherwise get them comfortable.
If I am getting a new fish that needs pods, like leopard wrasses (my favorites) or a copperband, then I make sure that the tanks have not had similar fish for a few weeks and you can see the live rock, sand and glass covered with pods. This way, they can hunt for a while if they don't want to eat prepared food right away. My most recent blue-star leopard ate flake after about 3-4 days thanks to my walmart greeters, but still had a full belly of pods from the tank.
If I get a fish with some rot or damage, I don't do anything but feed them. I used to turn up the temperature, but I stopped doing this. I use no meds. I recently got a Chocolate and Sailfin tang with really bad fin rot and damage to the gills from a local hobbyist who had no idea how to take care of them. It took a few weeks, but they both got better. I would not risk my other fish with a treatment, and have never really needed to. These two fish were not in my plans, so they have since gone on to a new home and are doing well.
The fish being comfortable has been better for me than medications or hypo. I tried to think of the last time that I lost a new fish and it has been many years. I have had a few jump, which is no less painful.

I do realize that having this many tanks is not possible for everybody. I also realize that this method is not for everybody. This method does require the right type of person, but also established tanks with a wide variety of fauna, which is not the norm anymore.

In the end, I would recommend a pack of live rock in the display or welcome tank to at least supplement your QT. 50 lbs at 7 a pound and some air freight is probably $400-450 which is like 3 or 4 dead fish anymore. Get some substrate and let the critters on that rock spread for 3 or 4 months. Then, there are nearly no places for disease to hide - it has to fight to survive too. It is just a good investment, IMO.

nuxx · May 15, 2023

An unknown issue made me breakdown my tank that was a large part of our lives.

Small fish started passing away and I couldn't figure out what was going on. So I couldn't live with myself with the possibility of some very rare fish dying. So I just ended up spreading my fish around through a local reef club.

As sad as I was to break down the tank, it was a huge weight off of my back...

Bob Boblaw · May 15, 2023

I've been doing this for several years now and both my tanks at the same time decided to crash

It took me a week of hard work and maintenance to get things stable again. And now everything is thriving. The important thing is to not quit.

Sordfish · May 16, 2023

I wanted to provide an update that the ich spots are now gone from both tangs and no additional fish show any signs of infection. I consider it incredible given how badly both were covered in spots. The management tips provided by many of you above were clearly helpful. For all of you who provided support and tips, thank you very much - you helped save my fish. I'll post a new discussion summarizing info that was given here in the hopes that it'll help others in the future.

Clownreef · May 16, 2023

In this hobby we have three options:

1) Quit
2) Wait
3) Fight back

That's it. No more. Pick one.

I remember a few years ago I received a coral shipment from some online shop.

In the acros was a colony of black bugs. For those of you that have had them, NOTHING will kill them. A MASSIVE dose of interceptor will stun them but won't kill them. Here's another victims diary about it. They will decimate SPS and there's zero you can do about it.

Black Bugs - An Acro keepers worst nightmare?

This is going to be a difficult post for me to write, bear with me. Last night after 3 days of research, discussion with other reefers, testing treatments under a microscope, and bringing myself to actually do it; I tore down my Acro tank. Not a hurt acro tank, but a beautiful growing acro tank...

www.reef2reef.com

Anyways..

Lost all my SPS colonies. All of them.

I was sad, discouraged, I know I cried a few times.

I let them eat it all.

I started over.

You can quit, wait, or fight back.

jda · May 16, 2023

I will add one more option, which is to learn.

Unfortunately, the social media, videos and this board are not always great places to learn with so much parroting, manufacturer influence and the lack of experience at times. On the contrary, Jay is a big time help and I have learned a lot from him even though I don't treat for diseases or anything. Guess you have to choose well, but actual authors who have survived the publication process are a nice place to start. Learning could be part of any of those three... I like to fight back but I do like to learn how I am going to fight first.