Lesson Learned and a warning
 

Well, I did exactly what I'm not supposed to do, and I paid for it through my wallet but worse, my fish paid for it with their lives.
I had a healthy thriving reef/fish tank going, it was a sight, then I bought a Orange shoulder Tang and 3 shovel nose gobies from a reputable dealer, not my LFS (which is reputable in my book). I aclimated them and added them to my tank, with in two days I noticed my yellow Eye tang had white spots, and one of my yellow corris wrasses was scratching. I debated about ripping apart the tank completely and catching the fish but my LFS was kind enough to lend me a fish trap. I caught two of the fish in my tank, one was dead with in hours, I ended up buying a new garbage can, taking all my LR out, all my coral out, and catching my fish. I put my tank back together, (13 hours to do it all) I used water right out of my tank to put the fish in and I treated them to Greenex, a formeldehyde Malachite green mixture. I also lowered the salinity from 1.025 to 1.022 with plans to lower it again today to 1.014.... Today when I got up, I had two dead tomato clowns, two dead black saddle backs, a dead corris wrasse, two dead blue sided fairy wrasse a dead orange shoulder tang, a dead yellow eye tang and a dead cleaner shrimp.... and a broken heart.

NOW (loser) I have a sick/hospital tank set up that will keep all new fish for 30 days or 30 days after any treatment they get before they go into my reef tank.

My corals are not doing so well either, I guess all the moving and stuff was a real stress on them. I am planning on doing 3 10% water changes today to try to get everything back to normal in my reef, but it sure looks empty with out the fish.

So, do the hospital tank thing folks, you never know where a disease/parasite will come from, not only can it prove expensive but heart breaking.

Doug.

PS My clarkii pair were in a seperate tank and have no sign of illness. (Lucky)

I don't know if I am just lucky, or what, but I always add fish directly. In the last couple of months I have added a Lemonpeel Angel, three Green Chromis, three Yt Damsels, one bicolor Blenny, one Royal Grama, one six line wrasse, and one Cleaner shrimp. All are doing fine. I do admit I lost a couple of Royal Gramas, but not from Ich. There are folks who add fish and get Ich, but they don't worry about it, and leave the fish to cure themselves. Those are my experiences anyway. :D

You probably would have done better by doing nothing but feeding a little more.
Your fish couldn't cope with the quick hospital tank setup, lower salinity, , the Greenex, and of coarse all the stress they were put through.
All your fish definatly did not die from ick. If your fish were thriving to start off with most if not all would have survived.
I'm not criticizing (you did put in a lot of effort to "save" them), just making a point for others.

Doug, that is a completely awful story - very sorry to hear about this. What a day you must have had, and what anger and frustration you must have dealt with.

Thanks for sharing this disastrous account - I hope you're able to get your tank back on its feet again soon.

Uh, I think you may have over reacted :?

Ick isn't to bad, but with sensitive fish I can see why you were worried. Are you sure there was no Copper in the bagged fish water, why would the cleaner shrimp die? Hm, I would think the fish died from all that stress. I also think that is a pretty harsh salinity change in such a short period of time.

This must suck Doug. That is a huge loss of nice livestock. :cry:

I hope the reef gets better soon, take care.

My point was that I am in full agreement with Fishlips. There was obviously a lot of stress when you added four new fish to an established setup. The result was a little scratching and a few spots. I absolutely don't want to say 'I told you so". In hindsight you would probably not have experienced the losses you did if you had just left it alone. Fish usually get over the sress, and the spots would have gone away on their own. A few parasites almost never kill fish, and even if you had lost one or two, it would have been better than the catastrophy you went through. Sorry to be so harsh, but we live and learn (sometimes with great expense). :( :(

Sorry folks just for clarity, I didn't start removing fish until I was loosing fish, it all happened very quick and all but a couple were covered in white salt like spots. My list of dead fish accounts for the fish lost over the last two days as well, after re reading my post I can see it looks like I lost them all at once but this isn't the case. The hospital tank was filled with water right out of the main aquarium, the salinity was lowered over about 3 hours. The greenex shouldn't have been a big stress as I did treat the reef tank with it but when I found the first dead couple of fish I decided to get them all out immediately.

Now, the tank is back together, I am running carbon and a diatom filter, my new skimmer is removing some of the old Greenex and crap. I've vacuumed the gravel and am comfortable that the tank is pretty clean. I will be doing 3 or more 10 gallon water changes over the next day or two, I may just do 5 seeing as my salt is only $15 a bag now.

Yeah it sure sucks, maybe I did over react but I don't believe I did, by the time the tomato/cinnamon was caught and the live blue sided fairy wrasse they were both completely covered in spots and they were shedding their slime coat. FWIW, I was feeding frozen brine with Garlic Extreme, like I say it all happened really quick.

That all being said, I found a amazing Desjardin Sailfin tang today, it is in a 10 gallon tank BY ITSELF, I've got Sea Chem cupramine here just incase and I got my Diatom filter back from loan (for almost a year). I think I am set. No fish will go into my main tank now until it has been in a quaranteen tank for 30 days or 30 days since last treatment. I love my tank but I don't look forward to another 13 hour renovation of the tank.

Doug, sorry to hear about your tank that totally sucks.

One question: You put greenex in the MAIN tank?????


Christy :)

Sadness
 

Just makes a person really feel sick inside. Sorry. :( to hear it. We get a little attached to our fish. I know if my bicolor blenny ever died I'd have a funeral.

Take it easy.

Have fun restockin.

George Muller

Christy, yes I put it in my main tank, it is supposedly reef safe. Everything is fine just traumatized. The Greenex however didn't seem to do much although now with more reading etc I think I may have had Amyloodium rather than Ick.

It sure sounds like something other that common Ick. That other one sounds right. From what I can recall the spots are much smaller. Also I recall a golden color of spots?

Yes I had a fun experience with greenex when I first started. My LFS recommended it for ich. It wiped out my entire tank too. If you read the side of the bottle, it says malachite green which I thought (I may be wrong here) contained copper. (I thought malachite was a carbonate of copper). Anyway, I will never use that stuff again. Even in a quarantine tank.


Christy :)

Wow Christy, thats sad to hear, It didn't bother anything other than my Xenia and a leather coral, the Xenia is still alive but the polyps(?) seem to have been irritated, the leather is fine for the most part but one isn't extending as much as it did. I hope after a few 10 gallon water changes the Xenia and Leather perk up, they were both doing so well.

your loss
 

Sorry to hear about that Doug :(
That's a real loss :(
I have never quarantined any fish going into my reef, however after reading your tragic post, I think I will from now on. So maybe some good will come out of this.

Rich

When I bred guppies everything got quaranteened, I had 65 tanks including 3 breeding pair of Discus and a breeding trio of African cichlids, nothing went near an established tank until it has been in isolation for 2 weeks minimum and I was certain it was eating well. I guess I got lazy and excited with the reef tank, I was so taken by the movement of the fish among the coral that I just rushed it with out taking precautions.

If any good comes of this it is that I will be more picky regarding the fish that go in to the tank, I have a Desjardin Sailfin tang now, I will probably get 6 fire fish or some kind of small wrasse, and keep lightly stocked. Looking at the tank again I realize that a 90 gallon tank isn't all that large. I will re establish some breeding pairs of clowns but I will keep them in seperate 20 gallon tanks. I hope to get a pair of tomatos and another pair of Saddlebacks. I almost bought some Maroons but I don't want to put up with all that aggression between siblings if I were ever to get a brood raised.

I'm getting ahead of myself, slow and easy from now on. I have a 20 gallon observation/islolation tank that will be used with every new fish, this will help me to slow down on the stocking of the tank. I may even start dipping all my corals as I purchase them.

sorry to hear about the troubles.

hope things recover well.

as for your next stocking plans....i myself have contemplated a group of firefish, but from what i have read, it may not be a good idea. from what i have come across, most people who get groups end up with a single specimen or a pair. i have only read of a few instances where multiple firefish have been kept together successfully, and in tanks larger than yours. keep in mind, this is not my personally experience, but the findings that have kept myself from purchasing a group.

mind you, you could try a group, and if it works, then i'll do it too. if not, then you just saved me some money. J/K :wink: :lol:

OUCH!
 

I feel your pain!

sorry dewd....

Ranzreef

Sorry to hear what happened. :cry: Looks like you put a lot of effort into trying to save them.

Michael

Thanks for the heart felt comments people, yes it was a real painful thing to go through and I really felt bad for the fish. My son cried as he had named some of the fish.... Jeez I feel like a heel.

Smokinreefer, WOW I would have never thought of fire fish as being like that, I had two and they were great, always active and ever so pretty. Maybe I should just get some sand sifter gobies and lots of shrimp.... Lots of reading to do now, lots of research...

I've tried two purple firefish. I purchased a large one and a small one. The larger chased the smaller until it stopped coming out. I never saw it after the first day. They were fine for the most part while in quarantine but as soon as they entered the reef they changed.