My Deadly Hospital Tank

[Murminator]

When I have a fish that is taking a beating usually a smaller fish I just put it is a floating breeder trap (the biggest one I could find) and attach it to the side. It separates the fish and lets him heel with stress him out as much than moving him to a new tank it also help with the aggression between them because they both know where each other is and they will get used to each other. I have heard people using a large tupperware container with holes drilled in it also.
If I have to dose a fish I set a hospital tank with 75% of the old water from the tank it came from powerhead, heater couple chunks of pvc and a rock or 2 from my sump.

If a clown was bulling an angel in a 90G it think it was already on it's way out unless it is a huge maroon clown and tiny angel but an angel will just hide in the rocks and clown won't venture into them and a clown will not swim far to bully anything

[cwatkins]

Originally Posted by fishoholic

whenever I have tried to treat a saltwater fish with melafix if has killed the fish within a few days. I have noticed that something in melafix seems to make it hard for saltwater fish to breathe properly.

This is interesting to know. It seems my experience reflects yours.

You're right, I should have just picked up a guppy breeder container and put him in if for a week or two while he healed.

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by cwatkins

This is interesting to know. It seems my experience reflects yours.

Ya I don't know what it is about melafix but for some reason it seems awhile after adding it saltwater fish start breathing really heavy then die.

[marie]

Originally Posted by fishoholic

Ya I don't know what it is about melafix but for some reason it seems awhile after adding it saltwater fish start breathing really heavy then die.

The tea tree oil in it causes weird bacteria blooms to happen which I think rapidly depletes the oxygen in the water

[cwatkins]

Originally Posted by marie

The tea tree oil in it causes weird bacteria blooms to happen which I think rapidly depletes the oxygen in the water

Which could explain the opaqueness in the water and the heavy breathing...

Hindsight is 20-20, but I should have just put him in a large breeder container and left him in the tank. I dose all food with Selcon and Garlic, so without any obvious disease, other than the fin issues and the "not so well" look, he probably would have recovered with the less stressful environment.

[daniella3d]

I think you got an ammonia skike and that burned the fish gill. There is really not much nitrifying bacterias on the water column. The good bacterias rest on the liverock and sand. When ever I put a fish in Quarantine I always put pieces of liverock and there is no ammonia at all.

I have been doing 4 weeks hyposalinity in a 20 gallons with 2 pieces of liverock that I took from my frag tank and that is enough to control the nitrification.

Of course what ever was on that liverock died, all pods, bristle stars, bristles worms etc.. I just syphon them out. But the good bacterias adjust and survive well and do the job well.

Remember that at the high PH we have in saltwater, the free and toxic ammonia is very dangerous, even just a trace of it will kill a fish in few hours. The lower the PH the less ammonia will be in the free toxic form.

Originally Posted by cwatkins

If I was ever sick I'd for sure not want to visit my hospital tank because nothing ever survives the night! (This has happened twice now).

So my theory is, by the time I am able to catch them and move them to the hospital, they are either beyond recovery and that's why they don't survive the night,

OR

I'm doing something wrong.

I've had my 90G with 30G sump for a year now and everything is well. But it's also more forgiving due to the water volume. I've got a dozen small fish and a few soft corals, all doing really well.

So both times I've setup the hospital tank, I've done a partial W/C and used the water from the DT to fill the hospital tank. I then use a normal heater set at 79 and I have an aerating maxi-jet style power head (Hagen maybe?). So I adjust it so it's moving normal amount of water in the hospital, and I open up the air valve so it starts aerating as it moves the water. (also throw in some PVC elbows, etc).

I setup the hospital Thursday night during a W/C and left it running overnight, and then Friday after work I caught the flame angel very easily and transfered him to the hospital tank. He's sick because a Clown has been bullying him and nipping at his fins, which were looking very poor (and he has that sick look to him with barely any tail fin left).

I dosed it with 5ml of Melafix, a drop of garlic, and a drop of selcon, fed him a very small amount of food and he went after some pieces.

Well all was well and he was eating, and then really early this morning about 1am before bed I noticed he wasn't swimming and was doing the rapid breathing thing. I checked the power head and it was aerating the tank still, so I figured that he must be on his way out.

And by the time I went downstairs to check on the tanks at 3:45am (Power outage -- another interesting story), well he was dead.

I also noticed the water in the hospital tank started to have a little tinge of opaqueness.

I ran across this today as well: http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...dont-work.html

Maybe the good bacteria in my DT are what's toasting my hospital tanks?

What am I doing wrong, or is it just bad luck?