Getting rid of Melafix in tank

[i have crabs]

lots of carbon and waterchanges

as for the qt situation it could have been a few things.
1. its a new tank and will cycle like a new tank, so adding a fair size fish into a 10g could have made an amonia spike
2. you said he was hard to catch, im no doctor but when fish get scared/stressed from something like being chased by a big net they build up acid in there blood. lactic acid maybe? cant remember the exact details with out looking it up. anyway after being chased around like crazy the acid kills them shorty after.


and i still advise you to look up some articles on ich, maybe from reefkeeper magazine online,
only putting 1 fish in the qt and treating them will kill the ich on the actual fish which will take closer to a week, and its recomended to treat for 2 weeks, but without treating all the fish and leaving the tank bare for a few weeks your not completely getting rid of the ich just the symptoms,

other red flags that hit me in the face are amonia/nitrite showing up at all, and the other fish having cloudy eyes which sounds like a bacterial problem, it sounds like your doing waterchanges which are good but something dosent seem right to me.

are you using tap water or ro/di?
how long are you mixing up the water before adding it to the tank?
maybe do you have some pics of the tank?

[jassz]

Thanks. So I should just keep changing water and checking to see if the skimmer works after?

Answers to your questions:
For the QT tank I used the water from the main tank, and the filter from the main tank. I didn't check for ammonia, but I can't see that it would have been cycling. It was crystal clear. Still water in that tank, I will check. (I was told I could actually remove my fluval from my main tank set up. I haven't done it yet, and I'm glad I didn't with the skimmer being out of commission. But, for a time, I just moved it over to the QT tank.)

Yes, I knew that QTing just one fish would not get rid of the ick, but from the information I got, it sounded like it would always be there anyway, and so long as the fish are healthy it shouldn't be a problem. It seemed that it had gotten past the point where Bambi could heal himself, so I thought to intervene (big mistake!). I know it's a small tank, but I figured to watch the water quality like a hawk, and change water as needed. (and it was an awfully big filter for the size of the tank). Some products claim to cure ick quite quickly, but I never really got to find out. I do believe it was stress that killed him.

I think the ammonia and nitrate showed up because everything was so 'disturbed' in getting him out. I vacuum the crushed coral weekly, but I don't move rocks to do so. I have an eel that lives under rocks, not to mention other crabs etc. My thought on it is that it was simply due to the detrius once buried in these rocks was showing up. As well, I haven't been using the skimmer for nearly a week now due to the melafix (though I've been feeding lightly).

I am using tap water treated with AquaPlus. I had Instant Ocean salt, but last purchase bought Red Sea, and I have been using both for a crossover time. I finished the Instant Ocean yesterday. Normally I prepare the water the night before, but with a 25% water change I do not have the capacity to do that, so I just made it up and added it. I also added quite a bit of Cycle yesterday because of the size of the water change, but I don't usually use Cycle.

Here's a pic the first day after set up. I didn't have the skimmer yet. I can get a more recent pic, or if you have something specific you wanted to see I can get that.
http://i582.photobucket.com/albums/s...irstday002.jpg