Worst Month Yet.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Milad

dont listen to shelps, bigger is always better

Yeah you're right, instead of investing in better equipment and avoiding finicky fish until the experience and equipment match the fish requirements it would be better to throw all your money into a larger tank. That would have saved him

Bigger is not always better, in fact if your tank was larger you would have likely had more fish and lost a bigger investment.

[Zoaelite]

As much as I enjoy the idea of trail and error (As our fish tanks are practically giant experiments) learning from others experience is a highly valuable tool in this hobby. Not only will it save you money and headaches but more importantly it will save the lives of the animals we care for.

As abrasive as these "people who didn't have love growing up" might be in the end they are the ones supporting proper aquarium husbandry. These are not rocks we are talking about, in the end they are living breathing animals just like ourselves.

For fear of starting an ethics debate back onto topic , UV sterilizers can be useful tools but it depends on what you want your final result to be. You are sterilizing the water of life so you will be killing both the beneficial and detrimental in one sweep. I personally don't run one as I'm using both Bio pellets and bacterial supplements to combat nitrates. Also a healthy reef is full of life, if you have ever seen tank water under a microscope you would be blown away (There is a massive amount of diversity in just a drop). Adding a UV sterilizer will destroy this, I personally think they are helpful for setting up FOWLERS but should be avoided in a reef tank.

If you are looking for an actual fix instead of a band-aid ensuring healthy plump fish is your best bet, Ich and most marine parasites take advantage of stressed fished because of their diminished slime coats. Adding fish slowly, ensuring they are healthy before they come home and feeding them a highly varied diet soaked in a vitamin supplement will ensure there health.

UV sterilizers don't really have a down side IMO other than the extra cost and maintenance, they won't effect your bacteria population and won't really have an impact on other beneficial organisms either but if you're overly concerned about pods and whatnot run the UV during daylight hours only since the free swimming organisms are more active at night.

Interesting

The general consensus is that an aquarist that has a well maintained and uncrowded aquarium, as well as follows good quarantine procedures when introducing new specimens to their system, a UV light filter is not necessary. For those that may be deciding on whether a UV light filter should be added or not, here are some other points to consider.

* Most effective when run 24/7.
* Most effective if the water is clear.
* Most effective if bulb is new, or replaced regularly (at least every 6-8 months).
* Most effective if the UV light penetrates less than one inch of water.
* Effectiveness can be hindered if the water passes to fast past the bulb. Most effective if the exposure time of the water to the UV light is longer than one second.
* The effectiveness of UV light can be hindered if there is light blockage, i.e. a salt encrusted bulb.
* It can help to prevent future water borne pathogen reoccurrences, once the initial problem as been completely eradicated from the aquarium.
* UV light not only kills unwanted organisms, but beneficial ones as well.
* Because it can destroy beneficial microscopic organisms that some reef tank inhabitants may depend on as a food source, UV light should not be run during feeding time.
* It only destroys organisms that are free floating IN the water as it passed by the UV light, i.e. it will NOT get rid of an ich infestation that is already ON fish, or cure a bacterial disease a fish may have.
* Should never be run when treating with any drugs or medications.
* UV can also alter the structure of some dissolved chemical compounds.
* UV light can be damaging to the human eye, so DO NOT look into the bulb.
* Always unplug the unit when working on it to prevent possible shock if it breaks or gets wet.
What Is It, and How Are UV Sterilizers Used in Saltwater Aquariums

By Stan & Debbie Hauter

Just a little bit of extra info before you run out and spend more money.
Levi

[Milad]

+1 with zeolite. UV sterilizer ive stayed away from. im doing zeobak + biopellets

actually my first question when someone told me about a UV sterilizer was, WTF wont that kill the good stuff?

[sphelps]

What does zeobak have to do with anything, is this guy using it?? If you're supplementing with bacterial type additive a UV will obviously interfere but if you're just starting out like I mentioned it's a good tool to have especially when a QT isn't being used. You don't have to use it forever, just when you need it.

Yes a UV will kill virtually anything that passes through it but yet what exactly would be considered beneficial? The amount of free swimming bacteria compared to the bacteria that attaches to surfaces is minuscule so it won't have an effect on your tanks ability to cycle waste. Other organisms are virtually useless to someone starting out and is just trying to get a fish population established. Sure once you have an established reef and want to start keeping fish and other animals that require these micro-organisms you don't want to run a UV very often but until then it's a good tool to have.

It also obviously won't cure a fish with ich but talk to anyone who's had problems with ich and you'll learn it usually comes in waves. The fish will get ich and recover fine but it recovered by the use of it's slime coat which is now depleted. The second wave comes and the fish cannot usually recover. The UV HELPS prevent the second wave and other fish from being effected.

[daniella3d]

You surely learned a good lesson there...QUARANTINE EVERYTHING!!! Especialy when you have a lot of fish, the risk of losing them all is much more. Because the ich can reproduce to huge proportion the more fish there are in the tank, the more potent it become.

If you lost all your fish from a disease that is SOOOO easily cured, imagine how fast you would lose them all if you had velvet???

Honestly though, you should have treated them. I feel very upset when I hear people say it's just ich it will go away on its own, but it does NOT.

The fish might seem to be cured but their gills are infected, make no mistake and forcing them to live with that is not cool. When ever there is any sign of ich in an aquarium, I would take all the fish out, all of them, and treat them with hyposalinity for 4 weeks minimum and leave the display empty of fish for 8 weeks.

I am looking forward to the day where people will realize that fish don't have to live with parasites and something must be done about it, if that ever happen

I do a very long quarantine in hyposalinity to make sure my fish are clean because I don't want my fish to start to cover with ich parasites at the first sign of stress..and I don't want a potential disaster in my tank waiting to happen.

Enough for the moral lesson, I would take all the remaining fish out and treat them with hyposalinity and leave that display tank fishless for at least 8 weeks. Each time you get a new fish make sure you do a minimum of 4 weeks quarantine in hyposalinity because the fish still might have ich even if it does not show sign of it. Only exception I would say is a mandarin, which need pods, but I would still quarantine that fish and take the opportunity to train it to eat frozen food. I did that with both of mine.

Originally Posted by tony_3a

Ok i will start by saying there will be a lot of people that will blame me for all the problems i have had. For the most part i would have to agree.

So my tank was running really well for about 3 months, no ich nothing, everything healthy and eating, mated pair of clowns, 4 chromis, koran angel, coral beauty angel. So I wanted two fish, a powder blue, and kole tang, and my buddy picked them up for me from JL and he gets them home and the powder blue has ich on it, and right away i thought ****, but i dont have a qt tank and ich was already in my tank so i put them in, it only took them a couple days to start eating and it had appeared the ich had went away, so then I added a clown tang about 2-3 weeks later, and i was so excited i had all the fish i wanted and i could just let my tank sit and grow.

Then about 3 days after the I added the clown tang, My powder blue broke out with a couple spots, still eating so i thought he could fight it off, over the next couple days it got worse and worse, and after about a week, it died, then shortly after the kole went, and my clown tang died a week after that, all the fish died within a week period. This was about 2 weeks ago, then since then both my clowns died.

Now i am at a loss, it appears i am over the ich, cannot see any spots on any of my fish, but i just feel broken and i do not even know where to go from here. I just feel like if i put any fish into the tank, they are just going to get ill and die.

I am contemplating upgrading to a bigger tank in my basement and using my 90 as a hospital. Then i can also leave my 2 angels in it so they wont touch my corals.

What I posted all this for is I am sure all of you out there have went through the same **** i just did, i just dont know where to go from here.

Thanks for your time, and i would like to thank the guys at oceanic and gobytron for their help.

Tony

[Milad]

Originally Posted by sphelps

What does zeobak have to do with anything, is this guy using it??

read the post before mine. zeolite was talking about biopellets and bacterial supplement so i was just commenting how i do same with zeobak and pellets.

are you still mad i said bigger is better? its really how you use it that counts....

[untamed]

Originally Posted by tony_3a

Now i am at a loss, it appears i am over the ich, cannot see any spots on any of my fish, but i just feel broken and i do not even know where to go from here. I just feel like if i put any fish into the tank, they are just going to get ill and die. Tony

You may never get completely "over the ich"..but it is not as gloomy as you make it sound. It will remain in your system for as long as fish remain in your system and you may never see any symptoms again. It is my experience that certain types of fish are quite fine in this situation. Provided you stay away from Acanthuras tangs, the ich may never be a problem again...

As someone else already mentioned...the only sure way to eliminate it completely is to remove all fish from the tank for (12 weeks?), and treat/QT any fish that is going into the tank.