Ick, hyposalinity, and other mistakes...

[bulletsworld]

What the hobby and stores will never tell you is that fish disease is a BIG part of keeping fish. It's also the most stressful for people and main reasons people leave the hobby. You can lose hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on the hobby, with just fish a lone. It can be dishearting at times, stressful and expensive.

After treating fish diseases for years in this hobby. Ich is the least of your worries. Most tanks if not all have had or still have ich in their tanks. Ich can be managed by good water quality, water temp, garlic/ginger treatments, light limits, and non stressful tankmates. Providing the fish are all healthy also. Keep in mind that even if the fish is healthy, the scale-less fish (boxfish, puffers, lionfish, etc, just to name a few) will be the first fish to show parasites & can't manage it on their own.

A good UV sterilizer is good to have also. If you want to be in the hobby long, you must always quarantine everything (fish, inverts, rock, any new additions). TIP: got a ich breakout, take away the light. Ich swims towards the light. Black out the tank.

Although its true, the treatment can be worse than the disease. So, if there is no sign of stress, lack of apetite, scratching, flashing to the fish, I would see if it can be managed by above mentioned stategies.

If you decide to treat there are other other options to treat fish besides copper & hyposalinity. But either those options or other require extensive monitoring, water treatments, and a lot of your time.

Btw... the tang police will always tell you that you shouldn't have a tang in anything less than a 100 gallon. However, you can have a very small tang (yellow or regal) in a small tank. I see dime sized regals that wouldn't be able to handle lots of current & easily get stuck to powerheads. Especially if you know you are upgrading later to a bigger tank. If not, you can always re-sell or trade to someone with a bigger tank.

Hope this helps.

[Coralgurl]

You remind me of when I first started with sw, and first experience with ich. I panicked, set up a qt and moved 8 fish into that tank. Opted for copper treatment. I think by 3 weeks, I had 2 fish still alive. The stress on those fish, me and my family wasn't worth it anymore so those 2 fish went back in the dt. One lived another few weeks but had developed a lump under its fin. I only have 1 fish out of my originals I started with.

There are nasty diseases out there and for me I've been fortunate I haven't introduced anything serious to my tanks....except parasite worms I'm currently treating. My point is, you are in the beginning stages of this amazing hobby. Everyone here has an opinion on what's right/wrong and must or must not do. What I eventually learned is take what works for you, what you are willing to do and try and how much you want to invest both emotionally and financially.

Quit panicking, ich happens but as already noted, it can be managed with good husbandry. If you are planning a larger tank, learn on the one you have, then use it as a qt tank when ready.

Ask your questions here before heading to the stores. Everyone who starts wants their tanks to look like the ones who've been at it for years, but that's the key, it takes time and the first year is or at least for me, was the hardest.