HELP! I murdrered my first fish.

[skully]

I purchased a yellow tang on Sunday from the reputable pet shop in town. They had it for two weeks, and it appeared very healthy. Rather than wait another week until I got my quarantine tank running, I purchased the fish, thinking that it was my first one, and if I did a freshwater dip, I would be OK. I got it home, mixed up 2 gallons of RO/DI water with some pH buffer and 4 drops of methylene blue, and adjusted to the proper temperature. I submerged the tang, and it layed on the bottom. I prodded it with the net, and it swam for ~ a minute, at which point I introduced it to my main tank. It immediately headed for cover in the LR. Yesterday I found him dead. I've had the tank running with LR for about 8 weeks. I introduced snails and hermits ~ 2 1/2 weeks ago, and all are thriving. Ammonia and nitrite were 0, nitrates are < 10 ppm, pH at 8.4. Where did I screw up? Guess I should have waited for the quarantine tank to be set up. Any tips so I don't repeat my first setback??? Thanks.

[z28pwr]

Well alot of things could have gone wrong here.

What was the PH in the water were you did the DIP in?

How long did the DIP last ?

Your PH is a little on the high side but that shouldn't have caused problems unless you took him from a PH of 8.0 to 8.4

[ratboy]

I dont see any reason to quarentine your first fish at all. If your tank parameters are OK, acclimate the fish and let him go in your main system. If you only have 1 fish there is noone else to spread any diseases too and you will just unecessarily stress him.

How many people on here actually quarentine fish? I know its a good idea esp. if you have a lot of fish but I never have had a quarentine tank. If I have ever have a tank with water in it, corals and fish make their way into it in short order.

[z28pwr]

Normally when it's the first fish I don't QT. But I try to quarantine everybody else that comes in since I've had bad luck before with some fish that looked fine but ended up with something.

[mathias]

well I guess I can use that 10 gal tank I got :)

[robertpower3]

Why did you use the methanynol blue in a freshwater dip? if you are going to use m.b. I would add an airstone to the dip. I would think that the m.b. sufficated the fish. could have also been the buffer when you add buffer you are suppose to wait a while for the ph to stabilize. Did you test the ph of the dip? Allso did you check the tempreture of the dip and compare it to that of your main tnak?

[Richard]

We commonly do FW dips w/methylene blue on many species of fish, tangs in particular, without any problems. The only "tricks" are to match ph, temp, and to keep the water very well aerated. I just use our tap water since the ph and alkalinity are very close to that of our SW tanks. I did have problems early on before I started using an airstone to keep the water well aerated. If you are only going to do a FW dip for 1 minute then you might as well skip it altogether - that's really not long enough to be very effective. I generally keep them in FW for 10 - 15 minutes. Some people recommend methylene blue while others do not. I have never had any problems using it but can't absolutely say if it is beneficial or not. Just the way I've always done it I suppose.

Why Quarantine Fish?
Well when most people think of saltwater parasites they tend to think of ich, which is actually a parasite called cryptocaryon. This is certainly the most commonly encountered parasite and treatment for it is usually fairly straightfoward. However, there are a host of other parasites that are difficult to recognize and in many cases can wipe out a tank before the hobbyist figures out what the problem was. You can check out http://www.fishdisease.net/fd/disease_images/ to get an idea of why it's a good idea to have a QT tank.

I certainly hope it's a good idea because I've been putting in alot of extra hours and spending a few $ to get QT tanks setup at the store. Hope to have them all running by the end of next week.

[Texreefer]

if this was truly your first fish why start with one of the harder to keep... tangs stress easily and tend to require a more strict diet.. what is your background in keeping saltwater fish.. do you know the types of fish you want to keep? etc.

[Tim Marvin]

I don't quarantine fish anymore, nor do I dip. If you keep your tank in top codition your fish can naturally fight off most problems. I do keep UVs on the tanks that I used to sell out of. The dip could have stressed the tang out too much. Don't forget this fish has been moved a bunch of times before you actually received it.

[robertpower3]

I agree. transferring a fish into multiple environmets is not healthy for the fish. If you have pristine water conditions 99 times out of 100 you won't have problems.

[Richard]

To some extent I agree with Tim and Robert. If conditions are right fish will very often resist outbreaks through their own immune systems. I feel that I have to continue to recommend quarantining livestock. Keep in mind that you guys have considerable experience and are more likely to recognize potential problems and correct them long before it becomes an issue. The majority of people don't have the benefit of your experience. On almost a daily basis I hear people say "I used to have a saltwater tank but the fish always died so I got rid of it". I think many of these people may have been successful in the hobby if they would have used a QT tank to keep diseases from getting into their main system.
I probably should rethink whether I even mention FW dips to people though. Although I do them all the time without problems, perhaps it's too easy for people to make mistakes and end up with a dead fish.
The truth of the matter is that although I'm always recommending QT tanks, very few people listen to me. Many of those who have end up turning their QT tank into a second tank long before they stock their main tank. This is one of the reasons we've decided to just start doing it for them.

[robertpower3]

I remeber when i first started keeping reef tanks how difficult it was to maintain a healthy tank. It just seems to me that it is hard enough in this hobby to maintain one tank in the begining with out throwing in medicated dips and another tank to watch. in the begining I think hobbyist should start with hardy fish that can with stand there mistakes and tryto master just one tank. If they can do that and feel that a q. tank is a good idea them they should get one. throwing a 1000 things at a new hobbyist will drive them out of the hobby.

[jay3]

Oh! Oh! Wait! I have an opinion on this one. Wait until you introduce an external parasite, such as a fluke, into a tank with your other cherished fishes. I have had this experience, and let me tell you something, brother; it is much easier on both you and the fish(if your dipping correctly) to dip the fish before, than have to catch him, and potentially others, in an established reef tank. If you haven't had this pleasure, or rather displeasure, I highly recommend avoiding it!
For those advocates of the "well kept system=no parasites" theory, I say this. Your half correct in the assumption that a healthy system helps prevent disease, but your also half lucky!

[robertpower3]

Did you not see the flukes on the fish before you bought it. I've seen flukes go away on there own and they usuaally are not life threatning are they?

[robertpower3]

Did you not see the flukes on the fish before you bought it. I've seen flukes go away on there own and they usuaally are not life threatning are they?

[jay3]

These flukes were very small and nearly transparent. The only reason I found them was because it was on the cornea of the fish and was causing edema (whitening) of the cornea. When I saw this I used a large magnifying glass to look at the eye, and to my surprise I could see a small nearly transparent organism that, under a microscope, I identified as a fluke. A freshwater dip solved the problem, but catching the little sucker was a bi@$#.
While the fluke may not have killled the fish, it would have stressed it to a point where it may have gotten seriously ill.

[Tim Marvin]

Go point Richard. I am so used to talking with Jim Norris and other friends I sometimes forget we are all at different levels. What seems like common sense to one may seem difficult to another.

[Isis]

Normally when it's the first fish I don't QT. But I try to quarantine everybody else that comes in since I've had bad luck before with some fish that looked fine but ended up with something.

You should quarantine all critters added to the main display. Many parasites live on the rocks or sand bed, and the way they get there is by the fish host. By not quaranting BEFORE they get into the main display, all you are doing is adding the problem to the tank, even though it seems it doesn't exist, i.e. it could be dormant, like a characteristic of ick. Ick has a latency period of 30 days, so just because a fish doesn't have it one month, doesn't mean it won't develop it the next. If we could add a fish and it not contaminate other fish while your display is full, why do it while it is empty?


I don't quarantine fish anymore, nor do I dip. If you keep your tank in top codition your fish can naturally fight off most problems. I do keep UVs on the tanks that I used to sell out of. The dip could have stressed the tang out too much. Don't forget this fish has been moved a bunch of times before you actually received it.

Keeping your tank in top condition is also the idea of preventative maintenance. If the problem has a potential to arise, IT WILL. Just because your tank is in perfect running order, doesn't mean that your fish won't get stressed by some other fish or incident that happens due to power or mechanical failure, and as we all know, stress brings about death and disease because it lowers our immune system's ability to fight back, and this is the same for fish.

Also, UV sterilizers IMO aren't the best at fighting anything since in reality it actually can be causing more harm than good. UV is used to sterilze water by destroying bacteria. Unfortunately, UV can only pass through a max of so many microns before it becomes inaffective. Depending on the clarity of your water, the amount of routine maintenance you perform on your sterilzer to keep the tubes clean and the strength of water flow and light, the UV waves can actually be causing the bateria to become "mutated" on a genetic level. This will either make the bad harmless or the good a major issue. Or if lucky, nothing with change at all. Personally, that is not something I would like to risk in my tank, let alone out in the real world, that is why UV sterilization is not in common practice for mass sterilizations.