Tank Issues

[lindo]

Let me first start off by saying when I first entered this hobby I had no idea what I was doing. My first fish and invert were bought by my fiance without any research so please take that into account.

Last summer during June, my fiance bought me a clownfish and an anemone to put into my new cycled tank. I had not really read up on anemone's but I didn't want to hurt her feelings so it went into the tank. Both the clown fish and anemone have prospered and as a matter of fact, the anemone has split three times, and grown to over twice it's original size.

Here is my problem.

Two weeks ago, I noticed my mag float was scratching the heck out of my aquarium. I took it out of the water and rinsed it in RO water but it still was scratching the glass. I removed it and put it aside. During the two weeks, the detritus or algae on my glass grew to a pretty noticeable amount but it was never too bad and I needed to wait until I got paid to buy the new mag float.

Last Friday, before leaving home for the weekend, I fed my wild caught false perc (the original one) her mysis shrimp, however when I came back on Sunday night I realized I had forgot to put garlic in it, and as a result she didn't eat it. On the front glass of the tank, there were small white bristle star looking animals on the algae. They were about 30 of them on the front glass and they were about the size of the period on my key board.

I decided to do a larger than normal water change (3 gallons) after cleaning my glass with my new mag float and after I finished changing the water I noticed my fish was acting very lethargic and swimming funny. Also it was COVERED in white specs (it did not have any specs on it when I came home) I sprayed her with a turkey baster and the spots came off, only to return with white spots a couple of minutes later.

When I woke up the next morning my clown was dead :(

Now here are my questions.

1) does Ick come off when sprayed with a turkey baster?
2) do any of the Ick stages look like tiny white bristle stars?
3) since there is no other fish in the tank (only snails and hermits and anemone) how will I know if Ick is present?
4) does Ick affect any of these inverts?

I have read somewhere that it is good to wait about 6 weeks after a possible Ick outbreak before adding another fish. In the meantime can I keep purchasing corals if my plan is to starve off the ick parasites?

My water parameters are

Temp 82 degrees
Salinity 1.023
PH 8.2
Nitrates .2PPM

[Mr Cob]

ich does not come off when sprayed...it's actually under the skin. Ich does not affect inverts. Yes, waiting 6 weeks is recommended so that you do not have another outbreak.

Do a search for ich here on the forums....lots of good info including a sticky thread in the emergency forum.

*edit....not sure what you have though but it seems as though what was in the algae on the glass is not the same as what was on your fish. Pics would help a lot.

[lindo]

Ok, can sand in the water column stick to fish? When I did my WC I accidentally stirred up a lot of sand..

And is there a way to see if I have ICH in my tank? I want to make sure before I wait 6 weeks.

And just to confirm, all my corals would be find, and it would be ok to add more corals during this period?

[Mr Cob]

I edited my post above as you posted.

I personally would not add anything when trying to control what is going on...that just adds more variables. You should wait until your system is stable before adding anything.

Yes, sand can stick to fish, especially since they have a slime coat on them.

[lindo]

No pics.. my camera could not capture anything that would yield a result, even with macro on..

How will I know when my system is stable?

[Big_Pun]

yes sand will stick to fish, but like stated before it prob wasnt ich. how long between water changes and what is your filtration on tank. maybe when you stirred the sand you released some of the gunk and cycled the tank again causing a spike of amonia

[lindo]

Well I skipped one water change the week before due to a family issue but it is one gallon regularly, however during my last WC I did a 3 gallon change. My filtration is a BC protein skimmer and about 15 pounds of live rock.

[Mr Cob]

How will I know when my system is stable?

When you don't have to ask if your system is stable. Once all of your parameters check clear and stay stable for a couple of weeks and nothing dies and you have a routine down. When things are changing negatively and bouncing around that's when it's important to slow down and find your sweet spot. Every system is different.

[lindo]

Ok, well since I have no other fish in the tank, should my gauge be whether my inverts are dying and how well the anemone is doing?

[Mr Cob]

that and document some parameters...temp...PH, amonia, nitrate, nitrite, calcium etc...

[allan]

No, if your inverts are dying it's already too late. You have to take the readings. After awhile when you notice little things in your tank that coincide with your readings you will be able to do less frequent testing. But not dying stuff... that's too late.

[lindo]

Ok, and once everything is stable I should be ok to add fish and corals?

Oh and my inverts are not dying, I was just stating if that would be a gauge since there are no fish in the tank.

[Mr Cob]

make sure that when you do start adding more corals and fish that you do it slowly. Since you are without fish right now, your system is gowing to be adjusting to the decreased bio-load and it will have to do the same when you add the first fish.

What kind of coral do you have in the tank now...? Some corals may not do well without fish waste in the system.

[lindo]

Right now just two small frags of zoa's and the bulb tip anemone. Should I add a small piece of shrimp or continue feeding to keep up the bio load?

[Mr Cob]

yeah, don't add anything to decay...just let your system chill and keep up a stable routine with it in way of testing parameters and water changes. Once things seem stable add one small fish. Wait a week and then add a hardy coral.

I'm not sold on the idea that your fish died of ich....though if you did not quarantine your fish and treat for ich chances are your system did have ich...a lot of fish do have it (you just don't see it unless something goes bad and the fish has difficulty keeping the ich at bay) unless they are quarantined against ich. So, choose your battle. If you decide you want an ich free aquarium then you will need to keep it without fish for 6-8 weeks and then follow proper steps for quarantining all fish prior to adding them. Not many people can pull this off effectively.

[lindo]

Im not really sold on that either. The "ick spores" came off of the fish with a turkey baster. I think it may have been sucked into the PH because when I found him, he was attached to the intake

[tony]

i consider clowns hearty, i have never considered anemones as such which leads me to believe its a parasite vs bad params. as an aside, i would add a cleanup crew before any more livestock once you are sure your parameters are in check.

[lindo]

the thing is though, it was a WC clown. I always thought they were more "finicky" than regular aquacultured clowns

[allan]

It sounds as if you've got the information necessary to forge ahead.

Your bio-load/filtration can be compared to a scale, on one side you have your filtration and on the other side you have your bioload.

What Rob is recommending is that you wait until both are equal and balanced. Once this has been achieved you can add a single fish or a CUC. Bear in mind that when you do this you will be putting more weight into the BioLoad side of your scale. It will sink. Over the next few days to a week or two you will experience a mini-cycle as your filtration attempts to catch up. Eventually both sides will again "balance" out.

Here's the rub, if you add five fish, a CUC, and a bunch of shrimp you will catastrophically tip the scale on the BioLoad side to the point where regardless of the efficiency or prowess of your bio filtration, you will suffer a cycling of your tank in which only the most hardiest of your live stock could hope to survive. Your Ammonia will climb, fish will start stressing and coral will start to die, then as your Nitrites are starting to rise you will spend time cleaning out the dead fish that didn't make it and lamenting over the coral that couldn't handle the swing. Then your Nitrates will start to rise which means that your bio filtration has caught up to your new load....

...which you no longer have. I'm not sure how a robust bio filtration will be affected by a lack of a BioLoad to sustain it... but I don't think it would be any better than what you have already been through at that time.

Like Rob and the others mentioned. Best to slowly add to your system in onesies and maybe twosies... but never without ensuring first that your system has become "balanced" or stable.

The larger your water volume the slower these changes occur, the smaller the quicker. Those folks that run those pico tanks IMO are truly experts.

[allan]

Oh, one last thing which is an echo to what Rob already pointed out. Don't put in a dead shrimp to bolster your bioload. No way to measure just how much that will aid or harm your system and can be highly irregular way of maintaining a bio filtration within your system.

Instead, wrap that shrimp with bacon and put it over an open flame. While that's cooking let your tank stabalize. Once this has happened (stabalize) you can add a fish or a CUC to strengthen your bio filtration... and you get a snack while you wait.

[justahobby]

Did you clown ever "clean" the sand by swooshing her tail rapidly? That would explain why the sand reappeared.

Another hypothesis: when you sprayed the turkey baster, your clown got scared and its colors lightened, making it harder to see the spots.

[ShAgMaN]

How much do you guys think coral will add to the bio load?

Of course it depends on the size of coral. For example, when I added a bunch of gorgs to my tank after my trip to Florida, I was nervous about crashing my tank. I'm also concerned when I add a bunch of frags or colonys at once...but I've never really had a problem.

[Mr Cob]

Oh man Allan, u crack me up. Thx for the laugh.

Terry, I say it depends on the coral and how much u feed that coral. For example a daily fed anemone would add a lot to the bio-load....what goes in must come out.

And some Corals are great filter feeders and will assist in filtering the water.
Sent from my HERO200 using Tapatalk

[ShAgMaN]

Ya, good point. It's not really the coral just like it's not the fish. It's the waste they create which is based on how much you feed them. I was just thinking about how much certain coral stink - kinda like uncured live rock - xenia and some mushroom are real bad. Just seems like if you added a lot of that it wouldnt be good.

[Mr Cob]

Yeah I agree, I think it's both. A lot of anything is never good.

Sent from my HERO200 using Tapatalk

[lindo]

Did you clown ever "clean" the sand by swooshing her tail rapidly? That would explain why the sand reappeared.

Another hypothesis: when you sprayed the turkey baster, your clown got scared and its colors lightened, making it harder to see the spots.

No she never did, she seemed really weak for some reason, I did just add a second Maxi Jet 400 but the flow was never so much that it would throw her around the tank. As for the color issue, that makes sense, Im going to probably leave the tank alone except for the minimal feeding of the anemone for a couple of weeks until everything levels out, then Ill continue.

[lindo]

Update:

Here is a picture of the white spots in my tank! Has anyone seen this before??

http://img823.imageshack.us/i/p1020594b.jpg/

[justahobby]

You say you got a lot of them? Start researching Hydroids ....

http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1C1GGGE_enUS418US418&q=hydroids&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1152&bih=769