Sick Fish - Next Steps?

[seils@cisco.com]

Hello,

I am new to this hobby, and think a couple of my fish are sick. I have a medium yellow tang with small black spots and overall lackluster color. I assume the black spots are black ich? I also have a lemonpeel angelfish with one eye that is cloudy and puffed out.

All of my water tests seem to be fine, and the salinity is within normal ranges. How can I tell if there is something else going on with the water? How do I know if the live rock is "live" or otherwise healthy?

A little background on what I have:

120 gallon tank
100 pounds of live rock
Pro 150 Wet/Dry with Prefilter


Thanks,
Zach

[aquasport24]

Hi and welcome to MAAST. If you type down your water parameters like nitrate, ammonia,salinty,etc..i cant really help you beside do a 30% water, but others people here will find ways to help you.

[seils@cisco.com]

Thanks for the post. Here is what I tested last night:

Ammonia = 0
pH = 8.3
Nitrites = 0
Nitrates = ~0.5
Salinity = 1.021 - 1.022

Thanks,
Zach

[aquasport24]

I did not see anything abnormal with your parameters.How old is your tank? did you let it go thru the cycle? what are the history of your fishes?(when did you get them? did they eat when you get them? did you guaranteen them before ?)

[seils@cisco.com]

The tank is ~3 months old. It cycled with the live rock for ~6.5 weeks before the yellow tang was added. The yellow tang was not quarantined, but was the first inhabitant. The angelfish was added 2 weeks later. The fish were, and still are, eating.

Zach

[ErikH]

Do the spots look like typical ich spots but black? I have two yellows afflicted with black ich. I was dosing vitamin c which proved to alleviate the problem, but I stopped dosing earlier than originally planned and it came back. There is no known cure for this type of ich, but I just started dosing C again, so we will see what, if any affect it has on the ich itself...

[seils@cisco.com]

Being new to the hobby, I don't have a reference for "typical ich", other than what I have read.

How do you dose vitamin C?

What about the angelfish?

Thanks,
Zach

[RayAllen]

Lemonpeels are known for being a fragile tank species in the first place so it becoming ill is common, most do not survive in the average home aquarium unlike the more common kept Flame, Coral beautys and Rusty angels. Not sure what the illness is but doing more frequnet water changes and running carbon usually help. Most illnesses occur becuase of stress or water paremeters, but you are good on that one. Good luck- I hope they pull through for you.

[JimD]

Some fish, mostly Percs can get black spots from swimming around some types of zoanthids. Could this be a possibility?

[seils@cisco.com]

Thanks for the post. I'll start with a water change and see how things go. I also read another thread that said the plastic hydrometers from the fish store are crap, so my salinity may be unknown. I'll see about a refractometer and make sure my salinity is really ok.

Can you point me to some more information on "running carbon"?

Thanks,
Zach