3 fish dead... ich

[tman23]

Well, 3 fish dead in the same day. Time will tell if the others make it. So much ich, it seems... I am in the process of lowering the salinity in the tank, and hopefully Friday I'll get my 24-25 watt UV sterilizer hooked up. I may end up sacrificing a skunk cleaner shrimp trying to save the fish with low salinity (shrimp's been tough to catch). I set out a "U" piece that goes with my new overflow box at an angle in the tank, and put some mysis shrimp with garlic in it. I'm hoping the cleaner shrimp will go after the mysis shrimp and get stuck so I can put him in my other tank.

Feel free to offer advice.

Tim

[tman23]

Also, I think the fish were an ocellaris clown, white cheek tag, and a kole tang. About $90-$95 worth of fish.

[Mr.Peanut]

Here's an idea to catch the shrimp. Take a 2 liter soda bottle, shove a large piece of food in it, maybe an uncooked shrimp, and drop it in the tank. If it were one of my cleaners, they'd be in there in less than a minute. Good luck.

[tman23]

nice... thanks, man.

[jenglish]

remind me of your exact setup. I know you are currently skimmerless. What are water params and tank size? The first thing you want to do is lower stress. An unstressed fish can generally fight off ich to subclinical levels on their own (we can talk cure later). A large waterchange can help at the right time in the cycle as well (ich has 2 free swimming stage)

[Loverotties]

What are your water parameters?Tell us obout your set up.

[tman23]

72 gallon, with over 100 pounds of rock. Fifty pounds of it was dry rock, though, but it make have been seeded by now. About 80 pounds of sand... as for surviving (I hope) fish: 1 very small hippo tang, 1 not too big sailfin tang, 1 ocellaris clown, 1 chromis, and 1 yellow coris or canary wrasse. There are some inverts... not too many that I paid for, though . As for filtration, an aquaclear 110 HOB... but I'm hopefull soon hooking up a sump/ refugium that may pump maybe a little over 800 gallon/hour taking the lift into consideration, as well as a ~25 watt UV sterilizer.
Don't know water parameters currently, but I can hopefully get back to you on that (I've broken about 3 of my glass test viles, and would rather have a LFS test at this time).

[tman23]

Update: sailfin tang found dead, ocellaris clownfish and hippo tang missing.

[quick_murdoc]

Wow that sucks. could you get a QT tank up and running?

[jenglish]

I think we may have found part of the problem here. You have some territorial fish, tangs, in a small container. This is going to lead to aggression and stress making them susceptible to ich outbreak. You also have a high bioload of messy eaters and currently a pretty weak filtration system. I hate to say this but you are probably going to lose as much money in fish deaths right there as you could have nearly paid for a decent used skimmer I would be looking for 1 tang for a 72 and not every tang can have it's needs met in there. For now, I would to a big waterchange, aim powerheads at the surface for plenty of surface agiatation and gas exchange, watch and wait. One of the big factors in ich death is they infect gills so you need to keep the oxygen level up. Aside from the W/C I would try to mess w/ the tank as little as possible, try not to scare the fish, maybe even leave the lights off. In this situation stress kills.

[Twitterbait]

Sorry for your loss man. many of us have learned this tough lesson. Here is some important advice i hope will help.

Ich is only going to show up if your fish are stressed. happy fish have strong immune systems and don't usually get sick. check the following:
Stats: Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, Phosphate
Temperature
Hiding spots (make sure they have a place to hide)
Sufficient swimming room

now a few additional thoughts. I don't want to come off as a tang policeman but... you have way too many tangs in that tank. at most you should keep one in that size of a tank because they like their space. another problem with tangs is the amount of Live Rock in the tank. many reefkeepers like to stuff the tank with live rock but i recomment the less-is-more technique create large caves and overhangs for the fish to swim around but leave them room to swim.

can you give us a quick idea on what filtration you have?

[tman23]

aquaclear 110 lol... not the best, but lots of rock. Hopefully all LR by now.
A LFS runs hits ~125 gallon coral tank with an aquaclear 110, some powerheads, and a bunch of live rock (only 2 fish i think).
i have the glass cut and got some tubing yesterday for making a refugium/sump out of a 20 long.

2 fish known to be alive as of earlier today.
yellow corris or canary wrasse, and chromis...
lost lots of fish!
I'll probably just try and catch those 2, put in HT and run the tank without fish for a few weeks... ~4-6 weeks perhaps.
That way I won't have to lose cleaner shrimp or have lots of LR die off... and I can still have inverts

[tman23]

i wonder how much I contributed to the fish death lowering the salinity... if I did

[jenglish]

Lowering salinity can stress a fish. Generally I advise nursing a fish to the point that it is not showing signs of ich before trying hyposalinity treatments.

[Neuticle]

Bad combo of fish man, tangs can be really tough when they aren't stressed. Four different tangs in a 72, no good can come of it.