first post need advise asap

twnship · 12-19-2005, 10:17 PM

i have a 55 gallon tank. It has been up about 1 year and i didnt reserch enough before i started this hobby. Everyuthing was fine untill last weekend when we had a ice storm and lost power for 3 days. Since that i lost all my shrimp all my crabs my gbta all my anthellias and all my shrooms. My sebea amemone survived and looks find but all my fish now have ick real bad. I have no qt tank to put the fish in and i would like to try to save them if its not to late. The fish are a royal gamma thats the worst a false perc and 3 bg chromis. pls tell me what my options are besides getting a qt tank cause i dont get paid till friday. thanks

dobejazz · 12-19-2005, 10:21 PM

Sorry to hear that a few members here suffered the same outage hopefully they will be able to help!
Welcome to TRT sorry it's under bad circumstances

cath · 12-19-2005, 10:25 PM

Oh no! It sure has been terrible around here. Where in SC do you live?

I'll get some others to take a look at your thread.

twnship · 12-19-2005, 10:28 PM

Hi i live in taylors right north of greenville. Will a fresh water dip help any? Guess i would kinda know how to do it first or i might just kill them on accident

twnship · 12-19-2005, 10:30 PM

LOL i see now that your in spartanburg. Well you know where Greer is then. Im down here off Wade Hampton

VWD · 12-19-2005, 10:33 PM

Well The Thing that more then likely hurt the tank was the drop in Temp, Get it stable with all the flow back and do a few water changes. If anything large is missing try to find it and get it out. all You can do now is save what You can and make everything as stable as you can. As far as the ich, I don't think fresh water bath will help. just get the tank right and let the fish fight it off if they can.

Welcometo TRT!! sorry about your lost.

DSB · 12-19-2005, 10:33 PM

Do small water changes, keep them fed well and don't stress them at all. Cross your fingers, but they should get better. A fresh water dip will most likley over stress them at this point and kill them!

twnship · 12-19-2005, 10:43 PM

Ok ill do as advised and not try something i dont really know anything about(fw dips). Since the power came back on i changed 20 gallons of water 10 the first day and 10 tonight. Least now the water doesnt smell as bad as it did when the power came back on. I actually think it was the gbta that stank the water up cause it smelled real bad when i got it out. The temp in the tank droped to 60 to 61. Now i know how important it is to get a qt tank just in case of stuff liike this. I never bought one because the place i buy fish from keeps the fish for 3 weeks b4 he sells them. Sorry this is so long but one more question. Short of buying a generator what can i do to prevent the temp from droping like that if this happens again? Thanks for all yalls help
Tim

Psymon · 12-19-2005, 11:10 PM

I would do a larger % water change, smaller frequent are great for day to day, but you got to remember, in a 100g tank if I remove 10g i only took 10% of the nastiness out. So change number two would be 9% of the nastiness, 19% over 20g, not that great.. I would do 50%, be sure to get ur Ph, Temp, and SG exactly the same, as even a slight change on that large of a change would be stressful. Use a pump, and slowly refill, don't dump. (I said 100 just to make the math easier)

And reguarding the Osmosis shock therapy, it does work, I've done it twice, but you need to kill off the waterborn too, If you got the money grab a UV Sterilizer from ur LFS, $200 USD on this or replace livestock, I'd rather waste 400 on equipment then 100 on killing animals... I would run the UV Sterlizier for atleast 48 hours, if the fish arn't respoding I'd OST them, 3-5 minutes in a freshwater dip, or untill you see the Ick dropping into the bottom of the bowl. The fish will go kinda limp its normal.. If it reacts irratic I'd just call it quits on him and place him back into his home.

Loverotties · 12-20-2005, 06:07 AM

Welcome to TRT!Sorry that happend to you ,people have givin you good advise and do some water test.

Brent Cone · 12-20-2005, 06:56 AM

Well it looks like they covered it for ya, Welcome to T.R.T.
Brent.

twnship · 12-20-2005, 06:25 PM

Just got home from work and the fish are still alive. But they are still covered in ick. So i called my buddy at the fish store and he gave my a tube of Metronidazole. He said it works real well and is totally reef safe wont kill my anemone or and thing else but the parasites.

My question is has anyone else used it and can you give me some advise on what to do. The instructions say to turn off your chemical filtration and that carbon easily removes the meds from the tank.

So can i just take out the filter pads that have the carbon in them and leave the filter running? Also i have a biowheel 170 do i have to take out the wheel too. What about the skimmer turn it off as well? And lastly dont dump it right into the tank right, take out some water and mix it in there and then dump the water back into the tank after it is totally dissolved?

Again thanks for replying yalls help is much appreciated

Tim

tdwyatt · 12-21-2005, 01:24 AM

Welcome to TRT.

For the most part, these fishes will either recover or not, pretty much regardless of the use of meds, as te cause was not an initial blast of infective parasites, but rather the temp shock and ensuing im,mune system issues. The use of the metronizdazole will kill much of the beneficial bacteria in your substrates and rock in the system treated, so unless you plan to use it in a separate quarantine tank (rubbermaid tub with a small sponge filter, powerhead and heater is cheap and fine), it's a good idea to skip the metro. Although it will not harm most higher invertibrates and corals, it is detremental to the bacterial populations in your tank. Post treatment you might see a rise in ammonia and nitrite levels as a result of the drug's effect on the bacterial populations.

Just curious, who is your fish guy?

skeety · 12-21-2005, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdwyatt

Welcome to TRT.

For the most part, these fishes will either recover or not, pretty much regardless of the use of meds, as te cause was not an initial blast of infective parasites, but rather the temp shock and ensuing im,mune system issues. The use of the metronizdazole will kill much of the beneficial bacteria in your substrates and rock in the system treated, so unless you plan to use it in a separate quarantine tank (rubbermaid tub with a small sponge filter, powerhead and heater is cheap and fine), it's a good idea to skip the metro. Although it will not harm most higher invertibrates and corals, it is detremental to the bacterial populations in your tank. Post treatment you might see a rise in ammonia and nitrite levels as a result of the drug's effect on the bacterial populations.

Just curious, who is your fish guy?

Very good point and Excellent advice!!

There are those that believe Ick is almost always present in any system, and stress can cause a lowered immunity of the fish to it, thus causing the fish to suddently get it. This stress can be temp swings, salinity swings, too much food, not enough food, an owner who's ALWAYS got his hand in the tank (me), or even another fish pickin' on him.

Sounds like your situation is another case that might lend towards that theory.

It's been my believe (even back when keeping FW tanks), that the BEST way to fight ick, is to simply remove all stress, and keep the fish strong enough to fight it off naturally. In the end, if it works, you have a fish who's just a little bit more resistant to ick.

Work EXTRA hard to keep the temp, salinity, and pH stable. Don't muck around in the tank unless necessary, until the fish get over it. Feed them just a TAD more than normal (soaking in garlic is rumored to be a big help). Just give them some TLC. I'm a believer that they will kick it on their own.

twnship · 12-21-2005, 05:41 PM

Well crap. I put the stuff in my tank last night. Now its gonna kill all my bacteria? Well now what? Will i just get a ammonia spike that i have to watch for. Will all the bacteria grow back fast enough to not have to worry about to much? Should i put new filter pads in and run carbon thru them cause it said on the bottle that carbon removes the stuff. I so dont know waht to do. Maybe im just not cut out for this hobby cause i cant win for trying.
There are three places here in Greenville one is Aquarium oddities owners name is Chuck and the other is Saludia River on agusta road his name is Bill. and there is also petland my buddies name there is Tre. All three of them have helped me out alot.

Well im clueless so anymore advise would be greatly appreciated.

As for my fish well my royal gamma lays on his side in the corner my perc swims around but has spots on him and the chromis look to be fine.

Just one more question and sorry to be asking so many. How can i tell the diffrence between velvet and ick. Also does velvet just come about like ick does from stress?

Thanks Tim