Adding new fish!

[Steven1318]

Okay I have a chocolate chip starfish and a brittle serpent I think it's what it's called. And a firefish goby and emerald crab! We are wanting to get more fish but last time we got more fish one of te fish brought something to our tank and killer 90% of our fish! We have a 55 gal right now but going to upgrade! Is there a process we should do to adding fish and make sure we don't add sick or contaminated so to speak fish to our tank! Oo we also have live rock!!

 

[Flreefer]

Any knobby looking starfish, is not considered reef safe, they will destroy live rock in search for food, as far as I know. Not sure exactly, but I know, Chocolate chips stars are not reef safe!

 

[Steven1318]

Our chocolate has done really well!! Mostly stays on the glass or gravel/sand

 

[carey]

You can QT the new fish before adding them to your main tank. Just get a basic small tank with a heater and filter and nothing else and stick the new fish in there for a few weeks.

And yes, that star IS NOT reef safe. At some point it will come into contact with corals and gobble them up.

 

[Animal-Chin]

you say you had a fish bring in something and kill 90%. If it was ich (white spots) and was less that 2 months ago the evil critters are still in your tank waiting for a new host. New fish will trigger them to become active again and you could find your new fish with spots. If it was ich, whens the last time you saw spots?

 

[Steven1318]

Well I still have the firefish and haven't seen any ich on him/her. It has been about a month to a month an a half! So should I wait another 20-30 days to be on the safe side of killing off the ich ?

 

[Animal-Chin]

Well, to be safe you could do that. If it's still in there and you add a fish, it gets stressed by its new environment it'll probably get it. Lots of fish can fight it off though, mine all did when my tank was invaded. Its a risk...