begginersluck
Aquarium Advice FINatic
It's been a while since I've posted on here mainly because of how busy my day to day life has been and not to mention the extra care and attentions I've needed to give my fish over the last 3 months.
Yes 3 months of ripping tanks apart, selling coral because it got in the way, setting up quarantine tanks, performing water changes every day etc etc.
I hope that any of you that are reading this will take this on board and start doing what we ALL should have done from day one..... Quarantine your bloody fish!
I've been there and made the mistake so I'm no better than anyone else out there trying to battle ich or white spot. We all think we can just do water changes and make sure we feed them well with garlic soaked food and it will either all go away or we can control it. Well what happens when you add that fish you really love and it causes a little stress in the tank and boom.... White spot outbreak..... Or what if you want a powder blue tang or an achilles tang, can't because they potentially could wipe out your entire system of fish by a god almighty outbreak of ich. This actually happened to me.
I decided that I wanted to sort this problem out once and for all and take a vowel of quarantining all new fish after treating every single one of my fish for white spot. I sold all my coral because it was just in the way all the time. Set up a quarantine tank and started hyposalinity. I don't use copper but I am not against it. I had no real quarantine system set up with a cycled filter which meant I had to do daily water changes sometimes of almost 100%. You gotta really watch your parameters here. No filtration means lethal water chemistry if not looked after correctly.
After 4 weeks of my fish being in hypo I started to raise the salinity slowly over 4 or 5 days and then put them back into my display tank which I was hoping by this time would be fallow of white spot........ WRONG! Outbreaks the white spot again. This is when I decided I wanted to go fish only and sold all of my inverts and any coral I had left. This meant I could put my display tank into hyposalinity. Be careful as this is by far as easy as it sounds. Certain things still living in your live rock could die off and cause an ammonia or nitrite spike which means you'll need to do plenty of water changes. Whilst my quarantine tank was empty I took this opportunity to cycle the built in filter with the added bonus of some filter floss I had place in the sump of my display tank. Cycled in 2 weeks.
The lesson to be learned here is if you do do the right thing and treat your fish please do not by any means be tempted to rush it. Otherwise the clocks starts again. Some people say 4 to 6 weeks to allow your tank to go fallow. I say 9!
I hope some of you reading this will find tip his helpful as there are so many mixed opinions about white spot treatment and lengths of time etc. all I want you to know is the longer the better and take the advice from someone that has recently been through it all. Yes there are other ways to do this but for me this was the way that worked the best with the resources I had at the time.
One final note would be make sure you have access to plenty of RO water and salt. If you have the means to make your own this will come in very handy.
To finalise this long post I would like to show you where I currently am now with my system. You will notice there is no sand and the scape isn't 100%. I am waiting in fact 2 weeks away from receiving my new system which will be around 1200 litres total volume. I hope you like the fish I have chosen as they are, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful fish out there for the marine hobbyist.
I welcome any questions on how I rid my tank of ich and please please please keep this to helping those out there with a problem of ich and not a debate on how to do so.
Yes 3 months of ripping tanks apart, selling coral because it got in the way, setting up quarantine tanks, performing water changes every day etc etc.
I hope that any of you that are reading this will take this on board and start doing what we ALL should have done from day one..... Quarantine your bloody fish!
I've been there and made the mistake so I'm no better than anyone else out there trying to battle ich or white spot. We all think we can just do water changes and make sure we feed them well with garlic soaked food and it will either all go away or we can control it. Well what happens when you add that fish you really love and it causes a little stress in the tank and boom.... White spot outbreak..... Or what if you want a powder blue tang or an achilles tang, can't because they potentially could wipe out your entire system of fish by a god almighty outbreak of ich. This actually happened to me.
I decided that I wanted to sort this problem out once and for all and take a vowel of quarantining all new fish after treating every single one of my fish for white spot. I sold all my coral because it was just in the way all the time. Set up a quarantine tank and started hyposalinity. I don't use copper but I am not against it. I had no real quarantine system set up with a cycled filter which meant I had to do daily water changes sometimes of almost 100%. You gotta really watch your parameters here. No filtration means lethal water chemistry if not looked after correctly.
After 4 weeks of my fish being in hypo I started to raise the salinity slowly over 4 or 5 days and then put them back into my display tank which I was hoping by this time would be fallow of white spot........ WRONG! Outbreaks the white spot again. This is when I decided I wanted to go fish only and sold all of my inverts and any coral I had left. This meant I could put my display tank into hyposalinity. Be careful as this is by far as easy as it sounds. Certain things still living in your live rock could die off and cause an ammonia or nitrite spike which means you'll need to do plenty of water changes. Whilst my quarantine tank was empty I took this opportunity to cycle the built in filter with the added bonus of some filter floss I had place in the sump of my display tank. Cycled in 2 weeks.
The lesson to be learned here is if you do do the right thing and treat your fish please do not by any means be tempted to rush it. Otherwise the clocks starts again. Some people say 4 to 6 weeks to allow your tank to go fallow. I say 9!
I hope some of you reading this will find tip his helpful as there are so many mixed opinions about white spot treatment and lengths of time etc. all I want you to know is the longer the better and take the advice from someone that has recently been through it all. Yes there are other ways to do this but for me this was the way that worked the best with the resources I had at the time.
One final note would be make sure you have access to plenty of RO water and salt. If you have the means to make your own this will come in very handy.
To finalise this long post I would like to show you where I currently am now with my system. You will notice there is no sand and the scape isn't 100%. I am waiting in fact 2 weeks away from receiving my new system which will be around 1200 litres total volume. I hope you like the fish I have chosen as they are, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful fish out there for the marine hobbyist.
I welcome any questions on how I rid my tank of ich and please please please keep this to helping those out there with a problem of ich and not a debate on how to do so.
