Monday, September 11, 2006

Lessons can be learned the hard way

Last weekend I added the "last" fish to my tank. My much awaited Moorish Idol, a new and very very healthy Copperband Butterfly, a teensie Sailfin Tang (for Larry) that we can watch grow up and a cleaner wrasse that actually eats food and cleans fish!

All were doing OK, other than the wrasse of which I never saw again after taking out of the bag......

The Copperband was eating food AND aiptasia, the Idol was tasting everything and anything and of course the Tang was eating as only a Tang can. No real upset with any of the existing members of the tank....all seemed well. I know this tank is overstocked but a few members will be moved in the future if we set up another 120g. If not I feel they will be fine "as is" with all the water changes and live rock, skimmer, macro algae etc etc etc. That was not my lesson learned.

It starts like this...a teensie tiny white spot...and all f**kin hell breaks loose. I have Ich. (Sounds kind of like group therapy) Not just a bit of ich but a lot of ich. At this point I don't actually know what to do. The Idol has just "left the building" and everyone although still eating are ichy. I am going to get ahold of Ken and Linny to see if we can use the UV sterilizer to help, continue with the garlic and vitamin enriched foods, decrease lighting to de-stress the fish, decrease salinity to hopefully take care of this. I don't have my hopes up this time and I think this will be a very very very expensive lesson. I can say that unless the fish is bought from Ken and Linny any new comers will be put into a Q tank. I learned a very hard and disheartening (sp?) lesson. I actually shed a tear as this devastates me. I love these fish and don't want to lose any more. If I could put a cleaner shrimp or two in to take care of what is on their bodies I would....but that would be a quick snack for the puffer and triggers. I guess only time will tell.....

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home