Hey everyone,
I am new to saltwater tanks and have already made my first mistake... I did not QT my fish as I added them.. After my tank cycled I went ahead and gradualy added fish from my recommended LFS and now I have issues. My latest entry is a small hippo tang and powder brown tang and here is where it gets interesting.. The Hippo tang is definitely scratching on rocks/flashing fins/hiding and has a decent size white spot on its side which I suspect is the dreaded ICH. Moving to the Powder Brown Tang, He was doing pretty good his first week, now it appears he has Mouth rot after I noticed his mouth turning white/redding after 3 days - it is also very hard to tell if he also has black ich based on his pigmentation / the fact the dots are not raised off his body they almost look more internal and i'm driving myself crazy. I tried 1 day of Melafix and Pimafix only to ruin my skimmer function and having my office aquarium maintenance tech tell me that is useless to fight any type of fungus/bacterial infection. I have also just started to feed them a mixture of kanaplex/focus to hopefully stop the spread of the bacterial infection the Powder Brown clearly has. ALSO I have started to add polyp medic to my tank in addition to the feedings as I have read this can be safe and easily removed from the tank opposed to copper meds (yes I have read a ton that this medic does not work at all, but I figured I had to give it a shot) .. ALL fish are eating and swimming about normally. I have done a 25 gallon water change yesterday and set up a 20 gallon hospital tank using the water drained from my DT during the water change. The kicker is, I cannot catch these 2 sick fish to try and back track to QT them. I'm assuming I officially now have 1 regular ich, 2 possibly black ich, 3 bacterial infection in my DT. Everyone online has something different to say to how to go about this, any recommendations, or I'm going to have to just tear my rocks apart, scoop them all and stuff them in a 20 gallon to hope the survive a treatment while my tank goes fallow for 4-6-8 weeks? Clearly my lack of patience has bested me after I watched an empty tank for 6 weeks weeks to cycle... Appreciate any/all help!
I am new to saltwater tanks and have already made my first mistake... I did not QT my fish as I added them.. After my tank cycled I went ahead and gradualy added fish from my recommended LFS and now I have issues. My latest entry is a small hippo tang and powder brown tang and here is where it gets interesting.. The Hippo tang is definitely scratching on rocks/flashing fins/hiding and has a decent size white spot on its side which I suspect is the dreaded ICH. Moving to the Powder Brown Tang, He was doing pretty good his first week, now it appears he has Mouth rot after I noticed his mouth turning white/redding after 3 days - it is also very hard to tell if he also has black ich based on his pigmentation / the fact the dots are not raised off his body they almost look more internal and i'm driving myself crazy. I tried 1 day of Melafix and Pimafix only to ruin my skimmer function and having my office aquarium maintenance tech tell me that is useless to fight any type of fungus/bacterial infection. I have also just started to feed them a mixture of kanaplex/focus to hopefully stop the spread of the bacterial infection the Powder Brown clearly has. ALSO I have started to add polyp medic to my tank in addition to the feedings as I have read this can be safe and easily removed from the tank opposed to copper meds (yes I have read a ton that this medic does not work at all, but I figured I had to give it a shot) .. ALL fish are eating and swimming about normally. I have done a 25 gallon water change yesterday and set up a 20 gallon hospital tank using the water drained from my DT during the water change. The kicker is, I cannot catch these 2 sick fish to try and back track to QT them. I'm assuming I officially now have 1 regular ich, 2 possibly black ich, 3 bacterial infection in my DT. Everyone online has something different to say to how to go about this, any recommendations, or I'm going to have to just tear my rocks apart, scoop them all and stuff them in a 20 gallon to hope the survive a treatment while my tank goes fallow for 4-6-8 weeks? Clearly my lack of patience has bested me after I watched an empty tank for 6 weeks weeks to cycle... Appreciate any/all help!