The Ichy Mess

DRC Archive General Saltwater Discussion
1

So my clown has/had/probably will have again…Ich. At least I think so. Jon pointed me to a great thread and there are comments on there which get close to answering my question, but not quite (the comments were by Jon go figure lol). http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27003 (have to be registered)

Some background. My clown started to get a few spots on him awhile back, but I thought nothing of it. When I added my T5s and a few other tank mates (snails, maybe the 1st yellow goby, nothing big) he started to look more stressful, more spots, rubbing against the rocks, and breathing heavy. All those signs point to Ich, I guess I should say Marine Ich (MI).

I don’t QT new inhabitants, I think from now on I will take Jon’s insistent advice and do so.

My question. MI is in the tank now, the clown looks better, but I assume that means the MI has fallen off and is in the tank looking for its next victim, which may even be him again or might even be all of them. Should I remove and hyposalinity treat ALL the fish and leave the tank fishless for 8 weeks? I COULD do this with the 75 before I introduce the 55 into the system. I would assume doing ALL the fish at the same time would be my best bet to fully cure the tank of the Ich. This sounds like a very daunting task… Thoughts? Comments? Answers!

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My question. MI is in the tank now, the clown looks better, but I assume that means the MI has fallen off and is in the tank looking for its next victim, which may even be him again or might even be all of them. Should I remove and hyposalinity treat ALL the fish and leave the tank fishless for 8 weeks? I COULD do this with the 75 before I introduce the 55 into the system. I would assume doing ALL the fish at the same time would be my best bet to fully cure the tank of the Ich. This sounds like a very daunting task... Thoughts? Comments? Answers!

I will try to keep this short and sweet. Jon and I have argued this very subject for years, we now simply agree to disagree. I will simply give you my opinion on the subject with anecdotal evidence, and let jon counter.

The worse thing you can do IMO is treat all of your fish prophylacticly. All it would do is stress them unecessarily. The best medicine hands down is the fish’s immune system. Sick systems cause sick fish. Make sure your husbandry is up to par, you water is pristine, your fish’s diet is top notch and you wont have sick fish. Ick is always present in the water, if you fish contracted ick its becuase it was already stressed and/or weak.

Anecdotal evidence
Over the last two weeks i have been helping Andy(4dnsds) rebuild his system. We took all of his fish and put them in a 30g QT tank. The water was pristine. Over the course of a week, his hippo tang contracted ich(and god knows what else) in the QT tank. This fish looked near death. Where did the ich come from? Nothing new was added. The water was from his system thats been established for years. The fish have been in his system for years. Disease is always present in the water, just like humans are constantly exposed to viruses and bacterial in our environment. His hippo got sick because we pissed it off, stressed it out, and put it in a QT tank with other fish. Andy thought for sure this fish was going to die. He wanted to treat it. I told him to throw it back in the DT and it would be fine. As far as i know, the hippo has fully recovered. Someone else cough jon cough might have advised dipping or medicating the fish and keeping it in the QT. I would bet a paycheck that if we had done that, the fish would have died.

I purchased my hippo about 6 months ago. It looked great the first day, but the next day it looked like hell on earth. It was COVERED in black ich and one of its eyes was cloudy and completely popped out. I was seriously tempted to yank him from my DT but stuck to my guns. The only thing i did was add garlic and selcon its food and added an additional feeding. The hippo fully recovered in a couple of days and is one of the fattest, healthiest, happiest tangs ive ever owned.

I have never QT’d a fish. I have never purchased any type of medication. I have never treated a sick fish. I have never lost a fish to a disease. The best medicine is good husbandry coupled with the power of the fish’s immune system. If your observant when purchasing a fish, you should be able to avoid getting a sick fish. If you happen to get a sick fish and your system is up to par, your other fish will not get sick and the sick fish should recover. I dont necessarily feel that QT is bad, i just dont think it is necessary with good husbandry. You need to have an appropriate size QT tank set up for you fish. A 6" tang will never not be stressed in a 20g QT.

If you confident in the quality of your water and system overall, leave the fish alone, it will recover. Soak its food in selcon, maybe dim the lights to just actinic, and let it recover.

3

Hypo salinity can be a very daunting task for just a single fish and I agree with what Lee says on the site about only trying this if you feel comfortable with the procedures and are sure you are up to the task. At least twice a day the pH will likely need to be adjusted.

I prefer hypo to copper for many reasons. Many of the reasons are written in Lee’s articles linked to above. I also know there are a lot of fish such as some clown fish and angelfish which do not do well in copper as well. I lost my favorite fish to copper trying to play around with a lower dosage for an angelfish. Copper comes in many forms and is not easy to test for. I used 3 different test kits and was still never sure where my levels were at. With hypo I know I can count on my refractometer and trust my pH monitor after calibrating it. If you don’t already have these two pieces of equipment most of the experienced hobbyist will agree with me that these are tolls of the trade you should probably have regardless if you want to keep a thriving reef tank.

If you currently have only a couple of fish it may be a great time to do this, but there is no point in going through it unless you are committed to setting up a qt tank in the future. The first wet animal you introduce to the tank could bring ich back into you’re tank.

Honestly not many people keep tanks the same way I do, however most hobbyist gripe about fighting disease, losing fish mysteriously, fighting off bubble algae, aptasia, and majano anemones. I don’t have any of these problems in any of my display or frag tanks. I swear it is worth it, but again the choice is up to you.

Have any more questions please ask.

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Agree to disagree, but at the same time some scientific facts can not be ignored.

“Ick is always present in the water” myth, you can disagree with the scientific community and the countless papers that have been written about this disease all you want, but you have to realize you are just ignoring the facts.
"if you fish contracted ick its because it was already stressed and/or weak. " probably true, but any new fish will have gone through the stress of travel and if you are attempting to put a fish in with other animals which may stress it more things may go a lot better if it does not have to fish off disease while fighting off my tank mates.

With Murphy’s law at some point something is going to happen to stress our fish out. Wither it is a power outage or a tank leak, power head kicking up the sand or us trying to reaquascape their little universe, our fish will likely get stressed at some point. If you put my fish in low temps, high temps, let them carpet surf for a bit, or even pin my fish up against bullies that beat the crap out of them they will never ever contract ich.

“Someone else cough jon cough might have advised dipping or medicating the fish and keeping it in the QT.” I told Andy to put this fish into the display tank asap, after testing the display tank. It is wise to cure a fish of ich, but obviously the fish was being stressed in it’s current environment and was going down hill. Often times ich comes out when a new fish is introduced and fish are fighting with each other. The fish should NOT be pinned in with each other for a hyposalinity treatment. First the stressful situation should be dealt when, then the disease removed.

“If your observant when purchasing a fish, you should be able to avoid getting a sick fish.” You may be able to avoid getting a fish that is obviously sick, but I can almost bet that any fish bought with in 100 miles of here has ich. Shawn if you believe this statement is 100% true then why did you call me and Andy stressing out because you’re cleaner shrimp would not leave your new angel alone? You left that fish in the store for weeks to observe it and still……

“Soak its food in selcon, maybe dim the lights to just actinic,” very good advice.

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The first wet animal you introduce to the tank could bring ich back into you're tank.

Its already in your tank, my tank, and everyone else’s tank. If not, explain the aforementioned scenario above with Andy’s tank, please.

Ill mention something that ive always found ironic about this hobby. A lot of people go through great lengths to keep out “disease” that may be introduced with new fish. At the same time, we go to great lengths to ensure that as much of the bioloigca life found in live rock survive when we introduce rock to our system. Do we really think that only “good” things survive?

IMO, its absolutely absurd to QT a fish to prevent a bacteria, virus, parasite, or whatever from being introduced into your system with live rock. Chances are, whatever you think your “disinfecting” by QT already resides in your system. And if it doesnt, to what end will you put your fish through in the vain attempt of kililng something you know nothing about. How may of us are expert marine pathologists?

There are a lot of intelligent people in this hobby and club. Just because you read something somewhere by a so called expert doesnt make it the gospel. Think for yourselves. Observe your tank and your animals. Make your own conclusions. Regurgitating someone else’s opinions doesn’t make someone smart.

FYI, contrary to what it may seem, i do believe in dipping corals in an attempt to eliminate a potential pest invasion. I believe our focus should be more on preventing the introduction of pests associated with corals, than QT’ing fish. Ive seen to many pics of beautiful, established, reef tanks wiped out by redbugs, AEFW, spiders, etc. etc.

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Any time you mention the letters Q&T together on a fish forum you are going to get conflicting advice and disagreements. I also do not QT anything. I believe the shipping of fish to the store, acclimation, the netting, travel to my house, aclimating to my DT are stress enough without adding another layer of acclimation to the mix. Not to mention that most of us do not have the room to set up a proper QT.

Unfortunately once ich is in your tank, it is in your tank - most will have it anyway - as Jon stated

[quote=“Gordonious, post:4, topic:941”]
I can almost bet that any fish bought with in 100 miles of here has ich. [/quote]

Dimming the lights, keeping all parameters in check, and adding an extra feeding should enable your clown to get better. often times there can be more damage done by trying to medicate or using hypo salinity to cure it. And leaving a tank fallow for 8 weeks would just be torture.

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"Ick is always present in the water" myth, you can disagree with the scientific community and the countless papers that have been written about this disease all you want, but you have to realize you are just ignoring the facts.

Not ignoring the facts at all. Im paying attention to the facts that are not taken into consideration in the stuff that you constantly refer to.

Do you cook your live rock jon? You would literally have to cook your liverock inside out to ensure that every single pathogen that exists in the ocean and/or facility where your rock came from does not make it to your tank. I know for a fact that you dont, since you take great pride in your little “hitchhikers” that make their way into your system from LR. So how in the world can you tell me that these pathogens arent coming in with your LR? Thats not science, thats absurd! OF COURSE these things are in our tank.

Tell me! How in the world could something as large as a crab survive import, curing, and cycling of live rock and a pathogen wouldnt? That makes no sense.

Shawn if you believe this statement is 100% true then why did you call me and Andy stressing out because you’re cleaner shrimp would not leave your new angel alone? You left that fish in the store for weeks to observe it and still……

First of all, i wasnt stressed, i was making a joke about how dirty your tanks were. Second, leaving the fish at the store and observing it is exactly what i advise people to do. Thats exactly what i said in my previous post. Observe your fish!!! I went to great lenghts with this fish for one reason, and you know exactly what that reason is. Its diet. Period. Again, i think my purchase of this animal was an ideal example of how you should purchase fish. I did not QT my regal. My regal was probably covered in parasites, my cleaner shrimp were on it for days straight.

Why would i QT and stress such a fragile fish? Did you QT the regal that you killed?

You need to spend less time regurgitating what you read the night before in an oceanic journal, and more time observing and experimenting with factors that are unique to aquaria.
Your a bright kid jon. Use your intelligence to draw your own conclusions, the hobby will be better for it.

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First of all the clown looks much better, hes on the healthy track, just waiting for his scales to get all their color back from him rubbing against the walls. He is much more active so I don’t have anymore “sick” fish. My parameters are fine the fish is recovering, everything else is doing great. I haven’t changed the water in probably a month, but the #s (according to my test kit) look ok.

I agree and disagree with ich is always in the water. Its always in there if it has hosts to live on it. That is the whole point of my post. Did you read the thread I linked to? My question is how do I get rid of the ich now? I don’t mean how do I get it off of the ONE fish that APPEARS to be infected, I want it out of the tank. Off of ALL the fish even the ones that you CAN’T see are infected.

So my conundrum is how do you get all of the ich off of all of your fish and then let the ich in the tank die off (8 weeks).

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First of all the clown looks much better, hes on the healthy track, just waiting for his scales to get all their color back from him rubbing against the walls. He is much more active so I don't have anymore "sick" fish. My parameters are fine the fish is recovering, everything else is doing great. I haven't changed the water in probably a month, but the #s (according to my test kit) look ok.

I agree and disagree with ich is always in the water. Its always in there if it has hosts to live on it. That is the whole point of my post. Did you read the thread I linked to? My question is how do I get rid of the ich now? I don’t mean how do I get it off of the ONE fish that APPEARS to be infected, I want it out of the tank. Off of ALL the fish even the ones that you CAN’T see are infected.

So my conundrum is how do you get all of the ich off of all of your fish and then let the ich in the tank die off (8 weeks).

IMO, its pointless. You would do way more damage than good.

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Leaving the tank fallow for minimum 8 weeks. But if oyu plan on ever purchasing another fish, coral, rock you’re probably just going to re-introduce it to the tank you looked at empty for 8 weeks.

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So it appears…

2 votes for F- it Ich is always going to be there. Let your fish’s immune system deal with it.

1 vote for QT, and never let the Ich enter the water system.

Correct?

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The main problem is that there all more pathogens than just ich, not to mention that pathogens can be viral or bacterial.

From what i recall, although ich is dependent on a host, there are parts of its life cycle where it isnt. Ich can form a “dormant” like cyst that can be imported on LR. Ive read different things about just how long it can survive in this state, but i dont believe there is a definitive answer. I mean how many people have exhaustively studied the longevity of marine ich cysts imported with LR in marine aquaria?

QUESTION OF THE DAY!

Can someone point me to a repeatable, exhaustive, conclusive, scientific experiment that proves ALL pathogens(included ich) will die 100% in an 8 week QT with hypo, hyper, copper or whatever else. Im not a biology guy, but i think this would involve a microscope and a dead fish >LOL<

I understand the theory…life cycle…blah blah blah…kill the bad stuff at intervals to ensure eradication of pathogen at every step of life cycle…blah blah blah. As you pointed out jon, the copper can be hit or miss. How do we know, without doubt, that QT will kill EVERYHING 100%? I dont know, and im not convinced that it would. Im not saying QT is bad, and im not saying that it doesnt work, im just not 100% convinced that it does. What i am conviced of, however, is the amount of stress inflicted on a fish in a small, bare tank, treated with meds or hypo. IMO, it just isnt worth it.

Also, a point that has been overlooked, is most people dont necessarily treat a QT tank. They simply use a QT to observe the fish for outward signs of disease. This too is pointless IMO. Just because a fish doesnt show symptoms, doesnt mean it it isnt a host to a plethora of bad stuff.

So, you can use a QT to observe your fish for disease, and try and convince yourself that if there arent symptoms there isnt disease.
Or, you can use a QT to treat disease prophylacticly inducing great stress to an already stressed fish that has survived its entire life exposed to and hosting all kinds of fun stuff.

Jon, i apologize if i came off as rude. You and i have battled over this forever, im sure your use to it >LOL< No hard feelings, you know i love ya!

Disclaimer*
Surprise, surprise…i dont know everything >LOL< Im lucky if i know one half of one percent of just that i would like to know. QT, dont QT, i dont care. The biggest point im trying to make is just because an expert printed it in a book doesnt mean its right. We need to think for ourselves, the foundation of science is observation. Observe, try to repeat it, talk about it.

Look at craigs youtube clip in the octopus thread. I would be willing to be that the aquarium is staffed by “expert” marine biologists that said “sure, throw the octo in the tank, the sharks wont hurt it!” >LOL<

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I think 60 days is the longest (statically) it can possibly live with an outlier of 72 days without a host, this is from the linked article (I believe)

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I never said anyone was an idiot for not doing things the exact same why I do them. I also agree that most people do not do things the same way. I also do not own a soap box, have not printed any posters, or took out any adds in the paper pushing my point. I mentioned to a fellow hobbyist while chatting on day that I do not have marine ich in any of my tanks and being an curious and inquisitive person he asked for a little more information. His fish was sick at the time and was not getting better on its own, so I passed him a link. I warned him that it was not easy to do and told him the fish could get sick again. I don’t know why this upsets you Shawn.

I do believe that marine ich can not survive with out a fish host for 8 weeks while denitrifying bacteria, coralline algae, shrimp, snails, and all the other good inverts can. I believe this because it has been scientifically proven. I also believe that none of my new fish introduce the disease because they are kept in a tank with salinity of 11ppt(~1.008sp. gr. units) for 4 weeks which marine ich can not survive through. This is just my personal beliefs based on the information I have been presented with.

“I would still like your thoughts on how andy’s hippo contracted ich?” I typed this information before, but I some how lost it. Andy is always buying new animals. The week before we started messing with his tank he traveled through PA to many stores. He also works at an LFS and at times brings things home with his employee discount. How did Andy’s fish contract ich? Ich is constantly being brought into his tanks with the new animals, so it was present. The fish was put in a small tank with several other animals and it was stressed out weakening it’s ability to fight off the parasite.

“Tell me! How in the world could something as large as a crab survive import, curing, and cycling of live rock and a pathogen wouldnt? That makes no sense.“ As I said before I qt all wet animals. “Pathogen”s could possibly survive and any time you introduce a coral, snail, or piece of LR you may be introducing them to you’re tank. I never said that new LR could not possibly contain marine ich.

IanH “So my conundrum is how do you get all of the ich off of all of your fish and then let the ich in the tank die off (8 weeks).” In my personal opinion which is shared by many people. If you put you’re fish through hypo salinity and keep the fish out of the tank for 8 weeks you will have no ich in you’re tank. Like I said before though, this is pointless if your fish is currently healthy and you do not plan on QTing new fish, corals, and inverts.

The following statements for the benefit of someone knew to the hobby and not directed at any individual: If you go on a vote system you can also try handing the common person off the street an acro frag and ask them if it is an animal, plant, or rock. Most people will vote for rock or plant more then likely. If you ask most people how keep tangs how often a tang needs to eat to survive they will probably say once a day is fine. If you ask most people who keep mandarins how big of a tank they need the overwhelming vote will be a tank no bigger then 10gallons is required. Popular opinion in this hobby does not guarantee the best husbandry techniques. Most people in the hobby are new to the hobby and have never read half a book on the subject. I personally listen to popular opinion…, but then find several solid sources before I believe anything.

15

I don’t want to debate the issue of ick always being present; I will leave this to you guys. I wanted to comment on something Shawn said to give my own experiences.

Over the course of a week, his hippo tang contracted ich(and god knows what else) in the QT tank. This fish looked near death. Where did the ich come from? Nothing new was added.
I would still like your thoughts on how andy's hippo contracted ich?

A lot of things that appear to be ick are not. The early stages of marine velvet look like ick. I had a hippo and any time she was severely stressed she showed signs of what appear to be ick. I watch this happen 5+ times over 3 years. I have to conclude it was not ick but some sort of bacterial infection that showed up as the stress reduced her immune system.

I will say I doubt that ick is always present but bacteria is. There are literally hundreds of diseases that attack fish kept in a closed system. Just because your fish is sick, does not mean that they necessarily have ich. There are many other possible culprits like protozoan, macro-parasitic, fungal, bacterial, viral, genetic, and environmental. I would think bacteria first since ick would not become an epidemic in a few days.

Now to help Shawn’s side;I read somewhere that fish develop a “resistance to ick at low levels over time”. This would validate your belief that ick is always present and that a healthy fish could fight off the majority of Theronts.

Devils advocate:
So he added no corals in the past 2+ months? Because a coral added today that had ick on it would take a while to become a problem. Ick is said to start in the gills and then as it becomes an epidemic it attacks the outer area we can see. By the time we see it ick is well established. Stress could cause the Hippo to be less likely to fight the attack so it expanded faster.

I have use Hyposalinity to treat a case of ick when I first got my hippo and everything was fine. I tested salinity 4 times a day and tested pH 3 times per day. I didn’t have a swing large enough to warrant adjusting. (digital meter)

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I think 60 days is the longest (statically) it can possibly live with an outlier of 72 days without a host, this is from the linked article (I believe)

That would explain the ubiquitous 8 week QT.

Jon, i pretty much agree with everything you said in the above post.

One thing i would like to get your thoughts on. What do you think keeping a marine fish in 11ppt for four weeks does to the overall health of the fish? Have you had fish die in QT(be honest) and chalked it up to disease? Does it eliminate every other possible pathogen, known or unkown?

I will admit, im probably not nearly as well read as you in marine biology. However, i firmly believe in a clear distinction between science and hobby, meaning that a direct correlation can not always be made between events in the ocean and events in a glass tank. However, i spend WAY to much time reading about things that pertain to the hobby. One thing that ive always found curious is the following.

Someone purchases a 6" tang. The fish shows no outward signs of diseas, but they have read that tangs are prone to ich so they put it in a QT. He throws the tang into a 20L thinking he is doing the right thing. The tang is stressed like crazy from being collected, shipped, put in copper at the LFS, and now moved again into a small BB QT. Magically the tang shows signs of ich, so the guy says whew, i saved my tank from an outbreak of ich. So what does he do to an already stressed fish? Stresses the fish more with hypo or meds! The fish dies from additional stress and the guy convinces himself that he lossed a sick fish and saved himself from an ich outbreak. When in reality, IMO, if he would have simply put the fish into the stellar system that i know we all keep the fish would have probably been fine.

Just google some of the forums for sick fish. You will be amazed at how often this scenario plays out, especially with tangs. A person buys a healthy looking fish, puts it in QT, fish then looks sick, treats fish, fish dies.

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“How do we know, without doubt, that QT will kill EVERYHING 100%?” We do not know this and I never ever said this. I did not say there is not a single pathogen in my tank that negatively affects the bony fish I keep. I don’t want my quarantining procedures to kill “everything”. Symbiotic aglaes live with in my corals so when I import new corals I am never trying to acquire a single species of animal and I realize that. The subject matter of this thread is, “The Ichy Mess”. I have two solid facts I am basing my information on which are in respect to Marine Ich aka Cryptocaryon irritans.

It is possible that once someone introduces a fish that has gone through hypo into their tank an outbreak of marine velvet will occur and they could lose all of their fish. Personally I keep my Nitrates down to 0ppm and keep the rest of my levels fairly stable and do not allow them to change suddenly. I feed my fish a very healthy diet containing many different foods often soaked in vitamins and garlic. I monitor the fish carefully at the store and all through QT to look out for symptoms of other diseases.

“Also, a point that has been overlooked, is most people dont necessarily treat a QT tank. They simply use a QT to observe the fish for outward signs of disease. This too is pointless IMO. Just because a fish doesnt show symptoms, doesnt mean it it isnt a host to a plethora of bad stuff.” Never have I stated an exact procedure for guaranteeing animals with guaranteed results. I completely agree with you that if you separate a fish and simply examine the animal it does not guarantee that you will know if the fish has ich or not. I actually argued this point with Lee on the other board. He believes that all new fish should be quarantined in a very small system. He says this will stress the fish and weaken its immune system and any problems should show up and then be treated. I never purposely stress out my animals. I also know that most of my animals come from LFS where they are kept with other sick animals or from other aquarist who do not practice any form of qt. Since I believe it is probable the fish will have ich I do not go through the process of stressing the animals to bring it out, I just treat the fish with hypo. I have treated many fish with hypo and do not believe the fish are overly stressed by this. Once again this is what I personally do.

I am not arguing that my way is the only way. You ask a question and I answer it. You make a statement and I state that I personally do not agree with it based on the information I have. I am fine with others not believing the same thing I do which is why I never beg you to qt you’re fish. I do not push my opinions on others, but when you told Ian that Marine Ich is always in the water I stated that I do not believe this to be the case.

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A lot of things that appear to be ick are not. The early stages of marine velvet look like ick. I had a hippo and any time she was severely stressed she showed signs of what appear to be ick. I watch this happen 5+ times over 3 years. I have to conclude it was not ick but some sort of bacterial infection that showed up as the stress reduced her immune system.

I will say I doubt that ick is always present but bacteria is. There are literally hundreds of diseases that attack fish kept in a closed system. Just because your fish is sick, does not mean that they necessarily have ich. There are many other possible culprits like protozoan, macro-parasitic, fungal, bacterial, viral, genetic, and environmental. I would think bacteria first since ick would not become an epidemic in a few days.

Great point Al. I didnt belabor the point, but thats why i kept talking about the effect of QT on ALL pathogens. Im just not convinced in the least the QT = disease free.

\

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but when you told Ian that Marine Ich is always in the water I stated that I do not believe

I guess i should have clarified this. What is should have said is that i belive that ich is present in 99% of home SW aquariums that contain fish. I didnt meant that it’s literally in the water. I was addressing the fact that ich is alive and well in almost every tank, and an outbreak is usually the result of a stressed or weak fish and not a newly introduced pathogen.

Personally I keep my Nitrates down to 0ppm and keep the rest of my levels fairly stable and do not allow them to change suddenly. I feed my fish a very healthy diet containing many different foods often soaked in vitamins and garlic. I monitor the fish carefully at the store and all through QT to look out for symptoms of other diseases.

This is exactly what i have consistently preached for years!

It is possible that once someone introduces a fish that has gone through hypo into their tank an outbreak of marine velvet will occur and they could lose all of their fish

Jon, what do you mean by this? Are you implying that marine velvet could be impervous to the QT process or are you implying that marine velvet could be already in the DT? If its the former, then why do you QT?

20

No one has stated that QT = disease free.

“Just google some of the forums for sick fish. You will be amazed at how often this scenario plays out, especially with tangs. A person buys a healthy looking fish, puts it in QT, fish then looks sick, treats fish, fish dies.” Forums are a HORRIBLE place for information if not used correctly. People constantly are relaying information they learned from an LFS as law and the people that talk most often are very new to the hobby. I spend a lot of time on the DRC because there are a lot of good people I know that are looking for help.

As far as saving a system, I can not tell you how many times people will have a system which has been doing great for 2 years with out a single fish lose. Then the person reads about how great a tang is for cleaning up algaes or really wants to try there hand at getting clown fish to bread since they are doing so well. Then they purchase a new fish and introduce a disease to the tank. Next they lose some of the oldest fish they have had for a long time. These people often go back to not purchasing any new fish with out attempting to research what exactly happened. This scenario will come up in a search of the forums over and over again, but does not mean you should never purchase a new fish.

Once again most of the people who talk on the forums are new to the hobby and often relay information they heard from a two minute conversation with a salesperson at an LFS. Regardless if the salesperson knew what they were talking about the new hobbyist probably does not have all the information they need to set up a proper qt tank. It is likely they just got control of disease in there main tank because they really didn’t know what they were doing and the Nitrates were high and the fish were fighting. Now this person is going to try a bare bottom nano, with no live rock, basic filtration, and they probably set it on the ground of there 40* basement??? Of course most of what you read in the forums negative on this topic, but consider the source.

Most of what is said on the forums is that QT will stress fish out and often kills them. Most of what you read on the forums about regal tangs is that they died on people, but you still tried one right? :wink: Popular opinion should be considered, but most often it is not what should be followed and never considered fact with out further investigation.

To be honest I have lost fish in hypo. I never lie and I will be out with it. I lost a royal grama which jumped out of a tank that was 99% covered.(Murphy’s law SUCKS!) I also lost a strawberry pseudochromis during hypo. I believe I lost the pseudochromis to some sort of worms or internal parasite though. I obtained both of these fish from a friend who told me if I didn’t take his tank full of fish and coral for free he was going to give it to a local fish store.(who here could turn down that?) In reality it was a horrible time for me to be getting new fish as I was about to move and did not have time to properly take care of these animals. The pseudochromis should have been removed when he stopped feeding and treated separately, but I was in the middle of moving my 15 tanks across town while job hunting.

I do not have all of the answers and try not to make it seem as if I do. I just share my experience and understanding and I do so to help others avoid some of the problems I have had. Too many people give up on this hobby because of crap they read on forums or advice they get from LFS.