adding fish to a tank

marinelife · Jul 6, 2015

Currently I want to add fish to my tank but my tank as ich. I added butterflies before and they had no issue but I tried a few Emperor Angels and they did not make it. They ate fine for a week or two then just died the next day.

How would one go about adding angels successfully? its a 375 sps tank.
I wondered if I could hold them in an accumulation box and feed them ich-shield. Not sure if that would help then thru the ich or not.

kschweer · Jul 6, 2015

To be sure that your tank is rid of ich its is recommended to leave it fallow (with no fish) for 8-10 weeks. This is the life cycle of ich, without fish it is unable to live out its life cycle and will die.

redfishbluefish · Jul 6, 2015

The tank needs to sit fallow (no fish) for eight weeks. Any fish that you might have need to go into a hospital tank with either copper or hypo salinity.

marinelife · Jul 6, 2015

Wish I could do that, with doing a total overhaul on my tank the fish will not come out. I tried to get them out a few weeks ago and have only managed to get 2, the rest hide.

3dees · Jul 7, 2015

what everyone is telling you is absolutely correct. if you are not going to use a qt, then buy the fish, float the bag for temp, take the fish out and throw it on the floor. your fish may or may not survive the ich, but a newly introduced fish won't stand much of a chance. at least wait a while and see how your fish are doing before adding to the problem.

marinelife · Jul 7, 2015

I understand what everyone is saying, QT would and will work for new fish but as soon as they hit the main tank nothing QT did would help due to the ich in my system. The current fish have been in the main tank now for over a year with some as long as 8 years. Last fish I added was 3 butterfly fish about a 1 year ago.

Breakthecycle2 · Jul 7, 2015

marinelife said:
I understand what everyone is saying, QT would and will work for new fish but as soon as they hit the main tank nothing QT did would help due to the ich in my system. The current fish have been in the main tank now for over a year with some as long as 8 years. Last fish I added was 3 butterfly fish about a 1 year ago.

Im afraid of situations like this. All of us get into the hobby for the cool fish, colorful coral and beautiful displays, until something happens that require the hard work. You are going to kill fish for no reason, other then you don't want to listen to the advice already given to you.

4FordFamily · Jul 7, 2015

I agree. I know it sucks I have been there many times because of mistakes.

Take the tank apart corals water rock and all. Net all fish. Keep them in hospital tank in copper as per instructions on the board here. I would even do a couple tank transfers prior to being placed back in the dr. Run the dt fallow for no less than 72 days.

It's a pain in the rear but it's not good husbandry to subject new fish to a cage trapped with parasites they cannot escape.

reefbeard · Jul 7, 2015

Unfortunately as long as there is fish in the tank there is a host for the ich to live on and continue its cycle. Some of your veteran fish have the immune system to fight off a full on outbreak but as soon as you introduce stress to the tank or a new fish that is stressed....BOOM ich attack! Like others have said, letting the ich die off with a fallow tank and removing the fish to QT for treatment is your best bet.

yarddoctor123 · Jul 7, 2015

I have a similar situation. Four of my fish I've had for 4 years, two of them I've had for 2 years, the latest is three months. At one point I hadn't introduced any new fish for about 6 months. Within that time, I had a vicious outbreak of ich AND velvet with a secondary bacterial infection. My maroon clowns got hit first, and overnight the yellowtail damsel had no tailfin, and the large tang was losing his pectorals. All this happened shortly after my heater's thermostat malfunctioned, I had lent my protein skimmer to someone (I had only been running it once per week), and my reef keeper temp probe also malfunctioned to shut off the lights at 82 degrees! I don't know when the temp spike started but I caught it at almost 90 degrees when I happened to check the floating thermometer. I dipped them all in warm Las Vegas chlorinated tap water for 10 minutes each and transfered them to a 40g breeding tank I had set up in the garage previously. I lost one blenny out of six fish. After a month, I moved all but the clowns back to the DT. Any new fish I added (properly acclimated) died within weeks, always gasping on the tank bottom in the morning... NONE OF THE VETERANS SHOWED SYMPTOMS. I didn't want to break down the DT again! I added a neon goby. No problem. Added a cleaner wrasse. The orchid dotty back had territorial "issues" with it, got sick after never showing symptoms for 2 years! I treated him as before but I think the territory stress was too great and I removed him too late. He died in the hospital tank. The next morning I saw the wrasse and goby busy cleaning the tang that was completely covered with bumps. The bumps were gone by late afternoon. It has been 2 months since I added the last juvenile fish with only one hour drip acclimation followed by tap water bath. Everybody is fat and happy. It's obvious the tank is still infected, but the wrasse, goby, and now two cleaner shrimp are keeping it in check. No new fish for the DT-- just a new controller.