Coral Beauty

[lgordon]

I purchased a Coral Beauty from the LFS and she seemed great and healthy. I put her in my tank with two small clowns, 1.5" each, a few snails and a cleaner shrimp. She hid for about 4 days, then started coming out. She looked great and healthy. Last night, about 8 days later she is dead. I looked over her body, and she still looked perfect. I checked my water 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites, 20PPM Nitrate PH 8.2 Sal: 1.023. Now I am a little worried to purchase another fish for my tank in fear that it will happen again, since she wasn't s really cheap fish.

What do you think may have caused this?

 

[TruRacr314x]

Welcome to the forum..and sorry about your loss!

A few questions that might help gain an answer to give you some comfort level on your next purchase.

-Tell us about the setup...size, equipment, age, etc. Pics are always helpful as well...
-Your parameters sound ok...and cheers to you for checking them right away. What about temperature?
-Were you able to observe the fish eating? What did it eat and how much?

Fish loss, in my opinion, is just part of the hobby. Most recommend a separate tank for new fish arrivals...this allows you to better observe a new fish and keep the stress level down.

 

[3dees]

how old is your tank. angels do best in a mature tank.

 

[lgordon]

I found out the problem quickly after she had died. I purchased her from the LFS and come to find out they had ick. It killed the Coral Beauty and 2 clown fish, which is all my fish from my tank. Very sad. How do you treat Ick. I have a waving hands, shrimp, some crabs and snails in the tank.

 

[3dees]

your tank is infected. fish must be treated in a qt. hypo-salinity, tank transfer, or copper. your dt must be fallow for at least eight weeks, otherwise any fish added will probably become infected. sorry, but this is the only way to insure your tank is free of ich.

 

[lgordon]

Once my tank sits for 8 weeks, is there a way to tell if its clear of ick. Also, when you quarantine a fish, how long do you quarantine? Thank you all for your feedback.

 

[EZMAC114]

A lot of people QT fish for at least 4 weeks to observe for disease and get the fish eating properly. You should always qt before adding a fish to your display tank! Copper treatment is the most common treatment for ich but is not reef safe so will have to be done in qt.

 

[lgordon]

When on quarantines a fish do they treat them as if they have Ick meaning like with copper treatment in the water?

 

[lgordon]

I attached a picture of my tank and one of the algae growing at the end of my filter. Should I be cleaning that off or is it good and should I allow it to continue?

 

[EZMAC114]

A lot of people will treat for ich and other parasites in qt even if they don't see anything but I've heard that isn't the best idea bc some fish are more sensitive to copper and it should only be done to cure a sickness. I've done both ways an didn't have any issues. Im not 100% sure about the algae though.

 

[Kworker]

How small is the tank? looks like a nano, dwarf angels need larger tanks.

You have to go fallow in order to allow the ich parasite to die off. I am in the same process except I lost no fish to it, I am doing a fallow period of 11 weeks.

I am unsure if it was ich that killed your fish. It seems that it could of been Marine velvet since its killed off the fish so quickly. However I don't know anything about velvet other than it exists, kills quickly and that for velvet you must allow a fallow period as well which I believe is shorter than Ich. My clowns never showed signs of ich when the tangs did, I would have a hard time believing that ich killed clownfish.

 

[lgordon]

40 gallon tank. The coral beauty was small but showed I signs of ick. The next day the two clowns were covered in white dots and then they died. All water listed well. My crustations all are perfect and my corals are great.

 

[caudill187]

Sorry to hear of your losses. Sounds like some bad luck as these things happen in captive reef keeping. Add another clown after 8 weeks and give it some time. You tank will not need to be completely free of Ich as this parasite is probably present to some degree in all captive systems and just seems to blood when the opportunity is right. Make sure your temp isn't fluctuating.