Frustrated is an understatement. What am I doing wrong?

[kropa008]

I started my reef tank back in April and it has been nothing short of a nightmare from the get go. I added a pair of clowns to the tank a few days after the startup bacteria to help with the cycling process. I elected not to QT the fish since there was nothing else in there to contaminate at the time. Of course my first two fish would go on to have velvet and die in a few days. I then began a fallow period which would give my tank time to finish cycling as well. A couple weeks into the fallow period I began to QT my next poor victims with a copper treatment. They were all in QT for a minimum of 30 days, but I didn't add them all at the same time to avoid shocking the tank, so I spread them out over a couple weeks leaving some in QT longer. After I finished transferring all the fish from QT to the DT they all died from the dreaded white spots which was diagnosed as velvet per Reef2Reef and the SARK Facebook group. I don't know which fish it started with, but it killed off all the poor fish so quickly. Now being really aggravated with everything I decided to enter an almost 4 months long fallow period since I wasn't convinced the previous one was long enough. During this time there were still hermit crabs alive that I was feeding, but despite that I still hit zeroes on my nitrates and phosphates and developed a case of what I believe to be dinos from lack of nutrients. After doing some research it seemed that increasing my bioload and feeding would help combat the dinos. So not trusting myself to even QT fish anymore I decided to buy from Dr. Reef's Quarantined fish after reading so many good reviews. I received the fish last Thursday and today they are covered in white spots again. I'm just murdering these poor fish for a hobby at this point. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and I'm ready to take a sledgehammer to the tank. So if you happened to read this far my question is, where the #$@! is this velvet hiding at??? Can it live in/off of chaeto? Inverts? Filter socks? Corals? Is my water supply contaminated? Those are the only things that have remained consistent in the system throughout this nightmare. I really am out of ideas and patience. Attached below is a timeline of everything I have done since the start of the tank. Thanks for reading!

 

[kropa008]

Sorry it posted the photos out of order.

 

[doubleshot00]

Ill give you credit for sticking it out. I know I wouldn’t have if i had that many dead fish.

How big is the tank?

I know most are not gonna agree with me but i would start over and bleach that thing. Dealing with dinos alone is a complete pain. If you started with dry rock just start over. Not worth the headache.

 

[killer2001]

If its a smaller tank I would dump everything, thoroughly clean it, and then let it bake out in the sun for a few days. Nothing can survive that...

Then go brand new live rock + sand.

 

[kropa008]

Ill give you credit for sticking it out. I know I wouldn’t have if i had that many dead fish.

How big is the tank?

I know most are not gonna agree with me but i would start over and bleach that thing. Dealing with dinos alone is a complete pain. If you started with dry rock just start over. Not worth the headache.

I know, I feel absolutely terrible for them. It's a 120 gallon. I started with live rock, but if I lose them all again I'm not opposed to letting everything dry out and starting completely over. I'm sick of this.

 

[kropa008]

If its a smaller tank I would dump everything, thoroughly clean it, and then let it bake out in the sun for a few days. Nothing can survive that...

Then go brand new live rock + sand.

Yeah it's not too small, but you are right that's the only way to kill everything. I just hate to kill off any beneficial stuff I've established over the months.

 

[doubleshot00]

I know, I feel absolutely terrible for them. It's a 120 gallon. I started with live rock, but if I lose them all again I'm not opposed to letting everything dry out and starting completely over. I'm sick of this.

How much live rock did you use?

 

[killer2001]

Yeah it's not too small, but you are right that's the only way to kill everything. I just hate to kill off any beneficial stuff I've established over the months.

Once you cycle the new tank, buy a freshwater molly $5 and convert it to saltwater. Any freshwater disease it may have won't survive saltwater, then see if it ends up getting a saltwater disease in your tank for a couple weeks. If its all clear, you can slowly start to add fish.

 

[kropa008]

How much live rock did you use?

~100 lbs

 

[jmichaelh7]

Tear down tank and disinfect . One day you will look back and think your glad you didn’t give up

 

[Ironwill723]

If its just live rock left in the tank instead of bleach you could use chloroquine phosphate to kill off the velvet. Not ideal but I have used this method before.

 

[doubleshot00]

~100 lbs

You bought 100lbs of live rock and had it shipped in? Where did you get it from?

 

[BaliReefBox]

100lbs of live rock and had it shipped in? Where did you get it from

sounds like Chernoble...I feel sorry for you OP as you really are having a tuff time of it..stick it out and it will get better

 

[doubleshot00]

sounds like Chernoble...I feel sorry for you OP as you really are having a tuff time of it..stick it out and it will get better

Yeah that much rock if he paid for shipping at that amount would suck to just bleach it all. But the rock could have something on it.

 

[Dave1993]

i would not bleach the rock stock up with coral leave fishless for longer than you did then stock fish

 

[kropa008]

You bought 100lbs of live rock and had it shipped in? Where did you get it from?

No sir, bought it from my lfs.

 

[kropa008]

i would not bleach the rock stock up with coral leave fishless for longer than you did then stock fish

Longer than 4 months though? Everything on the internet says 6 weeks or 76 days for velvet. I feel like it's unkillable.

 

[kropa008]

Yeah that much rock if he paid for shipping at that amount would suck to just bleach it all. But the rock could have something on it.

I did have the rock as one of my suspects, however everything in the tank is now suspicious after having tried everything. I did not ship it though. I could only wish I had that kind of money haha.

 

[doubleshot00]

I did have the rock as one of my suspects, however everything in the tank is now suspicious after having tried everything. I did not ship it though. I could only wish I had that kind of money haha.

This one is definitely tricky.

Some dinos are toxic btw and unless you run carbon it can kill.

Is this rock just marinated from the LFS tank water? I would discuss with LFS about your situation and see what they think.

 

[bishoptf]

I know this is late to the game but here is some things to think about if your still in the game. I would do things a little different, I would get an @AquaBiomics edna test kit and test the tank and actually see what your dealing with. If it comes back clean then it's not the tank but if not then I would go down this path. I get a big ole UV unit for the tank (oversized and slow turnover for parasites) and then go fallow while treating with H202 see here It works and works better with a UV going. I would then at the end of the procedure I would do another @AquaBiomics test and see if it eradicated any of the parasites that were found. If you get a clean bill of health then I would get my fish from a quarantined provider and start over.

The other options have been mentioned above, nuke everything and start over etc...just thought I would give you something else to think about...