Flybill
Community Member
I set up a new 200 gallon mixed reef tank over the winter and seeded it with sand and live rock from a mature Red Sea Max 250 - 65 gallon tank plus about 200 pounds of new boxed live rock and quite a bit of fresh Aragonite sand. The tank cycled more than expected and while I kept all of the fish the corals died. Not much coral except for a proliferating colony of Xenia that was out of control anyway. After the parameters stabilized I stocked tank with quite a few fish. A mixture of angels, tangs, and a few wrasses. I think I overstocked the tank or stocked to quickly because I wound up with a fast-moving outbreak of velvet and Ich that took out just about every fish I had. And no I didn't Quarrantine. Dumb I know. I also stocked a mixture of corals which were unharmed and are thriving now without fish.
I caught almost all of the fish and moved them to quarantine and hospital tanks. I was unable to capture a 2 inch yellow wrasse and a small watchmen goby/pistol shrimp pair. The only fish that survived treatment are a damsel and a yellow tang.
I shut off the protein skimmer, carbon, and GFO reactors and dosed the tank with a reef safe no Ich product for four weeks. I also added a 57 why UV sterilizer in line after the return pump. I had a smaller sterilizer running with a small pump from the sump originally.
The small wrasse and goby have been very healthy and showed no signs of ich or velvet. Although the yellow rash didn't lose one eye from the outbreak. I gave up on trying to get them out of the display tank. Added some more coral and all are doing very well.
I now have fish in quarantine that have been treated with meds and are healthy and eating and I am wondering how long I should wait before I start adding Fish to the main display tank.
Here is what I currently have in Quarrantine that have been treated with cupramine
65 gallon tank
Yellow tang
Blue damsel
Yellow eye tang
Lieutenant tang
Orange shoulder tang
Koran angel
3 cardinals
In another tank I have a few other fish that I treated with Prazi Pro
10 gallon tank
Dragon wrasse
Mandarin goby
Hippo tang
Originally I tried treating the hippo tang with the other tangs but he would just lie down and try to go flat against the bottom of the tank and not eat so I figured he was getting stressed from the copper and other tangs and moved into a tank with more docile fish and no copper. Unfortunately his behavior has not changed in that tank but he seems to be healthy. I cannot observe him eating when I feed but I have some Nori seaweed in there in that seems to disappear every night so I guess he is eating.
So my question is how long should I wait before I introduce fish into the main display tank. And in what order should I add
them. The tank has been fallow now for six weeks (except for goby and wrasse). I am pretty sure I had an outbreak of velvet but not exactly sure if I also had Ich. Will attach some photos of fish and equipment.
Thanks!
I caught almost all of the fish and moved them to quarantine and hospital tanks. I was unable to capture a 2 inch yellow wrasse and a small watchmen goby/pistol shrimp pair. The only fish that survived treatment are a damsel and a yellow tang.
I shut off the protein skimmer, carbon, and GFO reactors and dosed the tank with a reef safe no Ich product for four weeks. I also added a 57 why UV sterilizer in line after the return pump. I had a smaller sterilizer running with a small pump from the sump originally.
The small wrasse and goby have been very healthy and showed no signs of ich or velvet. Although the yellow rash didn't lose one eye from the outbreak. I gave up on trying to get them out of the display tank. Added some more coral and all are doing very well.
I now have fish in quarantine that have been treated with meds and are healthy and eating and I am wondering how long I should wait before I start adding Fish to the main display tank.
Here is what I currently have in Quarrantine that have been treated with cupramine
65 gallon tank
Yellow tang
Blue damsel
Yellow eye tang
Lieutenant tang
Orange shoulder tang
Koran angel
3 cardinals
In another tank I have a few other fish that I treated with Prazi Pro
10 gallon tank
Dragon wrasse
Mandarin goby
Hippo tang
Originally I tried treating the hippo tang with the other tangs but he would just lie down and try to go flat against the bottom of the tank and not eat so I figured he was getting stressed from the copper and other tangs and moved into a tank with more docile fish and no copper. Unfortunately his behavior has not changed in that tank but he seems to be healthy. I cannot observe him eating when I feed but I have some Nori seaweed in there in that seems to disappear every night so I guess he is eating.
So my question is how long should I wait before I introduce fish into the main display tank. And in what order should I add
them. The tank has been fallow now for six weeks (except for goby and wrasse). I am pretty sure I had an outbreak of velvet but not exactly sure if I also had Ich. Will attach some photos of fish and equipment.
Thanks!
Some fish are capable of building up natural immunity to ich, velvet, etc., but are still carriers of the diseases and can infect other fish. It's very possible whatever parasite almost wiped out your tank is still continuing it's life cycle in there (in greatly reduced numbers) by feeding on the gill tissue of the wrasse & goby. Once you add more fish (with no immunity) it's going to be a smorgasbord. I would catch the two remaining fish by all means necessary, QT/treat them, and go (truly) fallow for 76 days in your DT before adding anymore fish. I'm sorry, I wish I wasn't the bearer of such bad news... 
