Major Loss

What a beautiful reef and what a terrible loss.

But I have to say...horrible selection of fish (together, and in a reef) and even for a 400g...that was way too many fish and not enough swimming room. How long is the tank?

 

If i was seeing all my fish were dying I would would just go against the book and use copper. It is just unheard of to loose that many fish so quickly!

 

The tank was quite open, there wasn't that much rock and corals really. He should have moved the corals to the 75, or a temporary tank. Heck, even if there wasn't enough room for all the base liverock, he could have just put the extra in a rubbermaid bin and tied it into the sump for the 75. Then treat the 400 with copper. Copper doesn't stick to glass and silicone really, so, he would have been fine just ditching the sand and changing all the water afterward... Hind sight is 20/20 though.

 

I still would never put copper in my tank. I honestly wouldn't think of it for a second, so I guess they are in my boat in that regard. But I DO have a place to QT/treat every single one of my fish. It's no mystery to be prepared verses scrabbling around for less than ideal solutions after something occurs.

Ich can definitely take down a tank that fast. I had one that killed 10 fish in less than a week. It was my first tank and there was no internet forums then.... :-/

 

What would be the best prevention for ich so as not lo loose that many fish so quickly?

 

He actually lost more fish than that. it was just in a matter of a few months until the final blow caught up with him. As for a treatment for ich, everyone's remedy doesn't work for anyone. I have seen ich work from feeding food soaked in garlic to selcon, to running hypo, to moving the fish to a qt and using various ich treatments, to leaving the tank run fishless for 2 + months. I dont know all the cures or medicines that cure ich. If you have a tank and you never incurred it then consider yourself lucky. Knowing what it is is one thing, fixing or curing it depends on what works for each individual. Just and opinion.

 

If you don't have ich already, I would recommend a uv steralizer. It will kill any free floating parasites before they ever get to your fish. If I would save one over the other I would choose the fish by far. To see something suffer I would bend over backwards to help it. Corals don't have feeling even though they are probably 3 times the price of some fish!

 

Someone please correct me, But, aren't all these lights we use, all intended to "Mimic" Natural daylight? When they do mimic natural light, UV comes right along with that.....So if that's the case, then what does a UV Sterilizer do that isn't already being done in our Display???

 

Lol. You are some what correct! Most lights do have deadly uv rays buy most lights also have a sheet of glass with a thin piece inside to protect it from those rays. If we didn't have that piece of glass then your lights would be a uv sterivizer and burn everything lincluding fish and coral to death. A uv steralizer is a tube that has ultra violet light that send water straight throw it to skill anything in that water that is passing through. Correction made!

 

But what about the beneficial bacteria?