Wrong fish

Sregnar35

Sregnar35

The Man, The Myth, The Legend
Aug 21, 2003
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So my birthday is friday, and my girlfriend went out and got me 4 damsels(2 domino, 2 striped) to put in my nearly cycled tank. All 4 came from the same tank at my lfs, but 1 has ich. Now I explained to her that I can't keep these fish forever, and I shouldn't put anything into my tank ( Ammonia-0, Nitrites-1ppm, Nitrates-200ppm) but they're swimming. My question is this, when I do decide to take these tiny terrors out of my tank to stock it with the fish I really want, will the case of ich carry over to my new guests? I've heard marine ich lives in almost all aquariums and only affects fish that are overly stressed? What should I do?
 
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All parasites whether it be freshwater or saltwater are constantly in the water and the fish are constantly fighting them just like humans with the viruses in the air. As long as you add hardy fish first and wait 6 months before adding any kind of Tang or Angel or Butterfly you should be fine. BTW, why is your nitrAte so high? That is not good at all. Make sure your test kit is accurate or do some H2O changes, it should be close to or under 40ppm. Anyway, hope this helps and good luck.
 
After having been corrected on this very subject, and having re-read a bunch of stuff, I wanted to suggest an amendment to MSL's response. Both freshwater ich and marine cryptocaryon absolutely require a fish host to continue their life cycle and survive. If a tank is without fish (inverts can't carry the parasite) for 30d to 6 weeks, it will be free of cryoptocaryon.

Advanced Aquarist is running a series of articles on the subject here.

In practice, though, MSL's probably right. A fish may be able to slip through quanrantine with a few trophonts in its gills and appear ich-free. Then the beast is in the tank.
 
I just caught the infected damsel and put him in a bucket with a piece of rock from my tank and a mini powerhead, I'm going to bring him back to the lfs tonight. The reason my nitrates are so high is because I haven't done 1 water change, my tank is still cycling and I didn't want to remove the nitrites in fear that I won't establish enough beneficial bacteria if they are removed along with the nitrates. I added 3 coctail shrimp on 11/7 and as of yesterday my ammonia has already gone way over 2ppm and is back to 0, but my nitrites are still around 1 ppm, and my nitrates are around 150-200 ppm. I was planning on holding off on fish/inverts till my nitrites went to 0, then do a water change to reduce my nitrates, then add livestock. But my girlfriend didn't know and got me those 4 damsels as an early birthday present. So I figure now, they aren't hurting anything(even though my water isn't too great for them), I guess I'll keep the 3 healthy ones through the end of my cycle, do a water change, let things stabilize and then bring them back to my lfs. I'll be able use them as a learning experience I guess, to get used to feeding and doing water changes without disturbing them too much.
 
There's a good chance that the "healthy" ones will be infected in the next few days.
In my opinion, the bacteria will do just fine with a water change, and the fish will be a lot less likely to stay sick if you reduce the NO2 and NO3.
 
If I do a water change now, effectively reducing both my
nitr(a/i)te concentrations, and still count on having a sucessful cycle? Or by removing nitrites now, will my cycle stall due to the lack of nitrites? Like I said before, it's been cycling for about 33 days, the ammonia already spiked and came down after about day 13 it was back to 0, the nitrites have been sky high for about 2 weeks, and my nitrates have slowly climbed ever since I started.
I would rather remove all of the damsels if doing a water change will remove too many of my nitrites to establish a good amount of bacteria.
 
It will lower your nititres but if they are detectable then there isn't enough bacteria to deal with them yet. Reducing them won't hurt unless you get rid of all of them (which would be relly hard to do). And don't forget that you now have an ammonia source in the tank with the damsels so those levels will build back up. Better to keep the fish happy and slow the cycle a bit IMO.
 
That makes sense, I'll have to go home today and do a water change then. toI'm getting my CPR Bak Pak 2R tomorrow o, so that will help with the nitrates. I bought a jebo 180 protein skimmer, it's just like a seaclone 150, what a piece of junk.
 
UPDATE

Well the fish I thought had ich was brought back to my lfs, they said it wasn't ich but an infection called spyra-something, he didn't really know the name. Anyways, he gave me a yellow tail damsel, and I put it in Tuesday. I did a 13 gallon water change on Wednesday night, and added my cpr bak pak 2R on Thursday night. I've already gotten good foam, and some green water in the collection, maybe a total of 1 cup. Here's the thing, before the water change my water parameters were as follows

Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - around 1ppm
Nitrates - around 200ppm

Now, 2 days since the water change, and about 18 hours since the protein skimmer was added, my Ammonia is still 0, Nitrites are still around 1ppm, and my nitrates are off the chart(my chart reads up to 200ppm, in darkening shades of red, and my test water was purple!!) Here are some possible causes (I think)...

1. The protein skimmer was used, and I could only clean it so good, it did have some hardened green and brown crust inside it

2. My other 3 stripe damsel died overnight last night, and I just took him out, just after I tested my water. Might his decay bump up my reading, or was it not enough time?

3. I used tap water for my water change, and IO salt. Everyone in my area I have spoken to uses tap water, because my area has great tap water

I don't know what else it could be? Just normal readings for the end of a cycle? I'm just getting nervous I guess, I figured that my nitrites would be dropping soon because they have been over 1ppm for a while now, and my nitrates went up after my water change? Anyone with a tidbit of info that could explain any of this would help to ease my poor little brain!! Thanks!
 
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