Those poor fish...

Ever been to one of those pet stores that is just starting with marine and haven't had prior experience? I saw a few sad sights this evening. We saw a beautiful blue girdled angel today that had come in to this store about a week ago. Covered in a bad case of ich, along with a bunch of the other fish in the tank. Of their marine tanks, all were using only UG filters and were in the 10-15 gallon range at best. Half the tanks had ich. 6" butterflys were being housed in a little 10-15 gallon tanks. A very sad sight...

I just started my own tank. 55g. Has a small maroon clown and 15' of rock. It is only a week old and hasn't cycled yet. I felt so sorry for some of those fish that I couldn't help myself when I saw a racoon butterfly stuck in that tiny little tank which looked so run down.

Even though my tank hasn't cycled and his chances aren't real good, I think he has a better chance at my house than he does in that store. Wish him and I luck because his survival is far from guaranteed right now considering my tank is new. Hopefully the gods will smile upon him.

Yep, the 15' of rock I have was already cured before I bought it and had been sitting in the dealer's tank for almost a month. Things still need to settle down in the tank though as ammonia is still up and will probably stay up for a while longer now that we've done a no-no and added another fish to the system.

I may have made a huge mistake though as upon very close examination it appears this butterfly may have actually had ich. It was just impossible to see it under the conditions they had at the store (tons of bubbles in the tiny tank, cruddy lighting). There are a few small white spots stuck to his side. At this point it's to late to do much about it though other than hope the clown is healthy enough to resist it and that the butterfly will eventually start to eat for me and fight it off. I have seen fish recover from disease without any treatment before so we'll see... I have a 36w double helix on the way which might help the situation a tad, though I know UV is no panacea.

The racoon has been very busy picking at what little live rock I have which I take is a good sign. He seems pretty alert, not lethargic or sick at all. With any luck the ich won't be a problem and he'll get better. I may end up selling him to another LFS that has nicer tanks if he gets better, we'll just have to see. He is quite the specimen: 6" in size, almost to big for my tank already.

Any suggestions on what to try and feed him? I put some flake in there yesterday that he kinda picked at but I don't think he ate much. Should I try some brine today? Once he picks my rock clean hopefully he'll start to get interested in other eats.

Oh, and the maroon is a juvenile still so I think his white stripes might turn to gold. The reason I believe this is since he has a darker red, almost velvety coloration. The white strip maroons seem to be a brighter shade of red so I expect this guy to develop gold stripes as he ages.

Disaster!

Well, while I had the best of intentions this turned out to be absolutely disastrous. And I have learned my lesson, I believe. I will never try and "rescue" a fish from a place like that again. Firstly, because of what the other posters here mentioned (supporting a bad business) and secondly because the addition of the butterfly resulted in it's death and the sickness of my clown. And it did so very, very quickly.

Things seemed OK when I put the butterfly in there the night I got him. He swam around and picked at the live rock. The clown seemed fine as well.

Next morning they are both acting sluggish. They swim around sometimes but also spend time leaning against the side, breathing heavily. I know the signs of trouble and this was a big red flag. Immediately we tested for ammonia - only to discover it was fine. Only then to discover in my stupidity I had been using a freshwater only test kit! Doh!

To make a long story short, we whipped up a 10gallon QT tank. We placed the maroon and the butterfly in the 10g QT tank which I had just enough time to adjust salinity and temperature for. Both fish went into shock. The butterfly died within a few hours. The maroon is still alive and seems to be coming around a bit. He is swimming and not resting on the bottom now. He didn't eat last night though, which has me worried. I'll try feeding him again today.

We tested the main aquarium for ammonia with our new kit and found it to be at a level of .4 ... Which is elevated but not quite up to true toxic levels of say 1.0 or so. I'm quite honestly not sure exactly what happened to cause them to get sick so quick like that but it happened immediately after putting that butterfly in there.

Either way, the maroon if he survives is going to stay in the QT tank until the main aquarium shows no ammonia or nitrite at all. Probably at least a week. Secondly, I am going to hook up my UV sterilyzer on the main tank and get it running on there for a while.

The QT has no bio filter at all. It was hastily set up yesterday in our emergency. I will watch ammonia and do necessary water changes to keep the maroon alive in the QT until we can put him back.

What a disaster...

We definitely don't intend on returning the maroon to the 55 until it stabilizes. If I get lucky and he shows no sign of disease I'll put him back in as soon as that happens. I'm hoping a couple weeks at most. I would assume an ich infection would be obvious by that time.

If he doesn't get better and comes down with ich I will ofcourse keep him out of the 55 then as well and treat the QT with copper. That way I can really lay the proverbial smack down on the ich.
I'll keep the UV sterilizyer going on the 55 while he recovers. Hopefully I won't have to treat and he'll be fine and so will the 55.

On the bright side the little maroon looks like he might be coming around. He took food twice from me tonight, eating more than I've seen him eat yet. He is swimming around the tank all over the place. No sitting on the bottom. We're watching ammonia closely and will do a water change tomorrow of 25% (2.5g). No bio filter I imagine means watching ammonia like a hawk.