much needed help-everyone is dying!!

[gdawn77]

:sad.......Well 1st, Im new to the whole "forum" thing, but didnt know who else to turn to.
I have a 55gal reef tank that has been established for approx 8 months. Run by a fluval 304(containing only carbon) and a pro 75 wet/dry trickle filter. All water levels have been normal and maintained for some time now. I do regular water changes and tests.
I have some star polyps (1) a pink tipped ananome(1), small brittle stars(2) a sand sifter star(1) a few small crabs and snails.
Fish: harlequin sweetlips(2), regal tang(1), flame angel(1) bar goby(1) engineer goby(2) tomato clown(1)
sounds like alot but all fish are small (under 2")
anyway, I introduced a small (otherwise healthy looking,yellow tang about 2 weeks ago. He wasnt eating well, and died about 5 days later. a few dayslater I noticed white spots, white film looking stuff, cloudy eyes, scratching against the rocks etc...
I immediatly went out and bought a small eclipse tank and removed all the invertebrates, in hopes that I could treat the main tank for what I thought was ich. I treated with copper-safe, and 3 days later I started a 7 day treatment with mela-fix (suggested for secondary infection) however......I have since lost my tang, my angel, one sweetlips, clown is falling fast, bar goby and blenny dont seem to be showing any signs at all, but the engineer gobys dont look to hot.
is there anything else I can do?????? I dread checking my tank each morning in fear of finding the last few survivors. And now Im terrified to return my invertebrates to the main tank. Any help,suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MonoSebaelover]

Welcome to Aquaria Central! What are your water parameters? Also how much copper did you add. If everyone is suddenly dying I would fear you overdosed with copper which will kill fish quickly, so I would suggest doing a 50 percent water change. In retrospect you should have never added another fish. That tank was a crash waiting to happen as it was with all of those ich prone fish in a small tank. Also I believe it is not suggested to treat with copper and any other medicine. The problem is once you add copper to a tank it attaches to EVERYTHING in the tank (filters, gravel, rock, even the glass of the tank) so adding back inverts is tricky to nearly impossible for quite a while. From now on there will always be some copper in your tank. I would suggest leaving the corals out for awhile and doing 2 50 percent water changes and adding carbon after 3 weeks or so. Anyway, hope this helps and good luck.

 

[gdawn77]

water parimeters are as follows:
ammonia:0ppm
pH:8.0
nitrite:0ppm
nitrates:10ppm
as for the coppersafe I added 1tsp per 4 gallons per the back of the bottle. The fish didnt all die right after I added the medication, 2 died before I treated the tank (which prompted me to treat in the first place, in fear of everyone dying) so I went to the lps and they said coppersafe was what they used on their tanks when needed. The reason I took the invertebrates out of the main tank was because they said that if I just removed the fish to a hospital tank and treated them, the ich would remain in the tank and the fish would be reinfested upon return. 3 more have died since treatment.
Will I have to replace all my live rock/sand? Should I just start all over??? And how long do you think my invertibrates will last in the small tank?

 

[mogurnda]

It's unfortunate that they didn't recommend that you treat in a hospital tank. It is really hard to keep copper levels high enough when it is adsorbing to everything in the tank.

I know from an embarrassing experiment that a product called Cuprisorb will make a tank with dead rock and crushed coral safe for invertebrates such as hermits and shrimp within a month or so after treating with copper. I'll check my notes if you want more detail. It was a long time ago.