[Parad1s3lost]

Hello,

Just want to introduce myself! This place is great! I have been browsing these forums and whatnot for about a month and a half (since I've begun starting to get into marine aquaria). It has been quite an adventure so far.

The long of it (skip down if you aren't an avid reader ):

It all started when my girlfriend brought home a 10 gallon freshwater setup for me as a surprise. She had always known i wanted to keep clownfish but thought we should start small since salt-water setups get quite expensive quite quickly. To shorten things, all 3 of the 5 fish died from Ich and we ended up bringing back everything! : /

Fast forward to a month later, after reading extensively about salt water and preparing my brain for the onslaught of a whole tank setup I decided it was time to use the 100 dollars in store credit we had at petco and bought a 55 gallon setup (which was about 145 dollars on sale). The setup came with covers, lighting (standard 15 watt fluorescent), a hang over the side filter, filter cartridge, 200 watt heater, and not much else!

I began by getting 40 pounds of live sand and some aragonite and decorations and filled up the tank with my own tap water. I dechlorinated it all and salted it afterwards (like a noob). Once it was in the correct range I got three yellow tail damsels and three three-striped damsels to break in the tank. This is bad practice, i know, but they all survived and became to be great fish for what they were.

Over the course of the cycle (about a month and a half), I had continued to educate myself on the nuances of marine aquarium care. I added 10 pounds of live rock once the all of the nirites and ammonia had leveled out. Then, two weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and get a real fish. It was an Ocellaris clownfish named Charles. I made sure to pick a bigger one (about 2 and half inches) so that the three-stripes wouldn't bug him much, and this worked great! I keep the lighting on a 14 hour light 10 hour darkness period with a timer.

It was at this time that I also realized that I need a quarantine tank in the case where one of the fish got sick or disease broke out in the tank. I set up a small 10 gallon round tank with a hang over filter and underwater filter/circulator with 5 gallons of water from my established tank and 5 gallons of freshly made up salt water.

Then this weekend, I decided that i wanted to move into some more peaceful territory with my stocking. I brought my three-stripe damsels to my friend who works with me so that they could have a good home (the bastards are hard to catch ). Apart from his professional job he runs the salt-water section at an extremely popular LFS on the weekends and he heartly accepted them.

Then on saturday he sold me 30 lbs of live rock but marked 8 lbs on the bag and I also picked up a decently sized Yellow Tang. The tang seems to be enjoying life in my 55 gallon tank, munching away at the rocks and hiding whenever I come near. He found the lettuce clips and also eats sea-weed from them :P

On sunday, me and the girlfriend went to a local pet-co and got another ocellaris clownfish so that the one I already have wouldn't be so lonely with the tang and three yellow-tails. When we were there, this guy was fighting with one of the ladies in the marine section telling her he needed to return the Heniocus Butterfly he had gotten because his fish were chasing and nipping at it! She said there were no refunds and he resigned to just giving it back to them. Overhearing this, i stepped in and told him i would take it and see if i could put it in either my tank or find a good home for it. That brings us to today!

All of my fish are dipped in a pH and temperature similar freshwater dip before they go in my tank (the first clown, the tang, the second clown, and the butterfly all went through this). I do this dip for about 10-15 minutes monitoring the stress they go through as per a very good article i read on either this board or another. Currently, all fish seem to be doing well, but when i put the Butterfly in with all the other fish, he got bullied by the tang and then resigned himself to sitting in the opposite side, not eating or moving very much at all To make matters worse, he has some white patches in his fins and on his body (not on the surface but sort of embedded).

I took him out a few hours ago and put him in the quarantine.

The short of it:

55 Gallon setup

Two Hydor Koralia 1 powerheads
Over the side filter for 55 gallon aquariums
30 lbs live rock
200 watt heater

Stock:
3x small yellow-tail damsels (about an inch each)
2x tank bred ocellaris clownfish (2-2.5" each)
1x yellow tang (4-5")

10 gallon quarantine
1x Heniocus Butterfly (3-4")

A couple of issues i have noticed:

The tang is big! The other fish seem to stay towards the top of the tank when he gets near. Will this behavior end? The damsels hide among the fake plants but the clowns tend to stay sort of high most of the time.
The tang is very peaceful towards all of these fish. He only got sort of agressive when the Heniocus Butterfly went near his hiding place, darting at him and maybe a light nip or two but nothing to cause damage.

The Heniocus Butterfly has either velvet or Ich, but I believe it is the latter. I treated the QT with Coppersafe (chelated copper sulfate) at the appropriate dosage listed on the manufacturers instructions. How long should I keep him quarantined for?

The sickly Heniocus was in my main tank for about an hour or so, do you think I introduced whatever he has into my water?

Here are some pictures for you guys!

My aquarium area:


Views of the tang swimming:




The Heniocus in quarantine:


If you have any questions or comments about my setup please no hesitation.

I know I have probably left alot out so please ask.

[Lucid]

Hello Parad1s3lost, welcome! You are doing well by having a QT setup. Go slow on the stocking and read read read. Not sure about coppersafe, but cupramine is like 2 weeks in treatment.

[leebca]

WELCOME TO REEFLAND!

The setup was not particularly slow enough nor very good to start a biological filter. If you truly added tap water to live sand and then dechlorinated the water, you then killed the live sand. You might have saved a lot of money by just buying 'regular' substrate.

You may want to do a lot more reading and try to catch up on things, starting with stop adding fishes or marine life to this tank that isn't mature yet:
Setting Up a FOWLR Aquarium

The 55 design isn't very good for saltwater fishes. A tall tank is not very advantageous for a strong biological filter. Thus the fish stocking is lower even though the tank has volume:
Fish Stocking Limit - for FO and FOWLR

From the above post it should also be clear that any kind of Tang is not appropriate for that sized aquarium. The 55 is too small for a Yellow Tang over 2"

Regarding the marine aquarium -- it hasn't matured yet:
The Mature Aquarium

Here is a link that contains links to other topics you should go through as you have the time:
Table/Contents - Link List

Good luck!