Have I graduated from Newbie?

[VAreef]

I haven't been very active this week with work and aquarium maintenance but I think I can say I have graduated from a "complete newbie" to "know enough to be dangerous".

My tank is doing great for corals. I just added a beautiful rock covered with some really nice green hairy mushrooms, some button polyps, and some really cool neon green things that I can't pronounce much less spell (they are very cool and once they completely open I'll post pics). The corals are doing awesome and I think(it may be my imagination) that some are actually getting bigger and growing.

I did however add a hippo tang that rapidly contracted mass amounts of ich and got stuck to the powerhead I so carefully protected him from. So basically, no more fish for me until I get a quaranteen set up. I am not going to let another one of them die and thats probably my favorite fish.

So basically my plans now are to get the chromis I have in there out and let the tank sit for 6 weeks with no fish while I set up a quarantine tank for adding fish or corals and quarantine everything that goes in there.

So far this week I think everything is going pretty well though. My calcium is up to 360 and ammonia, nitrites, and even nitrates are at ZERO! Alk and pH are also still good and in the "buffer" range. I did find out tonight that my hydrometer sucks and when I thought I was 1.023-1.024 salinity I was actually 1.026-1.027. I'll be getting back up readings of salinity a lot more now. Poor Hippo got salted to much.

So basiclly this is just a hey from VA beach and thanks to everyone for all their help as it is really paying off for me.

Current tank is:
Hairy mushrooms
Some cool red mushroom hitchhickers
A colt? or finger leather that is really neat
Some Zoanthids
some button polyps
4 Reef chromis
Cleanup crew
And one RIP hippo tang.....

[Bifferwine]

Sounds like you are doing pretty well VA. Hippo tangs are notoriously bad for ich, I wouldn't get one in a tank your size ever. They are too easily stressed in a tank that size and will get really sick really fast. Congrats on your corals, you chose some nice ones that should do well in your tank .

[VAreef]

The Hippo Tang is the only one(and the best looking) that I can put in a tank my size. Suppossedly their minimum tank size is 55 gallon. Oh don't tell me I have to get a bigger tank to get my hippo tang.

[Bifferwine]

I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm just saying that I wouldn't . Having a hippo tang just seems to be begging for constant ich battles, unless you get a UV sterilizer. A yellow tang would be okay in your tank; I have one in my tank and they are much hardier and healthier. Just get a small one.

[VAreef]

Well I can say I will not have anymore ich. I plan on adding a quarantine tank and treating any fish added with a 1.009 salinity for at at least 4 weeks before I start aclimating them to the tanks salinit, which takes another 2 weeks I guess. I just need to figure out where in this apartment I am going to add yet another tank...

[Bifferwine]

Even if you quarantine fish, they can still get ich. Ich is something that is believed to always be present on fish, but it only gets problematic if their immune system is stressed and the parasite can take ahold. That's why hippos are so prone to it. So even if you QT your fish, you can still have ich problems. A UV sterilizer will help though.

[reeffreak]

Ain't that how it goes...two steps forward,one step back.
Sorry to hear about your Tang.You made good choices for your first corals in the tank.Good luck,Have fun

[d.french]

only had ich once or twice but i only added a new fish once a month to small system once every 2 or 3 weeks on bigger setups. The hardest thing about this hobby is patience.

[bobby]

When looking for info on fish only use a reliable souce. There are soo many places that will say a fish need just a little water were in fact they need alot more. Here is a link on the hippo that says they need atleast a 70 gal tank but on this site I alway add atleast 10 to 20 gal more, exspecialy for tang, with as finicky and quick as they are they need lots of room.Saltwater Aquarium Fish for Marine Aquariums: Blue Tang

[yote]

I was thinking that Blue Hippos needed at least a 125?
VA, a S.G. of 1.026 wont hurt anything.Its actually better for your inverts.I keep both mine at 1.026.
You might want to check into a refractometer too.