Well it's been a crazy few weeks around here for lots of reasons. Hopefully things will calm down now. Anyway, I do have an update on the new tank. Unfortunately it's not a good one.
I believe I got a parasite from the panther grouper that came from Pet Land. All the other fish came from Joel and I knew they were QT and dipped etc. prior to me getting them. The panther supposedly had been at Pet Land for over a month so I "hoped" I was safe. Not so...
The hippo tang started showing some white spots first. I did a fresh water dip on her and she seemed to be doing much better. She still had some spots but acted better. I had ordered the ozone unit and we hooked it up. A few days later we could tell the thing wasn't working properly. Around the same time I was going to Indy for a few days for a meeting so I went to Premium Aquatics. They determined the probe was bad but the unit was ok. They said Red Sea would send me a new probe within a few days. That was almost 2 weeks ago. I called PA lat week and I was told they talked to Red Sea personally at a meeting and they were taking care of it. I will call them again tomorrow! Joel was great and is letting us borrow one of his ozone units. I don't remember how many days later but the clown trigger started acting weird in the evening and the next day was dead. Verper picked some copper stuff up for me from Joel and I was going to set up a hospital tank for the clown but he died the next day so I didn't use it. At this point during the next few days the fish actually started looking better. I figured the ozone was working and we were safe, so I didn't set the hospital tank up. I couldn't have put the hippo in the tank anyway because it was only going to be a 10 gallon tank. Over night the fish started showing signs of getting sick again. I was already using lots of garlic extreme and vita chem in their food. Joel offered for me to bring them all to his shop and he would QT them add medication if need be and use copper to get them better. I was pretty tied up and didn't make the time. Big mistake on my part! Both the hippo and powder blue were looking bad so I did a fresh water dip on them. The hippo did ok but the pb died soon after I added her back to the tank. I really think a lot of the pb was due to stress with catching her. My gut told me to leave here alone when I couldn't catch her the first few times. I ignored that feeling and did it anyway. At this point I was sick. Joel again offered me to bring them down. I said I would. That night the miniatus grouper wasn't looking so good when I went to bed. When I woke up the grouper had died and the puffer was missing. I then noticed one of the over flows wasn't working. Randy blew it out and found the puffer had gotten in it and plugged it up. Needless to say it didn't make it either. When I went to bed the puffer seemed ok. Randy had the over flows blocked with egg crate but I knocked them out while trying to catch the pb. We just hadn't had time to put them back yet. Finally Randy and my son took the remaining fish down to Joel and he is "trying" to save them. It's still too early to tell if they will all make it. The funny thing is the panther grouper is doing fine. Go figure
At this point I'm watching the fish in the reef very closely. I'm sure the parasite is in there the system is all ran together. I've taken the 150 off the system for right now. The hope is by taking the source of the problem away the ozone can do what it's supposed to and the reef will be ok. Time will tell I guess. I plan to bleach the 150 tank, rock and crushed coral before adding it back to the system. Joel has offered to keep the fish until they are healthy and the system is back up and running. There is never a good time for this to happen but this really couldn't have been a worse time. Well, actually it could be I guess. I will be going out of town several times in the next several months. Hopefully this will be a once in a life time thing. But then again Murphy lives on my shoulder...
I would like to thank Joel and Verper for their help!!!