Big Oops

[jejton]

I brought home four clown gobies from AH yesterday. I acclimated and released them into my quarantine tank and a few hours later realized that I never even checked the SG of the tank after having mixed up a new batch of SW for it the day before. No biggie I figured since the directions usually result in water with a SG of 1.021-1.023. I dont know what I did ( I should stop working on my tanks when I'm exhausted ) but somehow the SG was 1.032 ( or possibly higher but thats the top of the range )! Somehow the fish survived this overnight ( one died but I found it sucked into the maxijet so I dont know what exactly killed it first and the maxijet was since removed ) and I started exchanging some of the water for new RO/DI to start bringing down the SG. I'm worried about doing this too fast and shocking them further but I dont want to do it too slowly and let them be killed by that either. I also dont want to introduce them into my DT without a proper quarantine especially since they were from a fresh shipment at the LFS. What do I do ?:help::banghead:

 

[KathyC]

Fish can take a lowering of salinity pretty well (as is done when someone needs to hypo their fish). A gradual reduction is less stressful, but you should be able to bring it down to the the usual range by morning with no harmful effects.

Are these guys going into the 65g eventually? Did you change your mind about the angel and the wrasse?

 

[h20 freak]

Does the qt have a skimmer?
Run it really wet and knock out two birds with one stone, thats what I do when mines is to high.

 

[jejton]

Thanks.

H2O freak - The quarantine has only a heater and small filter ( its a 5 gallon ).

Kathy - They are eventually going into the DT but since they are so small and hang out in one spot mostly I dont think they'll affect my bioload or other fish. I do think I'm going to give up on the angel AND wrasse and settle for one ( most likely just a wrasse since its not a risk to my corals and hopefully will control the flatworms better than I am - now to decide on a wrasse and find a good specimen !)

 

[KathyC]

Look at it this way Eric..if you stapled those 3 (or 4) fish together, they would make one small fish, and they will add to your bioload with their poop and urine output. It will add up.
I still vote for the Radiant wrasse for the flatworms

 

[jejton]

Thanks, I just read your post on my other thread and replied. The radiant does look nice, as do the leopard's, melanarus and fairy wrasses. I'll just keep my eyes open for a healthy specimen thats eating well and colorful in my LFS. I was at AH and they just received a new shipment which had a leopard wrasse but he couldnt find it ( doesnt help that they dont label their tanks ) which is how I went home with these fish.

Anyways, how should I go about adjusting the SG? I've been changing out two cups or so of tank water for equal amounts of RO/DI water every hour or so. Is that ok ?

 

[prattreef]

Thanks, I just read your post on my other thread and replied. The radiant does look nice, as do the leopard's, melanarus and fairy wrasses. I'll just keep my eyes open for a healthy specimen thats eating well and colorful in my LFS. I was at AH and they just received a new shipment which had a leopard wrasse but he couldnt find it ( doesnt help that they dont label their tanks ) which is how I went home with these fish.

Anyways, how should I go about adjusting the SG? I've been changing out two cups or so of tank water for equal amounts of RO/DI water every hour or so. Is that ok ?

Fairy wrasses will not eat your flatworms, and I doubt a leopard warsse would either. Stick to smaller Halichoeres wrasses ( like the melanauras or radiant) if red planaria flatworm control is part of your rationale. IME the melanauras will do a better job off this than the radiant.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

try a dragon goby for flatworms :shhh:

 

[jejton]

Ok thanks. Hey Andy, I didnt know you were a member here. I PM;d you on the other site, did you get it? I'm not crazy about the dragon gobies but the melanarius and radiants are nice options. Hopefully getting my skimmer online will start helping with the flatworm problem. I really dont want to go the FWE route as I dont have a container big enough to hold more than 5 buckets of water for the WC but if I must, I will figure something out.

 

[jejton]

Ok so the three remaining gobies ( one shrimp, 2 black clowns and 1 green clown ) were all doing well, eating, looking good and then I come home today to find one clown dead and stuck to the filter. I'm thinking this sucks, its good I didnt add them right to my tank and then I see that the heater was stuck on and brought the temp up to almost 90 degrees! I quickly changed out some water for my DT and turned off the heater. At this point I'm thinking these three must be healthy since they survived this whole ordeal and I dont want to risk any more problems with this qt setup so I'm gonna acclimate them to my tank tonite. Good, bad?

As an aside, what's a good heater for a small tank? The qt is only 5 gallons and the heater was rated 5-15 gallons but I'm going to just use it for heating WC water at this point.

 

[DontXtripNfall]

best of luck!

 

[KathyC]

Ok so the three remaining gobies ( one shrimp, 2 black clowns and 1 green clown ) were all doing well, eating, looking good and then I come home today to find one clown dead and stuck to the filter. I'm thinking this sucks, its good I didnt add them right to my tank and then I see that the heater was stuck on and brought the temp up to almost 90 degrees! I quickly changed out some water for my DT and turned off the heater. At this point I'm thinking these three must be healthy since they survived this whole ordeal and I dont want to risk any more problems with this qt setup so I'm gonna acclimate them to my tank tonite. Good, bad?

As an aside, what's a good heater for a small tank? The qt is only 5 gallons and the heater was rated 5-15 gallons but I'm going to just use it for heating WC water at this point.

Bad
The stress alone from a temp swing like that in a single day period and then cooling the tank off quickly is an engraved invitation to developing ich. Leave them where they are for at least another week or 2 to be sure they haven't developed ich before moving them to your QT.

Whenever you have an overheating situation and the fish are still alive, you want to reduce the temp to normal gradually through the use of fans gently blowing on the water.

IMO there are no good heaters for a 5 g tank. I think your only option is a heater that is run off of a controller of some type..or a larger tank.
Penn Plax makes a small adjustable 25W submersible heater for 5g tanks, but you're always taking a chance without a controller & heater combo.

Best of luck with them!!

 

[jejton]

Thanks for the advice. I do need a larger quarantine tank but at the time didn't have anything suitable to set a 10 gallon on. I happened to have a Target rack but it was barely rated to hold the 80 lbs of water in 10 gallons so I didnt want to risk it.