tank restocking

Nihoa · #1 03-17-2009, 02:23 AM

4 weeks ago we were hit with ick and brooklynella. in the past 4 weeks we havent seen any signs of illness in the tank but that of course doesnt mean much. in a couple more weeks we were thinking of trying to add a new fish and gradually restocking the tank. our two surviving fish are a twinspot hogfish and a yellow watchman and we would like to eventually add a longnose hawkfish, one or two firefish, and perhaps a dwarf angel like a midnight nox.

my question is which to add first. the longnose needs to be added last i think because they can otherwise be aggressive. the firefish seem an attractive first as they are cheaper (what horrible logic) but im leaning towards adding the angel first. angel are more susceptible to ick and disease? would it make sense to add the most vulnerable first before so if there is another outbreak there are fewer fish in the tank for it to spread to? or could the angel get stressed down the road when adding more fish and get sick?

hopefully someone has some opinions and advice on this. as i understand it we likely have ick in the tank maintained at low levels and we need to exercise caution during restocking. any help would be greatly appreciated!

The Codfather · #2 03-17-2009, 03:29 AM

Did you quarantine and treat the remaining fish? Or are they still in the tank. If the are still in the tank, the possibility is great that ick is still present just not visible. The addition of new stressed fish will bring it back to a visible state and you start at square one once again.
Bob

Trigger Man · #3 03-17-2009, 03:34 AM

what type of tank are you keeping, fowlr, reef?

Nihoa · #4 03-17-2009, 01:57 PM

we treated the tank with a reef safe med we bought from j&l ~> aqua munster protomarin reef safe treatment. whether or not it worked i cant really say. we lost 4 fish while dosing with the med. the hogfish didnt show any visible signs of ick or brooklynella but he was rubbing on the live rock very frequently. the watchman defin had ick spots and by the end of the reef treatment and to date the hog has stopped rock rubbing and we havent seen anything on the watchman. i dont know if this means they fought it off or if the reef med worked.

i agree there is a possibility the ick is still in the tank. after quite a bit of reading i get the impression that ick is in a lot of tanks at low levels and becomes a problem when the tank is stressed? i made the mistake of adding a lot of fish at once and i think i was asking for trouble. if i restock more slowly with less shock to the system can i control the ick?

it is a reef tank.

marie · #5 03-17-2009, 02:35 PM

I would think a bigger problem would be the brooklynella it's a bit more serious then ich. Are you sure it was brook that you had?

Nihoa · #6 03-17-2009, 02:50 PM

we had two things going on. at first there were fuzzy dots on our angel, watchman, and clown goby. then our angel developed a weird film all over her before she died. then the ocellaris clowns got the same film but much heavier. it was so thick on them they poor lil guys couldnt even swim. it looked very much like the photos ive seen of clowns with brooklynella.