Chris-

<raiders of the lost arch theme>

20+ fish? jeez, sorry to hear, that must have been not so fun.

Not a fish doctor but that does not look like ick. Velvet or even flukes? Either way, if it is one or the other, fresh water bath a good week soaking in some quinine sulfate should take care of the fish. You could at least then let them back in the sterile tank, or, keep them pinned in another tank while you wait out the 2 months or more and enjoy the corals.

In the picture it looks like it is in the eyes also?

"but I don't think bleaching your system is necessary either. If it were my tank, I'd focus on excellent water quality (you seem to be on the right track) and feeding generous portions of healthy food," I dont understand? Why would you rather try to wish away the disease rather than to completely irradiate it once and for all? Lets say healthy feedings do knock it down. Guess what, it is still there, it will always be there! Then you go away on a trip, or power goes goes out, the fish get stressed and it starts all over again!? More dead fish, more trips to the store to buy more fish, something he said he was done doing!? What I suggested is not more than a days work. Grab a friend, a cold beer and enjoy a Sat or Sunday joking around and a icky free DT at the end of the day. MHO

KA-POW!!!

Yea, for the work one has to do given the output results, buying a chiller is the only way out on this one. I HAVE to do everything myself, and, this is one I give up on. Now, if you can find a cheap broken chiller on ebay and use your mini fridge with the chillers cooler coil, that may be an option.

Usually a closed loop feed, from what I gather, will be drilled in the center/mid section of the tank. Of course you can put it any where you want. I do not like CL's (they scare me for some reason), but, if i were to do it, I would put the feeds 2/3rds the way up the tank, at least 2, 6" or so from both sides and have an extra wastegate valve on the return side in the sump so you could adjust the flow. If your going to use your return to feed the CL (then it is not technically a CL, lol, you can use the 1.5 bulk head, BUT, well advised to drill yet another for safety, in case the first gets clogged. The lower the better, but, as long as the hole to the pump is under the water level of the sump you will be fine.

I want to set something like that up soo bad but my crappy sicce skimmer pump will not allow me to. Sometimes the skimmer just will not start back up. I love the AC controllers and such.

Good call stew, but, remember everyone, small fish can even get through a 1/4" hole. My diamond made it through 1/4". I could imagine bigger fish just making it through and or getting stuck. When I made mine, like above a year ago, I went to the fabric store and looked for some stuff like bridal vail. Though it was not bridal vail, it was something else. Very small holes and very thin and NOTHING will get out while letting 90% light through. Also remember to put that little tab of fabric in there so you can grab on that to pull it out, otherwise you might rip the screening trying to get your fingers around the frame when pulling it out.

Awww, man, what happened?

Without seeing it from the side to see what kind of stalk it does/does not have, I am voting for anemone.

Yea, good luck and let us know how it goes, fingers crossed.

Man, if i would have read this thread you could have used mine when you picked up that blenny. I have two in the back shed. Oh well, glad you got one.

I would think that enough to keep a mandarin or two would be enough for me, lol.

Whatever you use, make sure the towel/cloth is clean. It is the salt that leaves the streaks and you can wipe with a dirty cloth till your blue in the face and it will not come clean til you get all that salt off the front. With that said, just plain ol water works for me.

Awww, man, i was eating chips and dip when I read this....blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

Yea, i am gonna have to go with zygote2k on this one, but i would not use the word "starlight", though it is fitting. I dont know about all of you, but, when I look up, i only see one big moon, not 10-15-24 big moons in a row, so, how they call these moon lights I do not know. None the less, if you get the right ones, they can give a nice shimmering look to the tank. I am trying to find individual LEDs (like from radio shack and such) that do not have the spotlight look, and, in red. I want to see my night time critters moving around, lol. Who uses these and how do they work with the regular T5's on? Can you still get a shimmering effect from them with t5's?

I honestly never understood under what conditions they work, per say. I think everyone that gets a lot of skim feeds VERY heavy. I have a tang, med and small anthias, med and small blenny, 3 threadfin cardinals, 5 small to medium gobies, 2 yellow clown gobies, 4 shrimp, purple lobster, 1 damsel, clownfish and a rouge crab in the fuge. All perams are in check and I barley get any skim mate from my MSX-200 !? They say "it needs to be broken in" but I guess mine is still breaking in after a year?? After all the reading, I think that you could have 100 nitrates and not produce skim. I believe it all has to do with how much (literally) crap you have floating in the tank. I would just leave it set where you have it. If you want to play and be daring like i did in the beginning, set it up to 2" before overflow. Leave it like that, let it ride and not worry about it. In the least, the fish will be well oxygenated. There is just nothing to skim right now that a skimmer could skim......if a skimmer could skim skim

I like how the eco system works circles around itself. Algae grows, fish eat algae, we feed fish too much, algae over grows, add turf scrubber to collect extra algae and have a clean tank. Oh, and i also LOVE the ocean, well, the clear ones like the Bahamas and such, lol.

Oh, and mandrins can "carry" the ick, it just does not seem to bother them.

I would ask, exactly what corals and inverts do you have? That will give you an idea of what size QT tank you need for the corals. Since your down to a few fish, watch them. If they make it, your golden, if not then you have 2 fish left? I would break the DT all the way down to where there is only water in the tank. Transfer your pods, inverts, a nice big rock or two (bio filter for the fish and one for the frag tank) and corals to a second tank. Corals do not need a lot of attention or room, depending on what you have. Draint he DT and put some fresh water in there. Run the tank with three or four cups of bleach for an hour or so. Drain and dry everything out in the DT, EVERYTHING! Clorox bleach everything with a heavy solution (not to where it feels slippery on the fingers, thats too much) with the windows open now it is nice out. Let it all dry for a day or two and start over. You can put the main corals back in without anything else, minimal amount of rock. Get a small cycle going and let it sit for 3 months. Whatever is on your fish is/has grown to plague proportions in the tank. Waiting for all that stuff to die out can take a while. Cleaning the tank out and putting the corals back in takes out 90% of what nasty is living in there. Either that or let nature take its coarse, then, once the fish are gone, let the tank stay fallow for 3 months. Yes, 3 months!! Nothing worked in my DT until I drained it and started over. 6 weeks, hypo, 8 weeks fallow nothing. I did it twice! Not until I took out my 6" sandbed (in a 90), dried it all out I was rid of it. It really was not that bad, just leisure day to do it all. Now i have a happy tang that has never had a spot on him. Its a pain, but, if you really want your tank, thats what you have to do. House may be a little cramped after, but, hey, you should have seen mine when I went through it. only thing you need to care for are the fish.

man, if i didnt already have 4

Why, wha, already? Anyone get the number of that truck?