Hello I have a problem with my 330 gallon
FO tank. The tank has a artist made insert that looks better than the real thing. Its a show tank that was good looking until a local FS store coppered it.
The tank had fish and invertebrates in it. The standard clowns, tangs, rasp and other non aggressive fish. The inverts where 3 large starfish, 2 cleaner, 1 fire shrimp w hermits and snails. Algae was never a big issue, just on the glass but not much every on the insert.
A fish was introduced from another's persons tank (It had ich) and it spread to the other fish. A local FS said the only way to cure the ich was to
copper the tank. At the time I did not know much about treatments so I went with it. The good was the fish are ok. The bad is all the inverts were taken out to
copper the tank. Also found out that the
copper is not so easy to get out and I can't have my inverts back so I am pissed. Another downer is the effects of the
copper + no inverts = the worst algae I have ever seen in any tank. The tank is now the ugliest 20k tank I have ever seen.
What I wish I did was keep the inverts in the tank and removed the fish to
copper them. The ich would have died on its own without a host. then the fish could have been put back in (Ich free) and the algae would not have gotten out of control. The
copper must have killed off some of the live sand and introduced a new niche for some weird colored (Pee green and dark red) algae. It came out of nowhere.
Here is the planned maintenance of our tank.
1. Continue water changes, and hope the
copper goes down over time. Its at .05ppm
2. Spray outside with plastic cleaning spay and use a clean cotton cloth to wipe down
3. Use plastic or wood spatula tool for inside of tank surface. Go very slow near the sand so not to stir it up.
4. Put all invertebrates back in (50 snails, 25 hermits, starfish, fire and cleaning shrimp. (This should keep the algae down)
5. Keep
Ca at a level to slow algae growth
6. Keep tank at low end of temp scale (Again will slow algae
7. Keep current low lumen lighting (Slows algae)
8. Any new fish will be coppered in a hospital tank (Can’t get ich if you don’t introduce it.
Does this sound ok?
Thanks
