# Dead Clarki Clown please help!!!



## aherr (Jan 30, 2008)

Im new in this hobby and I have been having some problems. I purchased two ocellaris clowns for my 55 gallon after it was well cycled they broke out with ich in 3 days. I returned them only to see many other fish at the store were covered in ich so I figured it was just bad timing and not properly looking at the fish before took it home. Anyways I decided to keep my 55 host free for 28 days to remove any ich that may be in there I have inverts ands mushroom coral so i didnt want to treat main tank. I just bought a quarantine tank the other day a 20 gallon used water from my established 55 gal and it was cycled right away. I added NovaQuel and AmQuel to remove any bad chemicals from the 5 gal of tap water i mixed with established water and added Cupramine COpper per directions on bottle. I added my clarki clown the next day (3 months had been at the fish store). HE ONLY LIVED TWO DAYS! My nitrate is only at 20ppm no nitrite no ammonia and copper levels arnt even reading on my cu copper test kit. Salinity is at 1.024 heat @ 82. What did I do wrong??? Im going to have my copper levels checked at the fish store thats the only perceivable thing that could be out of wack.


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

You will need to check the bottle of Copper medication and find out if it's chelated or not, then make sure the copper test kit matches. If your med is unchelated and you use a copper test kit for chelated, you aren't going to get an accurate reading, nor will the store. 

Did I read this properly where you said the fish went back to the store and 3 months later it still had ich? If that is the case, there is a good chance that what the fish are suffering with is not ich. There are other diseases that look similar to ich, but are not ich. I have never seen a fish survive 3 months with ich... the parasites take over before then and it kills the fish. If the fish didn't have ich and you treated it with copper or another ich medication, this also could have killed the fish.

Please never buy a fish that doesn't appear healthy. It's extremely important to look a fish over very very well before deciding to take it home, and then it should spend at least 2 - 3 wks in quarantine before considering putting it into a main tank.


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