- It's inevitable, if you've got a pet,
eventually it's gonna get sick, break a bone,
or, you know, otherwise just be unhealthy.
From major issues to minor cuts and scrapes,
it's really just part of life.
Our fish and coral that live in our reef tanks
are no different.
They grow and get sick just like everything else
that we might have,
and when it does,
sometimes it's really hard for us to tell what's going on.
Hi guys and girls, I'm ReefMan,
and this is what to do when it all goes wrong.
First and foremost, don't treat what you can't identify.
Just like with dosing chemicals,
where you shouldn't dose something that you don't test for,
you shouldn't make a big change
or add medication to your tank,
unless you know exactly what's going on.
Your first line of defense,
the safest thing that you can always do,
is water changes.
Right off the bat, if your water is cloudy,
throw an air stone into the tank,
change the water,
you might be able to change the water
multiple times,
but get the water replaced.
You want the airstone because a cloudy tank
is often a sign of a bacterial bloom,
and those are known to reduce oxygen levels
so much that it's going to kill
any remaining fish and coral,
that you might have otherwise been able to save.
Sick fish are often treatable.
If you can see a fluffy bit
of something growing on them,
they might very well have an infection of some sort.
If you can see a little dusting of white spots,
they might have marine ich.
If they're breathing heavily,
not swimming around like normal,
maybe your oxygen level is too low,
or maybe they've got an infection in their gills
and they can't breathe.
The point is, when it comes to disease in our tanks,
fish are relatively easy.
Use your phone,
take the clearest photo that you can,
or maybe even a short video,
get a nice, close shot,
and then post it on your favorite reef forum.
People are gonna be able to help you
figure out what it might be
and you'll often be able to treat it
with medications right in your reef tank.
Sometimes, though, you might need to remove
the fish from the tank
because some treatments are going to kill other things,
like your invertibrates and coral,
but, you know, it's not that hard
and you can even use a five-gallon bucket
as a short-term treatment tank.
Coral, and acropora, things like that,
on the other hand,
often hide this disease
unless you know exactly what to look for.
The world of infectious disease in coral
is much less-researched than in fish.
And we're really just beginning to explore
the things that can affect them.
Knowing what your corals normally look like,
you know, polyp extension,
if they expand at night, things like that,
that can really key you into issues
before they become a big problem,
but at the end, you're still left with a sick coral.
There's not really much we can do for a sick Acropora.
We just don't know enough about the diseases
to safely treat most of them.
After a recent trip to the Amazon rainforest,
I came home to find a couple of my Acropora bleaching.
My Millepora just have not been doing well
in general sense then,
and a few of my coral are still
in a pretty critical condition.
So, what have I done to try and, you know,
not have these coral die.
Well, the first thing I did was to test all of my water.
Was something out of the normal range?
Maybe there was a big alkalinity swing?
Nothing turned up.
To test more deeply,
I sent some water to Triton to get a test run.
Everything was green.
So there's nothing wrong
with the water chemistry in general.
That means there's no reason to change anything.
Whatever is hurting these corals
is specific to them and only them,
and it doesn't seem to be spreading.
I redoubled my efforts
to give them the best possible care,
standard things like AcroPower Amino Acid,
feeding live baby brine shrimp,
ensuring that things like light and temperature
are in the right ranges.
In my case, that just improved daily care
slowed the bleaching,
but as you can see these corals are far from out of danger
and its been a couple months now.
We'll see how they do,
but I'm not going to make any major changes
to try to fix this.
As you can see, other corals,
even those that are an inch or two away,
are doing just fine.
And I don't want to hurt the rest of my tank
just trying to save these sick corals.
That's really the key to all of this.
Test everything.
Make sure you know there is actually a problem
before you try to fix the problem.
Oftentimes people make their situation worse
by changing a whole bunch of stuff all at once
and that just stresses the rest of your corals,
the rest of your fish,
and then you lose everything,
instead of a single coral.
Sometimes animals get sick and die,
it's unfortunate and we always hate to see it happen,
but it happens.
It'll happen in your tank too.
It's life.
So, what tips can you share with us
when you notice a sick coral bleaching out,
or maybe a sick fish?
Let us know in the comments down below,
we can all learn from each other. Thanks for watching,
remember to test before you change anything at all,
test your water!
And have a great day!
Bye!