[thussain93]

i have a 55 gallon with about 45lbs of live rock.ive had the tank since late august i had a clownfish and a scopa tang in there. i have two mushrooms in there also. i have a fluval 305 filter, a coralife protein skimmer, tow powerheads and a heater. yesterday all the fish were doing fine and nothing was wrong. i woke up today and my tang was dead with a big white patch across its body. im thinking it was marine ich but i dont understand because i quarantined him and acclimated him before he got in the tank. idk what happened any suggestions as too what happened. ill get the parameters in a little while i have to go somewhere

[checker Jim]

that would be the first thing to check. I would assume nitrates with that canister filter. you should to do regular water checks.

[plecosword]

yeah i was going to guess the canister also, when was the lat time you cleaned it out? it sounds like it either got hurt bad and then sick, or jsut got sick. IDK

[e_baer]

If you could get some pics of the dead fish, that would be a major help!

also, I would lose the canister filter, they are known to produce high levels of nitrate in the tank.

[rlcline76]

A white patch? Hmm
Well, like the guys say, either you can clean out the canister, replace the media or find a different filtration system like extra LR.
OK, so that being said...I am guessing that if you QTed and these fish have been there since last summer, you would have seen ich long before now...unless you added a new fish recently which did not QT long enough. Ich looks more like a grain of sugar...not a whole patch...unless we are talking about amyloodinium which can appear patchy. Like Elliott mentioned, hard to say without a pic.
Parameters will be necessary, pretty much necessary from the get-go if you want quick help.
I would not place another tang in that 55 gallon. They require bigger tanks. And although you may not have this same problem again, I can foresee a stress issue later that will degrade the health of the next tang, if you choose to get one.
I will be putting this in disease treatment.

[thussain93]

i just got the tang a few days ago. i already disposed of the fish so i cant get a picture sorry. i cleaned out the filter out a few days ago. ive also been runnning phosphate in the filter to reduce my algea problem. at the moment i cant replace the canister filter but for right now can you suggest what i can do to redule nitrates. ill get the parameters sooon

[rlcline76]

Um, I won't. Looks like the guys have that covered. But you have not even provided us with parameters. So you give us the parameters and will help you troubleshoot.

But I will say this: That tang was not quarantined in a couple of days. That is the process that takes weeks. You might be looking at the fun job of going fallow for 6 weeks so that you can be sure that nothing else gets seriously ill in that tank. It is extremely hard and frustrating to remove a disease once it hits your display tank.

[plecosword]

yep, this is why its so important to qt you pets. Ill have fun doing that, they will be in my 10g in my room!
and about the phosphate, are you using tap water? that may be a problem. I dont think the canister is nessecery here, they are for freshwater and ponds.