ich hospital tank , HELP

[shr00m]

ok, i have had minor white spot on my fish in my 75 large purple tang, flame hawk, coral beauty, 2 percula clowns..... the scooter blenny never shows any signs of it.... i have been feeding garlic soaked mysis for 2 weeks, and the ich goes away completely but comes back every 3-4 days.... new life cycle i guess.... so by now im realising this isnt going to get rid of it, only keep it at bay....

the only other tank i have is a 35 gallon hexagon, is this big enough to put all fish in including the tang? i know everyone recomends hyposalinity but i dont want to risk leaving my fish in the hospital tank for a long time, clout is supposed to work in 24 hours, i would leave the fish in the QT about a week to let the ich die out of the main tank.....

do i need to move the scooter, he never has any white spot and he wont have any pods to eat in the 35.... please any help or advise


i tested clout on a damsel before just to see if it works it cured a case of popeye a yellow damsel i have in my nano had....

 

[shr00m]

my friend has a 20 gallon rectangle tank hes gonna let me use, this would be much easier to setup than the 35 gallon hex i have, will this be doable?

 

[shr00m]

just had a thought, maybe stupid..... i only have a BTA and some shrooms, other than that its just the fish, crabs, snails, conchs, and 1 small brittle star.... could i just move the bta and the shrooms out of the main tank and perform hyposalinity??? would this screw up my l/r or hurt anything? if not i know this would increase the fishes chance of survival.

 

[Anonymous]

Use a Rubbermaid tub - 30 gallons and it's got the swimming space. I can't get over how many folks are reluctant to use hypo, but will readily copper in a heartbeat. Didja know that fishbase lists the C. loricula as a BRACKISH fish???

Clout is heavy duty stuff. I strongly recommend you Google the articles of two authors before you do anything else - Terry Bartelme and Steven Pro.

 

[cdeakle]

please check out this link bro!

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevo ... inity.html

 

[shr00m]

thanks for the replies... yea i want to do hyposalinity but im going to hae to take out all my rock to catch the fish which TOTALLY is not good. i was wondering if maybe i could move the coolest pieces of l/r with most life and the bta to the 20 gallon and do hyposalinity in the main tank, i realise some inverts in the l/r will die... but if there is anyway around it i would like to avoid it. i dont want to use clout, after 5 mins of research i decided that hyposalinity is the way to go.... so the 20 is a no go? if i do get a 30 gallon rubbermaid tub what will i need to run it?

 

[shr00m]

also i have no refractometer im still using a swing arm...

 

[cdeakle]

Im doing hypo in a 20 gallon tank for the following fish:

Picasso Trigger
Cardinal
Mated pair of percula clowns

I would not do hypo in the main tank, I would use the 20 gallon tank or a 30 gallon rubbermaid.

 

[cdeakle]

refractometer meter is a MUST!

If I did the hypo with my swingarm the fish prob would have died or not recieved the proper treatment to eradicate the ich.

If you know someone with a refracto you can compare the readings to your swingarm then you will know exactly how much your swingarm is off by. Then you could prob get away with the swingarm but would be in your best interest to buy one from ebay or fro Premium Aquatics like I did.....

 

[shr00m]

maybe lfs has one so i can find out how bad its off by... if it helps its the rectangle aquarium systems hydrometer my temp is currently at 82

 

[shr00m]

ive read an article claiming that feeding w/ garlic and using a uv sterlizer will eventually rid the tank of ich, the uv sterilizer takes care of the free floating torrents.... any truth to this, i wouldnt mind shelling out th cash for a UV if it would actually work for this problem.

 

[Anonymous]

If you wouldn't mind shelling out the cash for the UV, why not instead for a refractometer and a proper q/t setup? All it really needs is a heater and a simple sponge filter (or a power filter).

Keep things sterilize-able - no live rock or that sort of stuff. Do what I said before and look up articles by the authors I listed.

 

[shr00m]

k i will.... its just the whole removing all my perfectly arranged l/r... but i know what you mean i guess it has to be done. thanks again

 

[shr00m]

ok im definitley going to QT , i would really like to use this 20 gallon tank my friend will let me borrow, it has a hood that has apowerfilter built in and lights, so that way its all together, and i really dont have space for anything else, is this going to be too small to do with the tang? how often do i do water changes and how much in this qt.... im planning on getting a UV sterilzer to run on the 75 while the fish are in QT.... are the CUSTOM SEALIFE DOUBLE HELIX UV STERILIZER 9W sufficient to run on a 75 gallon, id like to run UV at night from now on to try to prevent this again, along with QTing ANY new additions... i really learned my lesson on that.

 

[Anonymous]

You're going to have to plan on frequent (as in daily) w/c's. How big is the tang? If it's no more than about 3" or so, it won't be happy, but it can be done I suppose. If it's bigger than that, I would REALLY try to work something else, 20 gallons ain't much at all.

Your best bet while fallowing the 75 is to raise the temp to about 82 or so, and let it go a full 8 weeks (although, like I said, DO find articles from the authors I mentioned above - eye opening). The efficacy of the UV seems to be arguable, and now that if you're using LR for the microfauna (pods and such included), it will likely kill them, as well.

 

[shr00m]

he is about 4-4.5 inches in diameter with fins... i have a 35 gallon hex that is tall and i could manage setting it up.... would this be better or the 20 since its at least long?

 

[Anonymous]

That's a tough call.. is there any way you could set both up and make it just for that one fish? Then put the others in their own tank? I'd honestly worry about him "fretting" and banging himself up.

 

[shr00m]

ok, my friend brought the 20 gallon setup... it has an eclipse hood, with a spot for filter media, should i just run carbon in this? im gonna start out with the 20 if the tang seems ok ill stay with it, if not ill setup the 35 hex and move the tang to that tank by hisself.... i am not going to be able to get a refract very soon, it would be at least 2 weeks..... so does anyone know how much the aquarium systems hydros are off by? i know hypo is the best but if i cant read the accurate salinity would a treatment that works quickly be a good idea, then after the ich is gone change out the water, or run carbon and keep the fish out of the main tank.... just trying to do this best for my situation... thanks.

 

[shr00m]

if i ran some kind of med i would still leave them in the qt for 30 + days .... otherwise it would be really cool if someone could let me know which way a aquarium systems hydrometer reads...

 

[Anonymous]

That's really tough, shr00m, because they don't always read one way or the other. I've never used swing arm hydros, went and got myself a lab hydro when I started out as a hobbyist (actually, my LFS sold 'em, this was way before refratometers were readily/cheaply available).