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ECFENCING

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NJ
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Hey everyone. Hope you all had a great Thanskgiving.

I made a cardinal mistake in not setting up a quarantine tank for the blue hippo on advice of one my friends who has never set up a quarantine tank before adding a new fish to the main display. He's been lucky so far.

Wednesday night I noticed the hippo swimming very fast and trying to scrape himself on the live rock. Upon closer inspection I noticed some very small spots on him although it's tough to tell since I get micro bubbles from time to time I'm pretty sure its ich.

The hippo does not show any signs of lethargic movement or lack of appetite for now and he has not since scratched himself on any rocks. I'm hoping that I caught it early enough so that only the hippo could be removed and none of the other inhabitants. But I think that all of the fish have to be removed to ensure that the parasites in the tank die off.

So this begs the question of what do I do in setting up a quarantine tank? Secondly is 20 gallons large enough for a yellow tang, 2 clowns and the hippo.

I didn't have a sponge to accumulate nitifying bacteria and to act as a filter I only have a piece of base rock in my sump.

Comments/suggestions on treatment for all inhabitants or just the hippo and setting up a hospital tank would be appreciated. Also would like to find out if anyone has used any methods to leave the fish in the main display such as feeding garlic and running a uv filter.
 

kimoyo

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That really sucks, I'm going thru a similar situation.

Here's a good website for you to look at http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html.

Unfortunately the ich is in the aquarium and can/probably will infect the other fish. The trophonts only stay on a fish 3-7 days so they are already in your tank. And putting the fish in the sump doesn't change anything because it is free swimming.

There are only two proven ways to kill ich, hyposalinity and copper, both deadly to inverts. I've heard several times that hypo didn't work for people. That's probably because it is hard to keep the salinity at an exact point for weeks especially in a smaller tank. I'm doing copper right now because it only has to be done for 3 weeks (2 is recommended). You can use live rock (which absorbs copper) in a copper treatment but you will have to junk it afterward so it doesn't release any back into your display reef tank.

Also to get rid of the ich in the display your supposed to leave it fallow (fishless) for 8 weeks. Luckily I didn't have corals yet so I just tore down my tank and am cooking my rocks.

Goodluck.
 

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