Reef nutrition

Some ich advice needed

rygh

rygh

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The irony : I am home with a bad cold, and what do I notice, but a very unhappy tang and some nice
white spots on my new Foxface.
I really kick myself on this one. They were in QT, but due to a somewhat unplanned trip, I ended
up putting them in the DT too soon.

Since they have been in there about 5 days now, the tank is almost certainly infected.

On the plus side, I happen to have quite a few tanks lying around. Glad they did not sell quick.

My current leaning is to empty the coral, inverts, and much of the live rock out of the main tank,
putting those in the old tank, and then use main display tank as a hospital tank.
The reasoning - it is less stressful on the fish, and getting fish out of that thing will be a beast of a problem.
And I do not really have that much coral yet.

In doing so, I cannot treat with copper though, since it would rather permanently poison the DT.

-- so the key question ---
That leaves formalin-3, and hypo-salinity.
Any advice on which might be better?????

Alternatives:
Pull just the 2 obviously infected fish, and hope I got them before it spread.
Probably a pipe dream.

The "Do nothing" approach and home fish immunity does its thing.
Well, and maybe some siphoning, some soaked food, and that sort of thing.
Best case, the fish become immune, and a year from now, the ich runs its course and is gone.
 
sorry, none of those options are what I would do.

And fish never become "immune" to ich.
 
Wild thought, but are there any aquarium service people
out there that could come over with traps/nets, get the fish,
take them away and treat them right in a hospital tank???

Obviously for a sizable fee.

I actually have two problems - a bad cold, and recent elbow surgery where I should
not really put my right arm in a heavily bacteria laden tank.
So even cutting corners like above, really might be best not to do this myself.
 
seminolecpa said:
Does an turf scrubber cure it?



ducks
Click to expand...
:)
I can use some humor right now.

And interestingly, that was actually very helpful.
I did not think of it before, but both copper and formalin are algicides,
but a turf scrubber should have no problems with low salinity.
 
The reasoning - it is less stressful on the fish, and getting fish out of that thing will be a beast of a problem.
And I do not really have that much coral yet.
Click to expand...
Dig a hole in the corner of your sandbed, drain the tank 95%. The fish are forced to hide in the hole since its the only spot with water left. Scoop em out.
Would be a pain to drain the tank, but would be much less stressful than chasing the fish for them and you.
 
I typically have let my fish fight through the ick. If they are still eating well and aren't getting picked on, I find that it is probably better then stressing them out more with a dip or hypo.

Just my opinion, no scientific thought was put into the preceeding message
 
Joost_ said:
The reasoning - it is less stressful on the fish, and getting fish out of that thing will be a beast of a problem.
And I do not really have that much coral yet.
Click to expand...
Dig a hole in the corner of your sandbed, drain the tank 95%. The fish are forced to hide in the hole since its the only spot with water left. Scoop em out.
Would be a pain to drain the tank, but would be much less stressful than chasing the fish for them and you.
Click to expand...

Interesting idea. I could probably pump the water into the bathtub temporarily.
I could even put a big tupperware tray there, so no scooping/netting required.
 
seminolecpa said:
I typically have let my fish fight through the ick. If they are still eating well and aren't getting picked on, I find that it is probably better then stressing them out more with a dip or hypo.

Just my opinion, no scientific thought was put into the preceeding message
Click to expand...

Might be the most practical choice, given the cold+elbow.
 
rygh said:
Wild thought, but are there any aquarium service people
out there that could come over with traps/nets, get the fish,
take them away and treat them right in a hospital tank???

Obviously for a sizable fee.

I actually have two problems - a bad cold, and recent elbow surgery where I should
not really put my right arm in a heavily bacteria laden tank.
So even cutting corners like above, really might be best not to do this myself.
Click to expand...

I don't know where you are located, but you could ask Erin... he does aquarium maintenance and has tanks at home. The other service guys I know don't tank stuff at home really. And for the life of me I can not remember Erin's handle.. berklyfishboy is his RC handle... he's in Berkeley IIRC.
 
If:
- the affected fish are eating
- water quality in the DT is high
- the fish aren't being bullied

I usually just keep feeding heavily and skimming heavily and the fish will recover on their own.
 
seminolecpa said:
I typically have let my fish fight through the ick. If they are still eating well and aren't getting picked on, I find that it is probably better then stressing them out more with a dip or hypo.

Just my opinion, no scientific thought was put into the preceeding message
Click to expand...

+1 I have had ich in my system for well over a year. Other than a few white spots on my purple tang every once in a while I have had no losses or trouble.
 
Appreciate all the great advice!
I think my plan is this:

Short term, leave it as-is, feed well, and hope for the best.
Until I recover myself, not much I can really do anyway.

Meanwhile, I will build a small bit of plumbing and electrical so that I can split my sump off completely from DT.
DT will have turf scrubber, for fish hypo treatment.
Sump will have skimmer and lights, effectively a 100G frag/coral/live rock tank.
In that configuration, I can run it pretty indefinitely.

Thus, if/when second round hits, I can decide what to do.
 
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