I thought I'd read all I needed to read, but in my pokings around I found some things that opened up more questions, as well as observations I couldn't quickly find answers for.
Short story: I got Ich because I wasn't quarantining. Dumb me. Now I'm going to be quarantining going forwards, lesson learned trying to catch my fish out of a 75 gallon tank.
I lost three green clown gobies to Ich, two before I realized what it was causing it to happen. It wasn't until I did a nighttime scan with a light that I actually SAW the Ich on the fish; during the day it was nearly invisible.
I am running a bare bottom 30 gallon quarantine tank with airstone, heater, and a HOB filter containing a sponge and some ceramic balls I had left in my display tank for a week to hopefully get some bacteria going. I've been doing 5 gallon changes every few days mostly to suck out the detritus build up. There is a few pieces of liverock from my sump mostly for decoration (It will never return to the display tank now) and a bunch of PVC elbows and pipes for cover, though there is plenty of room for swimming.
The current livestock in the QT:
- One Two Spot Tang
- One LaMarcks Angelfish
- One Banana Wrasse
- One Green Clown Goby
- One Convict Blennie/Engineer Goby
- One Chinstrap Jawfish
- Two Ocellaris Clownfish
I needed to move the Ocellaris into a 'breeder pen' at the top of the tank to act as a jail, as the pair of them were savaging my poor Tang. Go figure, the two smallest of the fishes beating up on the biggest.
I am treating with Cupramine. I'm on day 5 of the treatment (Dosed per instructions 48 hours apart) and I've made sure that every time I do my 5 gallon changes I dose into the bucket what should be there to replace what is being removed. My Seachem copper test tells me I'm bang on the 0.5 mg/L area I should be at at this point.
I know my QT is small. I'm not happy only having a 30 gallon for all those fish, but its the best I could come up with on this short notice. My display tank needs to be fallow until mid-August or so.
THE QUESTIONS:
1.) Is 14 days long enough? It is whats on the bottle, but I thought with the lifecycle of Ich I'd need to be hitting around 30 days of therapeutic levels to actually have an effect.
2.) I read in one of the stickies that wrasses are poor with copper. Unfortunately, I read that AFTER committing to this method of treatment. So far the Wrasse is active and swimming. Any signs to watch for, or anyone know if cupramine is gentler on wrasses?
3.) The Jawfish is not eating, and spends most of his time hiding in the bottom of PVC pipe. Thoughts on encouraging him to eat? While most of the fish were very displeased for the first two days (I did not add cupramine the same day they went in, I wanted to give them time to adjust first) they are all visibly eating except the Two Spot Tang and the jawfish.
4.) Tang condition: The Two-Spot got savaged by the clowns. Or maybe just one of the clowns. She was pristine with only a few small dots of Ich when she went into the QT. Now her fins are torn up on the tail and top, and I know its from the clowns as I caught the big one going at her. She had been listless and laying at the bottom of the tank, although since catching and jailing the clowns she started to swim around but only along the bottom, and spends most of her time nestled against PVC/the glass where she wedges in and just... swims into stuff. I've made sure to leave Nori in the tank elastic-banded down. For the longest time she was ignoring food but it looked last night like she wanted to eat but couldn't 'catch' the food, if that makes sense. This is my first tang, and my first time running anything through QT, so I don't know what behaviors are normal and which are redflags.
Short story: I got Ich because I wasn't quarantining. Dumb me. Now I'm going to be quarantining going forwards, lesson learned trying to catch my fish out of a 75 gallon tank.
I lost three green clown gobies to Ich, two before I realized what it was causing it to happen. It wasn't until I did a nighttime scan with a light that I actually SAW the Ich on the fish; during the day it was nearly invisible.
I am running a bare bottom 30 gallon quarantine tank with airstone, heater, and a HOB filter containing a sponge and some ceramic balls I had left in my display tank for a week to hopefully get some bacteria going. I've been doing 5 gallon changes every few days mostly to suck out the detritus build up. There is a few pieces of liverock from my sump mostly for decoration (It will never return to the display tank now) and a bunch of PVC elbows and pipes for cover, though there is plenty of room for swimming.
The current livestock in the QT:
- One Two Spot Tang
- One LaMarcks Angelfish
- One Banana Wrasse
- One Green Clown Goby
- One Convict Blennie/Engineer Goby
- One Chinstrap Jawfish
- Two Ocellaris Clownfish
I needed to move the Ocellaris into a 'breeder pen' at the top of the tank to act as a jail, as the pair of them were savaging my poor Tang. Go figure, the two smallest of the fishes beating up on the biggest.
I am treating with Cupramine. I'm on day 5 of the treatment (Dosed per instructions 48 hours apart) and I've made sure that every time I do my 5 gallon changes I dose into the bucket what should be there to replace what is being removed. My Seachem copper test tells me I'm bang on the 0.5 mg/L area I should be at at this point.
I know my QT is small. I'm not happy only having a 30 gallon for all those fish, but its the best I could come up with on this short notice. My display tank needs to be fallow until mid-August or so.
THE QUESTIONS:
1.) Is 14 days long enough? It is whats on the bottle, but I thought with the lifecycle of Ich I'd need to be hitting around 30 days of therapeutic levels to actually have an effect.
2.) I read in one of the stickies that wrasses are poor with copper. Unfortunately, I read that AFTER committing to this method of treatment. So far the Wrasse is active and swimming. Any signs to watch for, or anyone know if cupramine is gentler on wrasses?
3.) The Jawfish is not eating, and spends most of his time hiding in the bottom of PVC pipe. Thoughts on encouraging him to eat? While most of the fish were very displeased for the first two days (I did not add cupramine the same day they went in, I wanted to give them time to adjust first) they are all visibly eating except the Two Spot Tang and the jawfish.
4.) Tang condition: The Two-Spot got savaged by the clowns. Or maybe just one of the clowns. She was pristine with only a few small dots of Ich when she went into the QT. Now her fins are torn up on the tail and top, and I know its from the clowns as I caught the big one going at her. She had been listless and laying at the bottom of the tank, although since catching and jailing the clowns she started to swim around but only along the bottom, and spends most of her time nestled against PVC/the glass where she wedges in and just... swims into stuff. I've made sure to leave Nori in the tank elastic-banded down. For the longest time she was ignoring food but it looked last night like she wanted to eat but couldn't 'catch' the food, if that makes sense. This is my first tang, and my first time running anything through QT, so I don't know what behaviors are normal and which are redflags.
