Have ICH, setting up a QT tank have questions.

[D.Blaine]

Its has finally come to my realization that I have ICH in my tank and have probably had it since I introduced my first fish but of course never quaranteed anything. My tang has white spots all over its body and has since stopped eating completly. My clowns also are not looking to good, and my wrasse is MIA.

Well im ready to do things the correct way and am setting up a QT tank
using an old 46 high that I had laying around.

My fish in main display consist of:

Whitecheek tang

2 x True Percula clown

Mandrin Goby

Yelow Watchman Goby

Fairy Wrasse

Questions are can I safely put this amount of fish in my tank all at the same time and what kind of fitration do I need?

Also do I have to remove all fish, thought I read somwhere that Mandrins cannot carry the parasite and what about the YWG?

I can easily catch most fish except the goby's they could prove to be very difficult to get out. I dont want to tear down my whole tank that would be a nightmare.

Im sure il have more questions later

appreciate the help dont know what id do whithout RC

 

[kevin2000]

My 02

As far as the QT goes .. your 46 s/b adequate for those few fish. All you need is an appropriate sized mechanical filter, heater, and some pvc pipe for the fish to hide in ... moving some mature filter media from your ST to you QT mechanical filter will assist in ammonia issues. Heres a good link on how to setup and run a hypo QT

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=288805

As far as the Mandarin goes .... Mandarins have an extra thick layer of mucus which helps them ward off ich .. but Mandarins get ich all the time. The real issue with Mandarins is what to feed them while they are in QT. If you have trained your Mandarin to eat regular food no problem. If not .. then my experience is that Mandarins will accept live brine shrimp as a substitute for pods .. the problem with LBS is that Mandarins are kinda dorky when it comes to hunting and the other fish in the QT may scarf up all the LBS before the Mandarin gets a chance. As such, maybe an inexpensive 10 gallon QT would be appropriate for the Mandarin as well as the yellow watchman.

Catching the watchman is going to be a PIA but if your aim is to have a bona fide ich free ST then your going to have to bite the bullet.

Good luck.

 

[D.Blaine]

Thanks for the help Kevin luckily only until recently my mandrin has started to eat the frozen foods I have been feeding the rest of the tank( only took him a year or so to give in) so that hopefullly will not be a problem, he should be fairly easy to catch.

My yellow watchman can sometimes be seen late at night sleeping out in front of the glass ive actually touched him before to see if he was alive and actuallly was hard to wake up before swimming away, this only can be seen every so often so i will be hoping for an oportunity .

Will be setting up the QT tomorrow and am going to try the HYPO method,hope all goes well.

any other advice is greatly appreciated, will let you no how it goes.

 

[kevin2000]

Your welcome.

Just remember that hypo doesn't kill ich on the fish so you won't see any immediate effect. When the ich naturally fall off the fish (within a week) hypo will prevent them from reproducing.

Please read the link I provided ... some good tips for running a Qt. Also remember that you want to maintain zero ammonia levels in a QT ... its a good idea to keep a backup supply of prepared/aged salt water handy for water changes. You will find that mixing 1/3 SW (sg 1.025) with 2/3 FW will get you approximately 1.009 SG.

Good luck.