HELP Can anybody QT my fishes for me?

N

nymotts

In Memoriam
I have a bad case of ick and i have a pretty big marroon clown thats not doing well. Have had her for a long time thats the only fish that i'm really worried about. I would be willing to give somebody a coral or a nice fish for helping me out... I don't have a QT tank myself.
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The problem here is that your going to have to quarantine all your fish, not just that maroon clown. If he's got ich, than more than likely the rest of your fish have it as well, even if they are not showing symptoms. I would help, but I just broke down my QT tank, and even if I hadn't it wouldn't be large enough to hold all the fish that I see in that pic for the 4-6 weeks you would need to thoroughly quarantine them. Your basically going to need to make your tank fallow for at least the above mentioned period, to make certain that your main display tank is completely ich free. I know this sounds like a real pain, but just went through it, and believe me, once you've QTd your fish and made sure that all of the ich in your display tank is gone, you'll be in a lot better position. Once this is done, I would highly recommend QT all new fish for the above mentioned period, with either hypo or copper treatment. Sorry if this isn't what you wanted to hear. :(
 
I was looking at your pics after I had just made this post, and it just dawned on me that your tank seems to be Fish-Only. Is this correct? If that's the case, then I would just remove any inverts (that starfish for example) and treat your display tank with hypo-salinity. This way you can kill two birds with one stone. I wouldn't treat the display with copper unless your not planning on ever having any inverts or corals in there.....ever.

What you will need to do is move any inverts into a cheapo 5-10 gallon tank ($10-$15) with the water from your display (don't worry, any ich in there will die off after 4 weeks since there won't be any fish). Stick a powerhead in there for circulation and keep them there for the duration of the treatment. Better yet, have someone take care of your inverts for you in an established tank.

Once you've got all the inverts out (the hypo will kill inverts, except the really hardy ones), you'll need to begin the hypo treatment ASAP. Basically this involves several water changes with RODI water over the course of 48-72 hours (the slower the easier on the fish). The goal of this is to slowly drop the salinity to about 1.009. Make sure you're using a refractometer to measure this as hydrometers are rather innacurate for this type of treatment. Once your tank is at or just under 1.009, you need to maintain this salinity level for about 4 weeks to make sure all the ich is gone. Once the 4 weeks have past, you'll need to slowly (SLOWLY) raise the salinity once again to what you had it before. This type of treatment has proven effective vs. ich. Hope this helps!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10165829#post10165829 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mwdennis
I was looking at your pics after I had just made this post, and it just dawned on me that your tank seems to be Fish-Only. Is this correct? If that's the case, then I would just remove any inverts (that starfish for example) and treat your display tank with hypo-salinity. This way you can kill two birds with one stone. I wouldn't treat the display with copper unless your not planning on ever having any inverts or corals in there.....ever.

What you will need to do is move any inverts into a cheapo 5-10 gallon tank ($10-$15) with the water from your display (don't worry, any ich in there will die off after 4 weeks since there won't be any fish). Stick a powerhead in there for circulation and keep them there for the duration of the treatment. Better yet, have someone take care of your inverts for you in an established tank.

Once you've got all the inverts out (the hypo will kill inverts, except the really hardy ones), you'll need to begin the hypo treatment ASAP. Basically this involves several water changes with RODI water over the course of 48-72 hours (the slower the easier on the fish). The goal of this is to slowly drop the salinity to about 1.009. Make sure you're using a refractometer to measure this as hydrometers are rather innacurate for this type of treatment. Once your tank is at or just under 1.009, you need to maintain this salinity level for about 4 weeks to make sure all the ich is gone. Once the 4 weeks have past, you'll need to slowly (SLOWLY) raise the salinity once again to what you had it before. This type of treatment has proven effective vs. ich. Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

Good advice...
 
Can I still treat the tank with the hypo- salinity even though I have a leather in the tank or do I need to remove that first?
 
Remove any living coral or invertabrate(snails, crabs, anything) and put those off in a small tank to do any hypo treatment.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but LR's and sand's natural bio filtration should be relatively unaffected by the hypo treatment.
 
Ahh, I didn't see the leather in the picture. If it is possible I would move the leather as well before treating with hypo. Your liverock / sand bed will be fine, but like it says in the above link, it will take some time (~ 1 week) for the biological filtration to readjust to changes in salinity. Because of this, I would take it slow in returning any corals, inverts, etc that you did have to remove back to the tank so as to not overload the bio filtration.
 
he doesnt have a extra tank right? so where is he going to put anything extra at all? why dont you try asking a store to put them into there hospital tank for awhile?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10170135#post10170135 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by lifesworksataol
he doesnt have a extra tank right? so where is he going to put anything extra at all? why dont you try asking a store to put them into there hospital tank for awhile?
Click to expand...

Like I said in my second post:

What you will need to do is move any inverts into a cheapo 5-10 gallon tank ($10-$15)
Click to expand...

Its less stressful on the fish if he doesn't have to move them and instead moves the inverts to another tank.
 
i have heard of alot of people trying the hypo sal with no good outcome - i wouldnt do it - i would skip all the crap and try and get them into copper. i am sure he has bought most of his fish from one store. why not just ask them? really thats what he was asking for in the first place anyways, is some help. my brother lost most all his fish to ick and i wouldnt put anyone threw all of the other treatments.
 
Even if you treat your fish with copper the tank still needs to be fallow for 6-8 weeks (I'd do 8 to be safe)

I wouldn't put fish through copper if I could avoid it another way as there is anecdotal evidence that it can harm\shortern their lives
 
then how do fish stores operate? - i am not saying that hypo doesnt work - but i dont know of anyone that it did work for. thats all. alot of people post on what they have heard which is what i am doing now. i have not been threw it myself ever, but my brother has and he tried the ick care for a month and then hypo. neither of them worked for him. this time around he used copper and it was gone in a week and trust me his fish look alot happier and healthier then with hypo and rid ick. its easier
 
What is "the ich care" ?

Hypo needs a lot of attention to be done properly, true, but when done properly it will work.

Most stores just run copper but there are alternative solutions.

I know one store only uses it in extreme cases but when new shipments of fish come in they get a freshwater dip for 2-3 mins and then a saltwater soak in methyl blue and formalin... basically a broad spectrum treatment that seems to help stave off a lot of issues. These fish seem a LOT healthier than ones I've seen at other stores but thats just my personal experience.

Its up to the individual to decide what to do but again with copper you still need to leave your tank fallow in order for it to die out since it can hide\hitchhike on corals etc so thats an inconvenience that takes as long as hypo anyway.

I just know I woulnd't like breathing a lot of copper so personally I wouldn't do it to a fish unless it was absolutely necessary for survival.

Surprisingly I've seen this one hippo tang that had a disease that presented kind of like ich but not.. he had odd pock marks and white spots all over. Really hard to describe. He had a loooong treatment in copper and it did nothing to whatever he was afflicted with. I'm still not sure if anyone ever figured out what he had.

Sorry to derail the thread though.


I'd definitely check out some of our LFS to see if they can help your fish out though I know with a busy schedule it can be hard to set up a QT even though it is cheap because it still needs to be maintained a little with topoffs and water changes like any other tank.

Best of luck with your fish nymotts!
 
Some stores use ozone and big UV filters that helps with parasites, that's where I buy my stuff from, another LFS that I go close to home have their tanks at low salinity not to hypo levels but it seems to work for them, but I still do hypo to every fish I get. I just don't trust copper and some fish can't be treated with it, but it works too. Either way is not an easy task, with hypo you have to make sure you salinity stays constant, with copper the same but if overdosed can kill the fish. Not so much with hypo.
 
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