Here is a link for the transfer method to cure ich.

[lesleybird]

http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/3daytransfer.html

I do this in 28 gallon rubbermaids that I fill with about 22 gallons of water. I have several sets of rubbermaids and two heaters, two power heads and several sets of PVC for the fish to hide in. I use a single dose of Ammonia lock and feed very sparingly. It does work and I think that I am going to do this to all new fish that come into the house from now on. I try to change my fish to new tanks a little more often than in this link, more like every 60 hours or so. I catch my angelfish in a small plastic bucket and acclimate in the bucket, being careful not too cross contaminate the new water with old water. I then take them out of the bucket with my hands and put them into the new tub. I am letting my main tank go fallow for 5 weeks or so. After I do the transfer thing (will treat new fish with prazipro while doing this to also worm them) I am going to put them into a 50 gallon holding tank for a few more weeks to make sure that they don't have anything. I hate ich!! I learned the hard way not to wash out the tubs with dish soap. I killed a few fish with the residue that I thought that I rinsed out. I won't be using soap again. I am now just soaking the PVC and the power heads in hot tap water for an hour in the sink and letting them air dry for at least 24 hours before using them. Never lost any fish this way except when I started washing things with dish soap! It is a good time to use antibiotics also while one makes sure that they don't have ich and that if they do that it falls off of them and does not have a chance to reinfect them. Lesley

 

[kaiboshi]

I'm very interested in this method. It seems like it would probably be less damaging (long term, internal organs) than using potentially lethal chemicals. Why isn't this method discussed more? Original article seems to be from 1985, has this been disproven or something?

 

[trueperc]

I believe this reason is at the very bottom of the link

"It should be noted that catching and moving the fish every three days could be quite stressful"

So this is not widely used, personally I have ready this before and believe this could be a great method, but the fish will have to be strong and I know some fish do not handel stress well.

 

[kaiboshi]

it's a shame we don't have a quantitative measurement for stress. I mean, what's worse? Getting moved around within water that is essentially the same or being exposed to chemicals and daily water changes. Since you aren't worried about removing the medication itself you could use like a media reactor and an ammonia removing media. You'd just need 2 reactors. Scratch that, you could just make a bunch of ceramic rings biologically active prior to the treatment and use the reactor with the prepared ceramic rings.

I dunno, going a natural route vs using medication is cool. Not to mention faster.


Edit: Extra thought here, does prazi kill beneficial bacteria? If it does not then that would be a faster method for QT. Like I said, prepare bioballs or something to use in a reactor so you've got your biological filtration taken care of (less stress from water changes). Make up a bunch of water beforehand so that you'd be using very similar water the whole time. Treat with prazi (which needs 2 weeks of treatment, right?) as you're doing the whole process and 15 days later the quarantined fish should be ich free and parasite free (or whatever parasites prazi can handle). That's faster than a month of cupramine by almost 2 weeks and the fish would end up in the DT adjusting to a more normal existance that much faster.

Am I missing something here? If the prazi doesn't kill the biological filter then I'd like to try it with my next additions.

Thank goodness for you guys giving me something to think about at work =]

 

[lesleybird]

My fish never seem too stressed moving them from one tub to another. If one changes the water every 48 to 60 hours there is usually not enough ammonia to do much harm if you use some Ammonia lock or other stuff that helps to make the ammonia less toxic. Also remove the uneaten food and poop with a fine net after you feed them. Make sure that the net is rinsed in hot water and let to air dry. With the fish being stressed?? Mine never looked stressed at all, in fact my Majestic is getting really tame and will eat out of my hands in the tub. It is the owner that gets a little stressed doing all the water changes, but it is not too bad. I catch my big angels in about a 3 gallon bucket that is a gray color that is not to stressful of a color. They are pretty easy to catch if they run into the PVC pipe one just quickly sticks on end in the bucket on its side under water and then tips the PVC into the bucket quickly and the angel is in the bucket. Smaller fish like clowns can be caught with a net. I put them all in the large bucket together. I acclimate them by taking a couple of cups of water out of the bucket and wasting it and putting a couple of cups of new water in. I do this every 15 minutes about 3 times then put them in their clean tub. It is easy to catch a fish in your hands out of a bucket that is close to the tub. My large angels get so used to me handling them that they lay on their side in my hands and I can gently put them in without much flopping around. I don't think this method is for everyone but it works fairly well for me, and if a fish is already sick then medication or hypo salinity can stress them out more and does not clear the ich any faster. With this they can be cured in 12 days but cannot be put back into an infected tank for 5 or 6 weeks until all of the ich dies off in there. Lesley