Hospital tank help

[LouieRocco]

I lost a few fish over the past few months with ich, which is why I now have my two fish (convict tang and six line wrasse) in a 10 gal. quarantine tank with copper. They have been in there for about a week, and I'm now having trouble keeping the nitrites down in the QT tank. They have a few pieces of live rock and I'm adding Stability to compensate but it's just not keeping up. I did a 20% water change yesterday, and only lowered the numbers a little. What should I do to fix this problem?

 

[ACBlinky]

I'd mix up a big batch of SW, keep it circulating and heated and change 50% daily. If the parameters (other than N and P which should be zero) match the water in the tank it shouldn't be a problem to do large changes.
I'd also remove the LR, along with sand and anything else porous that might be in the tank - it will absorb the Cu you're using to treat the ich. Best decoration in a QT is something like PVC pipes, no substrate.

Best of luck, hope they get better

 

[dochoot]

How about a sponge filter?

 

[LouieRocco]

I didn't neccessarily use the live rock for decoration, but more for bio filtration, but apparently it's not enough. I'm thinking of adding a skimmer to the tank to take out the bad stuff before it turns to nitrite. I'm just wondering if that would be practical though.

 

[stevebydac]

ACBlinky's idea is pretty easy once you initially get it set up. Just make sure the temp, SG, and PH match. Then it's easy to do a good-sized water change every day. Just make sure you know how much water you are changing and then keep your copper level stable.

PVC pipes are good, as are small clay flowerpots, sized for the fish.