ICH-I think I want to do hyposalinity and or copper. Please help me with advice.

[courtneyclv]

My tank has ich in it. I have a firefish, foxface, baby puffer. Puffer has spots all over her fins. Other fish show no signs/symptoms.

Feeding Garlic Extreme in the food and using nosickfish.com ich meds for 2 days.

I have a few snails and a sand sifter sea star. 50lbs of LR with some creatures, feather dusters, worms etc.

This is an emergency so...
Can I remove the LR with the creatures and put them in a tub with a filter/powerhead and just treat my fishies to get rid of the ich. Or will they carry the ich back into my 'clean' tank?

I have heard that these two things will get rid of the ich if done correctly..but is not safe for inverts. So can I just remove the inverts? I have no QT.

Or..........take the two fishies that do not have ich to the LFS to be watched, do the hypo/copper and remove the inverts.

I want to do something soon before puffy dies.

I know I can go fallow for 2 months but want to do something else just in case that doesnt work.

Courtney

 

[courtneyclv]

Just had an idea!

What if I....remove the two 'good' fish and bring to the LFS to watch.
Put Puffy in a QT that I will set up ASAP. Do copper on him or hypo in the QT.

Remove the LR that has the inverts on it, two pieces, and put in a tub.

Treat the display tank with hypo/copper.

Then QT the fish that the LFS is watching before putting them into my display tank.

What do u think?

 

[Steven Pro]

If you take all the fish out of the display, you don't have to treat it. Just leave it without fish for 1-2 months and the parasites will die out.

As to the fish, none of them are good or clean. Any that have been exposed could be carrying the parasite even if you don't see spots. I would move them to a quarantine tank and treat with either copper or hyposalinity. Which is your choice. You can setup a quarantine in a hurry with Marineland's Bio-Spira.

 

[courtneyclv]

I already tried to leave my tank fallow for 4 weeks and it didn't work! Obviously...
I want to do another method in case the ich decides not to die.

 

[courtneyclv]

So what should I do? Please help me with advice. Should I remove puffy and treat with copper in a
QT,

Leave the other fish in the display tank and do the hyposalinity?

What LR/inverts should I remove from the display tank if I do the hypo?

I am so confused here.

 

[Triggerfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8352062#post8352062 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by courtneyclv
I already tried to leave my tank fallow for 4 weeks and it didn't work!

imo..1 month is not long enough to eradicate all possible strains.
however, that doesnt mean that it didnt work..the fish you may have added back to tank could not have been treated effectively.
but who knows for sure.

i would go min of 7-8 weeks. elevate temp if possible.

 

[Sk8r]

Whoa! Don't ever treat anything but a qt tank with copper! It is lethal to all microlife and gets into the glue and seams of a tank, rendering it useless except as a qt tank.

Do not combine low salinity [hypo] with copper: either is stressful: both together are lethal.

Raising temperatures in the display tank may kill off microlife and will certainly kill off any corals or other macrolife on the rocks.

The only solution is to remove all fish from the tank and treat in qt. Ich is a fish disease. You can go on enjoying your rock and inverts: they don't get ich, and they will go on quite happily without fish. Your tank may even improve in the absence of the fish, as microlife increases---some of which may even eat the ich parasite. If the ich parasite finds no host in a certain number of weeks, it does not breed. It dies, eventually, without reproducing, and the level of ich goes down, down, down to zero. If you've cured it in your fish, they can go back in at this point, and thereafter just be careful and use that qt tank for any new fish---[if you've chosen to use copper, never put anything BUT fish into it for qt---no inverts, no corals, etc.]

 

[Triggerfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8364579#post8364579 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
Ich is a fish disease.

it's not really a disease..it's an external parasite.