Im about to move all my fish to a QT.. please help!

[ocarius]

Guys I have a Yellow Tang, Blue Hippo Tang, 3 Pajama Cardinals, and 2 Ocellarius Clown fish. The Tangs are happy colorful, but white spotty and dusty looking, I've got a clown that that has now moved away from his mate and is hiding in the rocks, I've seen some white stringy poop floating around.. and my Pajama dont seem affected or my 2nd clown. I think its time to move them all to a QT tank, something that I've never used before.. for at least a month to help kill any ICK in my tank as I treat my fish.

Do i have any chance of keeping any of these fish alive so that I can get the Display tank stabalized, my fish healthy, and start that part of it over.. Im really upset about this and if any of you have any experinces with this or have some tips, suggestions on things to do, or any comments or helpful direction I would love to know.

 

[Gwynhidwy]

Yes you have a chance of saving your fish. When was the last time you added anything to the tank?

First thing to do would be to get your treatment tank(s) set up if they aren't already. If you don't keep a cycled treatment tank be ready to keep a close eye on ammonia, I like the ammonia alert badges, and be ready to do water changes. Second thing, ich is the most common disease that fits your description, but take a minute to look at some photos and check them and the basic symptoms against your fish to make sure you are dealing with ich and not a different disease like brook or velvet. This page has some good info with pictures:

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/disease.html

If it is ich, you'll need to leave your DT fishless for a minimum of eight weeks, not four. Ich also has more than one treatment option, I like Cupramine.

Since you will have the fish out of the DT and they have stringy white poop, you might want to treat them with a dewormer as well. I've had good experiences with Prazipro.

 

[ocarius]

One of my clowns passed during the night, after a treatment of Cupramine, the first dose, the bottle says dose once, then again after 48 hours... I also got today some Pazipro.. following my LFS instructions they said its ok to use it, just dont dose the 2nd Cupramine dose. How do you feel about that Gwyn?

This is my first experince with a QT and I should have had some sort of QT for those fish before I put them in my tank.. The Fish list I have above has been my stable list for about 4 or 5 months, I then added a Coral Beauty which died and then a 6 line wrasse that died.. the next day my smallest clown was hiding alone with some white flaky areas, that night it was worst, and then this morning he was gone. The other clown is ok, and I think my two tangs have been fighting ich for awhile, but I made the call to remove everything from the tank save my one Green Polyp Coral and the 12 snails I have... I still have the main tank running, I put my UV inside the DT from the sump and im still running the skimmer, phosbane, and carbon.. I had planned to wait a month and maybe get the temp up to 85 to speed the cycle up.. u think I should wait 2 months? Im concerned my fish wont want to be in QT that long.

 

[RBU1]

Dont know about him but I would only use the Cupramine. Get the level to .5 and keep it there. Don't run UV or Carbon. Keep an eye on amonnia and nitrite.

 

[Gwynhidwy]

I would wait the two months.

Many people, myself included, have used prazi with Cupramine with no problems, so you should be fine to use them together. I wouldn't use only the first dose of Cupramine, I would follow the directions on the bottle and add the second dose too. The first dose is not high enough to be a reliable treatment in my opinion.

When using Cupramine DO NOT use any ammonia binding products like Amquel or Prime. You have to rely on water changes and bio filtration to keep the water quality up, which may mean daily water changes. No chemical filtration as that will remove most medications from the water and no skimming either.

 

[RBU1]

I would wait the two months.

Many people, myself included, have used prazi with Cupramine with no problems, so you should be fine to use them together. I wouldn't use only the first dose of Cupramine, I would follow the directions on the bottle and add the second dose too. The first dose is not high enough to be a reliable treatment in my opinion.

When using Cupramine DO NOT use any ammonia binding products like Amquel or Prime. You have to rely on water changes and bio filtration to keep the water quality up, which may mean daily water changes. No chemical filtration as that will remove most medications from the water and no skimming either.

I agree....mostly....I am not one to mix treatments. I guess I would have to ask why do you need to treat with both?

Also if you do not follow the proper dosing on the bottle (cupramine) its possible the ich will survive and be more resistant to the treatment. So keep the level of cupramine at .5 and monitor the amonnia and nitrite. I always add a bacteria to my tank just to help. I use Microbe Lift (sp) niteout and so far so good.

 

[ocarius]

ok so add the other dose after 48 hours check... now I thought using the copper kills any useful bacteria thus making it pointless to use like live rock or any type of "cycle" dosing to help. What kind of water change do you do dailey, 10%? Basically what im worried about with water changes is getting my medication back into range thats actually effective.

Also just to make sure ICH is a fish problem, so keeping my snails and coral in the tank is ok??? 2nd would you raise the tank tempature in the MT to speed up the ICH cycle.. by starving it of a host, speeding its life cycle, and waiting 2 months.. that should in theory destroy it for good.. and as long as I keep my QT practices and take good care to introduce new fish slowly after a good amount of QT.. it should stay gone right.

 

[Gwynhidwy]

Copper is toxic to bacteria, but because of the way Cupramine is bound it supposedly has less of an impact on biological filtration. If you get ammonia readings in the treatment tank you will probably need to do large water changes, as much as is needed to bring the readings down to 0 again. ANY detectable ammonia is too much.

When you do a water change, simply redose the water you are adding to the tank at 1mL/40L of new water. Which by my math works out to 3 drops per gallon of water that you are adding to the tank.

Ich cannot survive for that long without a fish host. Your corals and other invertebrates are fine to be left in the DT.

Raising the temperature will speed up the life cycle of the parasite, but as far as I know, 4 weeks is still too short of a time to be safe. You might be okay, but do you really want to go through this again if it isn't?

If you are careful about quarantine in the future you can have a parasite free tank. If you're paranoid like me you'll quarantine everything that is wet, but just fish is much safer than no quarantine at all.

 

[Gwynhidwy]

I guess I would have to ask why do you need to treat with both?

With the current quarantine protocol that I use, I don't use Cupramine at the same time as prazi, but I used to. When I treated with Cupramine prophylactically, I started it at the same time as prazi just to keep quarantine from being an even longer process. I agree that it is generally a bad idea to mix medications unless they have been demonstrated safe together. In my opinion that is the case with Cupramine and praziquantel.

 

[RBU1]

You don't want to use live rock because that will obsorb the copper making the level a little more difficult to reach. After the first dose I would test to see were your level is. If you are halfway to the treatment range then add the rest of the dose. Cupramine has a fairly wide range of effectiveness unlike free copper. So as long as you stay between .3 and .7 you are fine. I would target .5 to be safe. Hopefully you already have some kind of established bacteria working and if you dont I would go out and get some Instant Ocean bio spira. Use that to start off and monitor the ammonia and nitrites daily. I would not do a water change unless you see the amonnia or nitrites out of whack. Just remember you have to add the cupramine to the new saltwater to keep your level at the proper range. I only do monthly water changes on my hospital tank. But it is a 125 with a large hang on filter and w/d filter.

 

[RBU1]

Seems like Gwyn and I are almost on the same page.....:rollface:

 

[RBU1]

With the current quarantine protocol that I use, I don't use Cupramine at the same time as prazi, but I used to. When I treated with Cupramine prophylactically, I started it at the same time as prazi just to keep quarantine from being an even longer process. I agree that it is generally a bad idea to mix medications unless they have been demonstrated safe together. In my opinion that is the case with Cupramine and praziquantel.

OK...I might give it a try in the future. I am currently trying Paraguard for a 21 day treatment.

 

[ocarius]

I actually used a BRAND new tank for QT but water from the Main Tank.. I was hoping this would help with the fish moving over, and maybe have some stuff in the water to help me with the bio load.. am I totally off on this?

 

[Gwynhidwy]

I think water from the main tank is good, as would be any mechanical filter media that you could move over (filter pads, floss, etc). I would hesitate to use tank water for your water changes in the future though as it may reinfect your fish.

 

[RBU1]

I think water from the main tank is good, as would be any mechanical filter media that you could move over (filter pads, floss, etc). I would hesitate to use tank water for your water changes in the future though as it may reinfect your fish.

Correct....Correct....Correct...

If you do no have some kind of filter pad or something from your main tank you can use I would get that Instant Ocean Bio Spira. Just keep an eye on amonnia and nitrite.

 

[ocarius]

I bought a BIO Wheel Filter, and new water.

I put them in the tank roughly 19 hours ago, they haven't eaten normal at all. Everything I tried earlier today didnt work.. I put a clip of algea in there and had my wife look at it from time to time.. she says "she thinks" they ate some.. but I cant confirm.. when should i be worried?

 

[RBU1]

I bought a BIO Wheel Filter, and new water.

I put them in the tank roughly 19 hours ago, they haven't eaten normal at all. Everything I tried earlier today didnt work.. I put a clip of algea in there and had my wife look at it from time to time.. she says "she thinks" they ate some.. but I cant confirm.. when should i be worried?

OK did you test amonnia or nitrite?

You have a half dose of cupramine??? Did you test the level?

 

[ocarius]

I didnt, I did at the LFS. And they said was all fine, i was going to do a 10% change tomorrow.

 

[RBU1]

PLEASE test it for yourself....You have to test Copper to make sure its not to high or your fish will be dead....

Same thing with the amonnia. Knowing that yo9u did not have any seeded bacteria from your main tank makes things a little harder also.

Like I said....

1.) Get some Instant Ocean Bio Spira RIGHT AWAY....
2.) Test copper before adding that second dose preferably
3.) Test amonnia daily and ONLY do a water change if you get a reading of it or nitrite....

 

[ocarius]

I dosed the Copper low and I plan to go back tomorrow before I apply the 2nd dose.. so im not worried about the copper levels yet.. and I'll get a true reading before I dose the 2nd part.

I'm watching the Nitrites and Ammonia myself, and they are not high.

The question we kind of got away from was how long should it be before i worry that they are not eating.