Looking for Advice - Moving Fish

[Amazon4]

I have two smaller tanks which house several fish each. They need to be moved to our 180.

History - I added new fish to the 180 in February and introduced ich. Removed the fish, went through hypo, and left the tank fallow for 8+ weeks. I now consider this tank ich-free.

How would you go about moving the other resident fish to the 180? Do they all have to go through weeks of hypo in a QT? Or is there a quicker way to do this? Would removing them to a QT and treating with something like Rid Ich+ (11.52% formalin and malachite green 0.038%) be as effective to kill off ich but allow the transfer to happen sooner?

I have no experience with this stuff. But the cost of running 4 SW tanks (30, 46, 20qt, and 180) instead of 1 is adding up each month. I will not do anything to risk the well being of the fish, but don't want to overlook an effective treatment.

As a side note, I've not seen a spot of ich in either tank (30 or 46) but presume it can be there.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[Percula9]

I would just acclimate them to the new tank. Since the fish have been with you for a while and show no evidence of disease, I think it is safe to transfer without QT. Have the two smaller tanks ever had ich?

 

[Amazon4]

The 30 had an outbreak when I moved them from a BC14 to the 30. There was never a sign in the BC14. Then they got it immediately after moving to the 30. I presume it was the stress of the move. That was a year ago and no signs since.

This is what has me hesitant to move them without being 100% certain they won't bring it with them in to the 180. It's taken months to get this far and I don't want to mess it up.

 

[kvosstra]

I had a similar issue - I did upgraded to 180 gallons and moved all fish from a 90 gallon tank. The fish did not have signs of ich, but I was told by the former owner of the fish from the 90 that they had ich in the past.

I knew I should have treated those fish...but long story short, after treating all new fish - they were all put into the 180 and all have Ich...

Now I have a real dilemma of catching the fish and keeping them in QT for 6 weeks to get rid of the parasite, what a pain!

I would seriously recommend that you QT the fish so you do not have to do the long quarantine on your reef again!

-Kyle

 

[Amazon4]

We've decided that QTing them is the safest thing to do. We just bought a 55 from a local reefer and we'll be setting it up over the next week.

Unless anyone thinks there's something better than hypo, that's what we'll be doing.

 

[kvosstra]

I plan on using cupramine (as suggested to me my LargeAngels) - I have done hypo before and you really need to have an accurate salinity/ppm refractometer (calibrate yours before use!) to make sure you get the salinity low enough to kill the ICH but not so low as to kill the fish.

 

[Amazon4]

I figured hypo to be slightly safer than copper, although I hear cupramine is the safest of them.

I've done the hypo treatment before (1.009). I do use a calibrated refractometer