medicating DT????
- Thread starter bobcat178
- Start date
No. Do not. The treatments that will kill the ich parasite will also kill off the bacteria in your sand and rock and kill the fish by polluting the tank.
Withdraw ALL the fish in the tank (inverts not necessary to treat) to a bare, sandless, rockless tank with clean water and a simple floss (check to be sure no carbon!) filter. You can treat ich by hyposalinity (ask in the Disease forum) or by copper, which is harder on the fish: it is a poison---just, your fish is bigger and can take more than the ich can.
Here's the worse news; to avoid reinfesting your fish (think of it as lethal fleas) you have to wait until the ich parasite has starved out of your display tank, where it has now settled into your sandbed. THis takes from 6-8 weeks.
If you use copper you must never use that hospital tank or filter or nets or hose nor anything else for anything BUT a hospital tank. Mark them carefully and do not use them in your DT, ever.
If you use hypo, you can also use that hospital tank for a quarantine tank for your next fish: 4 weeks of observation without treatment, since we assume they're NOT sick when they're just in quarantine. That way you don't risk letting the parasite loose in your main tank again.
Withdraw ALL the fish in the tank (inverts not necessary to treat) to a bare, sandless, rockless tank with clean water and a simple floss (check to be sure no carbon!) filter. You can treat ich by hyposalinity (ask in the Disease forum) or by copper, which is harder on the fish: it is a poison---just, your fish is bigger and can take more than the ich can.
Here's the worse news; to avoid reinfesting your fish (think of it as lethal fleas) you have to wait until the ich parasite has starved out of your display tank, where it has now settled into your sandbed. THis takes from 6-8 weeks.
If you use copper you must never use that hospital tank or filter or nets or hose nor anything else for anything BUT a hospital tank. Mark them carefully and do not use them in your DT, ever.
If you use hypo, you can also use that hospital tank for a quarantine tank for your next fish: 4 weeks of observation without treatment, since we assume they're NOT sick when they're just in quarantine. That way you don't risk letting the parasite loose in your main tank again.
You can do it in a rubbermaid container---but due to need to see fish, I'd suggest a tank is better. A thin-glass tank would be ok for this application, since no rock or sand.
Your only other option, and you might lose all your fish---is feed a mix of regular food and pureed fresh garlic, and hope they throw it off. Garlic does seem to help them resist the parasite, maybe operating a little like Advantage. You should not, then, add any new fish until several months have passed. Inverts, again, ok; and corals I am convinced eat the ich at some stage of its life.
Understand, if you take this option you may end up with a tank with no fish at all, or a tank with one fish left into which you cannot safely put even a quarantined new fish within the next couple of months.
If you get out of this ok, do quarantine everything in future: big tank, big problem when this happens.
Your only other option, and you might lose all your fish---is feed a mix of regular food and pureed fresh garlic, and hope they throw it off. Garlic does seem to help them resist the parasite, maybe operating a little like Advantage. You should not, then, add any new fish until several months have passed. Inverts, again, ok; and corals I am convinced eat the ich at some stage of its life.
Understand, if you take this option you may end up with a tank with no fish at all, or a tank with one fish left into which you cannot safely put even a quarantined new fish within the next couple of months.
If you get out of this ok, do quarantine everything in future: big tank, big problem when this happens.
