My first war on ich

W1ngz

New member
This is going to be my first time dealing with a new fish that has ich. Thank (Steve, God, Allah, ReefCentral - whoever you choose to thank for these sorts of things) that I decided not to gamble, and picked up a used 10gal tank to quarantine.

There's a juvenile Pygmy Angel and lawnmower blenny in there. The Angel literally looks like it's been laid on a plate and given a shake with the salt shaker. They're eating, but also hiding, and occasionally rubbing against things in the tank. I got them last Thursday, and dosed the tank with Prazipro on Sunday once they'd been eating well for a couple days. I only noticed the spots today, but I wasn't home at all yesterday.

I'm trying to figure out the least work for me, and least stressful on the fish, way to do this.
I have pretty well any option available to me. I have buckets to do tank transfer, uncontaminated and cycled media ready to go in a container, and a bottle of cupramine. These are two shy/nervous fish as it is, so I'd rather not be moving them back and forth between buckets for 2 weeks.

What I'm thinking:

I'll keep an eye on the angel for the next 2 days, and when I don't see spots on it, I'm going to transfer both fish into a bucket with a powerhead and heater.
They'll stay there for 3 days. In the mean time, the tank and filter will get emptied and cleaned out with a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water. I'll let it dry for 24 hours. (I assume ich can't survive vinegar and a dry tank?)

When I set the tank up again, I'll use hypo salinity to minimize the stress on the fish. (SG-1.008ish). Leave it like that for ~3 weeks, and in the 4th week, slowly start moving the salinity up to match my display.

Anything better I can do?
 
My first war on ich

If it's only a few fish in a small tank, why not do tank transfer?

Read up on the method, you already have a tank and an extra bucket. This would be best I assume.
 
TTM would probably work out best for you. You've got an angel which is sensitive to copper, and hyposalinity is difficult to properly execute, if at any time the salinity gets too high your done. There are also some strains of ich reported to be resistant to hyposalinity.
 
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Thanks for the replies. They went into the first bucket last night, and Saturday morning I'll start the transfer routine.
 
Thanks for the replies. They went into the first bucket last night, and Saturday morning I'll start the transfer routine.

Terrific. Remember that each tank/bucket needs to be rinsed out (I use 10% vinegar and 90% water) and totally dry before the next cycle. I add Prime on day 2 but that is just insurance.
 
Crap...
The power head in the bucket crapped out on me. Dead fish.

I guess that's one way to get rid of ich :(
 
Crap...
The power head in the bucket crapped out on me. Dead fish.

I guess that's one way to get rid of ich :(

Snap, Should have mentioned you might have wanted to add an airstone...always best to have flow/oxygenation coming from multiple sources rather than one. Sorry that happened to you, i know its really hard to lose fish your attached to. Please don't be put off as this method is usually the best route to treat fish it was honestly an unfortunate unlikely accident.
 
I didn't have them long enough to be attached. It's somewhat upsetting that these were wild caught specimens. Most of my other fish are captive bred. One day they're happily swimming about their reef, and a few weeks later they die a slow death in a bucket. Ugh.
 
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