my fish are fighting in Q-tine - can I cut 30 day period short?

[mattsilvester]

Hey Guys,

Well I find myself in a terrible dilemma â€"œ a brief synopsis if I may:
Anemone got minced in my tank (my fault, hands up, idiot!) â€"œ fish freaked â€"œ all ended up with ich, and to take them all out to treat.
So, I have got an emporer angel, yellow tang, purple tang and 5 anthias. Had them all in a 48”x18”x21” tank.

Yellow and purple were fighting, pretty bad, and had to be separated. So now the purple is in a pathetic 10gal tank…. Not happy about that but its all I can manage.

Now the emperor, yellow and anthias are all in the 75 gal. I had 6 lyretail anthias yesterday, I woke up to 5 this morning….. now the fifth one is on the ropes….. will probably find 4 alive when I get in.

Now, I won’t say the water quality is perfect, but its good enough….. its just the aggression……. After 3 weeks, they are getting tired of being cramped in!

They have been in there 3 weeks now, been in hypo (sq 1.009) for 10 days….. its about 8 or 9 days since the ich was totally gone. The tank has been “fish free” for nearly 3 weeks also. At this stage, I think by the time the “30 days” are up, the purple tang will be dead (in a 10 gallon), and most of the anthias will be dead too. They are all feeding well, full colour, great health…… just killing each other….

1. Returning the fish to shop is not an option â€"œ shop is 200 miles away.
2. Setting up another, or bigger tank is not an option â€"œ no where left in our small home already have one in the spare room and one in the kitchen. Babies bedroom is not an option!

The dilemma â€"œ shop I forego the recommended 30 days, and get the s.g. up, and get my fish back into the display before I loose more? Or should I hold out the extra 10 days?
How quick can I bring the s.g. back up? Its at 1.009 â€"œ display is at 1.027. If desperate I could bring the s.q. up in q-tine, and bring it down in the display, to meet in the middle at 1.023…. that would shorten the acclimatisation period.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[Sk8r]

I'd put them in. Death is maybe one direction, certain the other.
Start raising the salinity now. Get some eggcrate and cut it for dividers for the qt, to keep them from getting at each other, and just start.
I've raised the salinity as much as .05 in two hours and had fish ok.

 

[mattsilvester]

Well I was thinking of trying to raise it from 1.009 to 1.023 in the next 24hrs........ and simulataneously lowering the main tank from 1.027 to 1.023 in the same period.........

is that too drastic?

cheers,

matt

 

[davenia7]

I second the eggcrate usage while your raising sg.
As far as speed to change the sg...I dunno

 

[Sk8r]

Try the eggcrate and see if you can go slower on that salinity raise. If your tank has no corals OR INVERTS you can lower sg to meet the other sg. Inverts are more fragile in a salinity change than fish are. They have shells and can't sweat. The reason to go slowly is kidneys: they have to pass a lot of fluid through or the tissues can't adjust to the salinity/pressure change and cells may burst and die. [Osmotic shock.] Kidney damage can happen and shorten the lifespan. Treat this as an acclimation and rush it ONLY if you can't stop the fighting.
Also: drape your tank in something to shut out the light and you may stop the fights while this process goes on. It may slow down the fishes' kidney action, but I'm thinking it may not. Sleeping people still process, and I believe the process is simply pressure-driven. I suppose it's the same for fish.

 

[kevin2000]

A larger QT seems like the logical choice .. a large rubbermaid container is often used by aquarist like yourself who are stuck with alot of fish that don't get along with each other.

 

[mattsilvester]

kevin,
thanks for the suggestion, but:

1. we cannot readily buy rubbermaid type containers here in Ireland, you can only get them on special order from catering companies - god knows I've tried that in the past when moving tanks etc.

2. As per my original post above, I just have nowhere to put anything bigger, or anything in addition to what I am already doing............ its just imposible - my home is quite a humble dwelling, even my Irish standards...... compared to most US homes (from what I can gather) its not much bigger than an apartment!

SK8R - thanks again for your input. What would you recommend the quickest I raise the s.g. at? The main tank has sps corals in it.... so I am reducing that much more slowly and much more gradually...... will do a couple of 5 gallon changes spread out over the evening.... and a couple more tomorrow afternoon..... but the fish are in q-tine set up - no inverts or corals to worry about there. I wanna do this quickly - but not so quickly that I risk killing everything! I'd rather loose a couple more anthias than an angel or tang.....

as far as eggcrate goes - as per the rubbermaid - its al ittle harder to come by here - local pet shops don't stock it, I'd hve to go to a lighting wholsaler tomorrow afternoon...... I'm gonna get some anyway, just in case, and for future use.

My only worry now is that by cutting the q-tine short that I might get a relapse of the ich.

In the mean time, at least raising the s.g., my q-tine skimmer is now starting to skim again - so that will allow heavier feeding and hopefully reduce aggression.......

thanks guys,

Matt
Cheers guys

 

[kevin2000]

You might take a look at one of your argricutural supply places .. a lot of aquarist have the plastic/rubbermaid type tubs used to water livestock as remote "sumps" - if they work in sumps they should work fine for a qt - just a thought.

Your not using hypo in your ST are you? Not a good idea.

 

[mattsilvester]

hypo in ST - whats ST? if you mean display, no........ display is at standard sg etc.

 

[Gwynhidwy]

I hate to say it, but based on the life cycle of the parasite that causes ich, cutting the QT treatment short means it will likely reoccur. In favorable conditions, ie normal tank conditions the parasite can survive without a host for up to six weeks, four weeks is the minimum time recommended for any treatment. That being said it may still be the better choice as your fish are killing each other as it is. Best of luck, that's a tough situation.

 

[mattsilvester]

well I have started bringing the s.g. back up - as yet there is no sign of ich coming back..... I'm at 1.015.

Its a calcualted risk really.

The thing is also that I am about to relocate all my equipment to a fish house (shed out back). Space is limited, but it will allow me to set up more tanks if need be, and link them all, and put a sump and use my full size skimmer....... basically if the ich returns, I will be better equiped.........

The s.g. is now at 1.015 - I'm gonna bring it up to 1.018 or so this evening - that should be high enough for the ich to show itself if it is going to come back........ and I plan on letting them like this for a week, by which time the tank wil have had its 30 days..... if ich is going to re-appear, it will do so in tha time...... and in the mean time, the s.g. is high enough for the skimmer to work properly once again, so I can start feeding them a bit better.......

cheers,

Matt

 

[mattsilvester]

I'm not optimistic - I have just seen a couple of the anthias "flashing" agasint pumps etc....... not a good sign..... often a precursor to ich.

I am going to continue raising the s.g.

I can't just "about turn" now - i need to know if it is the early stages of a reoccurrence or not - if I panic and start dropping s.g. again, then I may not see any "spots"...... it there is a reoccurrence I need to do another full treatment.......

If it turns out to be a reoccurrence, then I think I'll just nuke them. They cannot stay in the conditions they are in for the another month..... so I have the bottle of cuprzin ready...... not something I like, but its a last resort.

I guess well see tomorrow............

regards,

Matt

 

[mattsilvester]

ok - I give up......... ich seems to be returning......

Was doing hypo, started beinging the s.g. back up a couple of days ago, its at 1.019 now, and it seems like its coming back...... early signs are showing.... flashing etc. As soon as the white spots appear I am going to treat them with cupramin - I simply cannot afford to keep them in a q-tine tank any longer.....

Question is, can I treat with copper with "dead" LR in the tank? I had this "dead" LR in my system for a month or so, and when transfering the fish for hypo I transferred this too to act as biological filteration. There is a canister filter too, which sponge etc in it, so its not the only biological filter, but still - I am reluctant to remove the rock for fear of ammonia etc.

I don't care that the rock will be useless afterwards..... I am willing to sacrifice that - but will the treatment be effective? i.e. will the rock absorb all the copper and render the treatment in-effective?

I am not going t dose them until I see the first spots - but I am just preparing myself just in case!

Cheers,

Matt

 

[Gwynhidwy]

Depending on what is in the rock it may or may not have an effect on the treatment. I think the problem that you may have though is that unless you also treat your display tank or all fish have been out of it for a minimum of four weeks, six is usually a much safer bet, they will pick it up again in the display tank. Do you have inverts in your display? Its not best, but if you don't you could treat there with hyposalinity. Or perhaps if you will soon be able to treat the ich better with more hospital tanks you should just let the fish have ich until you get that worked out. Best of luck.

 

[mattsilvester]

thanks for the reply....

yes, I have corals etc in main tank.......

The main tank has been fish free for about 3 weeks now.... by the time the copper has run its course, and the fish are ready to go back, it will be 4 weeks plus......

While I will have the new facilities soon, it may not be that soon, unfortunately..... couple of weeks I suppose....

if I can just hold it at bay until then, and stop the fish from murdering one another then I will be ok...... got a few tough weeks ahead of me !!!

cheers,

Matt

 

[Gwynhidwy]

If its been more than four weeks when the fish go back you've got a pretty good chance of it being gone. It doesn't sound like there is really a better choice. I've worried about this sort of thing myself because I only have a 40 gallon hospital tank and my fish wouldn't love that if they were all in it. Best of luck.