My Fish have Ich!

[kimmi.kim]

So a week ago, my pygmy angel died. im still not sure what the cause of it was, it could've been ich, but its body wasnt covered with the white spots. then 2 days after, my dragon goby died, his fins had white spots. i was actually out of town when this happened. and when i got back, my female clownfish died, and the rest of my inhabitants had white spots all over their bodies and fins! arg!

i quickly called the LFS and she advised me to get a QT right away! so i set one up yesterday, filled it up with tank water and put my yellow tang and trigger in there. (thats all i have left) and put some cupramine.

Now i have been reading online about QT's, and one thing is confusing me. Some say to do a 50% water change every 3 days. My question is, should i be putting water from the main tank to fill up my QT after i have taken out the 50% of water?? or do i fill it up with NEW saltwater?

Right now, my QT consists of a 10 gallon tank, penguin biowheel filter (with carbon taken out), heater with temp to 79F, and a small powerhead. I also have a few pvc pipes in there for hiding places. Is this all i need?? Anything else??

Please help! i dont want to lose any more fish! Thanks in advance!

 

[Sk8r]

this is not a quarantine tank: it is a hospital tank. Do NOT do a water change: that would screw up your meds. Do NOT run carbon: that will remove your meds and screw up your dose. Feed very, very minimally and use a net to retrieve any food not eaten within 5 minutes (cut the power while feeding so you can track where the food went.) Your biowheel is quite dead of life now: the copper will have killed any bacteria on it, and that filter is now a copper filter, no question: do not ever use it on your tank or anywhere near invertebrates or desirable bacteria. Measure your salinity 2x daily, and add fresh water to keep it even.
You may stuff the Penguin filter with blue/white filter floss and change it out every day.
Good luck to you: you are (except the biowheel) doing the right thing. Probably it was ich that got the first fish: ich can hide in the gills and pretty well choke the fish.
You will want to continue treatment as long as the instructions say, then use carbon and a water change to end it.
But you must then continue the tank as a quarantine tank until a full 6 weeks (some say 8 weeks) after the incident so that the ich will have died out of your tanK: you do not want to go through this again, I'm sure. SO take no chances. Quarantine incoming fish, and leave them the full 4 weeks of quarantine. Your lfs advised you well, but they also have ich in the store, so be very careful. I'd buy equipment there, but I'd try to find another fish source, sad to say.

 

[otrlynn]

Sk8r, with a tang and a trigger in a 10 gallon tank, isn't the ammonia level likely to rise pretty fast? I understand that you are saying not to do water changes because they will remove medication, and adding unmedicated water will alter the dosage. However, without water changes isn't the OP at risk of ammonia toxicity?

 

[Sk8r]

ow. Good point. If these fish are over 1" long, that's a problem.
Remember that fish, to survive, need only one mouthful a day. And I would ration them about that severely, to save their lives. I am not sure whether Amquel would affect the copper: that is a water treatment that removes ammonia. But you need to be testing this tank 2x daily for salinity and ammonia. Look at a bottle of Amquel and see if it can be used during copper treatment. NOTE: a scan of the Kordon site (makers of Amquel, Amquel+) seems to indicate that these products would be safe with copper. But please read the instructions carefully for yourself. I could have missed something.

 

[SoulFish]

do the water changes and re-add the medication to the proper level. If using Copper get a copper test kit to determine the appropriate dossage.

 

[kimmi.kim]

Thank you for all the feed back. Unfortunately....my yellow tang passed away this morning. The Blue Trigger seemed pretty happy, swimming around and eating food like crazy, very fast little guy. i tested the copper level yesterday after the first dosage, and its 0.25. so i'll be putting another dosage today. (after 48 hours) the bottle says it should be at 0.5. my ammonia was a little high yesterday....should i do my water change tonite? or maybe i'll go to the lfs and pick up some amquel.

on another note, what are good tank mates for a blue trigger? he is really fast and ate ALL the food i put in the tank. i tried to give food to the tang, but the trigger just ate it all. hopefully my tang didnt starve to death....but i did leave a piece of seaweed in there, and i think the tang ate a bit of that.

Once again, thank you for all the replys. i might have saved only 1 out of 6 fish, but at least i know what to do next time if this ever happens again. which i hope doesnt.

oh, is it true that cleaner shrimps will clean the fish of ich and parasites??

 

[jrdoan]

CLeaner shrimps will not in anyway shape or form help with Ich. Sorry but I learned that years ago the hard way...