My fish still have ich. Should I treat them this way?

[rdefino]

Well, I had 2 fish quarantined for 4 weeks that showed signs of ich. A tang and a fox face. I treated them with hyposalinity. After 4 weeks they looked good, no ich. So I moved them back to the display tank. But know after 5 days the tang & fox face are showing signs of ich. Should I treat the entire display tank. This is what I have in there for stock. It's a 210gal:

sailfin tang
Snowflake eel
niger trigger
rectangular trigger
blue throat trigger
clown
3 small damsels
wrasse
striped puffer
sharp nose puffer

Now, should I remove all the rock from the tank and the sump.
drop salinity to 1.09
run canister with charcoal
do this for 4 weeks

Or should I just quarantine the tang and fox face agan?

Which would be best?

I also have LS in there. Can I leave that in there?

Thanks for any help.

 

[limitdown]

You will need to treat every single fish. 2 options
1) move all of your fish to a separate tank, drop in a few pieces of live rock and start treating with Cupramine (the safest type of copper)
2) move all of your corals, inverts and most of your live to to a separate tank and treat the display tank directly. After treatment, change a lot of the water and run Cuprisorb to absorb everything.

Option 1 is preferred while Option 2 is a very distant 2nd choise.

Don't waste time or money on so-called "reef-safe" medications. The more time you waste with those medications, the longer your fish will suffer.

There are no short cuts with ich in reefs

 

[rdefino]

thanks for the reply. My tank is a fish only. I do have some snails. But no corals.

Will the Cupramine harm the LR?

Now if i move the fish to a separate tank, how can I be sure there is no ich in the display tank. Can the ich survive without fish?

Also, how long should I treat with Cupramine?

thanks

 

[limitdown]

The snail won't survive copper, so you'll need to put them into a separate tank

Copper will kill SOME (not all) of the bacteria in the LR/LS so it's advisable to remove most of the LR. Also, LR/LS will absorb some of the copper so you'll need to test for copper concentration almost daily and redose accordingly to keep concentration at 0.5mg/l. The drawback of treating the Display Tank directly is why it's a distant second option. The biggest plus to treating the DT directly is that you won't give your fish additional stress from netting and acclimating to a small and crowded Quarantine Tank. If you do decide to treat the DT directly, you should consider running Cuprisorb for awhile.

If you move fish to a QT, then the ich parasites in your DT won't have any fish to feed on so they will eventually die. To get rid of ich in a DT, run it without fish (ie running it fallow) for 6weeks.

I'd treat for at least 4wks.

 

[rdefino]

I don't think this many fish could make it in a 75gal quarantine. So I'm thinking of treating the entire display tank. I have about 350lbs of live rock in the display and sump. I also have chaeto in the sump. Will the chaeto survive the copper?

How much Lr should I leave in the display tank and sump?

Also can I continue to run my skimmer while treating?

Thanks for all the help. Any other thoughts would be great.

thanks