Need help! Ich - treat or don't treat?

[mcowan]

I have a 55 gallon saltwater tank - I've been building it for the last month or so. First I got a canarytop wrasse and a chalk bass. About two weeks ago I added two clowns and a coral beauty. Just noticed last week that the coral beauty has ich - but only 2 or 3 white spots. Besides the wrasse flashing from time to time there have been no symptoms with the other fish. All of the fish are eating and swimming normally and seem happy (the coral beauty eats like crazy and loves the algae in my tank!)

Should I treat my tank in any way or should I just try to keep the water clean to reduce stress and hope that it will go away? I have a protein skimmer, small HOB filter, and a canister filter and I feed them half a block of frozen brine shrimp four days a week and I have a **** load of live rock. Did a water change two weeks ago and planning to do another one today as well (a 10% water change every other week is good right? or is that too often?)

Suggestions?

 

[JustinM]

I am pro QT and prophylactically treat everything so I would say treat your fish, all of your fish. You would need to remove them to a QT though. Do not do this in your DT.

 

[mcowan]

Thanks - how would you recommend treating them? I read about hyposalinity being really effective but I'm nervous it will stress them out too much.

 

[Dmorty217]

I am a fan of chloroquine phosphate if not treating wrasse for ich

 

[JustinM]

Being that you have a wrasse, you can not use CP and some wrasses can be sensitive to ionic copper. I would recommend a chelated copper like coppersafe. Your other fish should handle it fine.

They will need pulled out of the display tank and treated in a QT. Also, make sure to let your tank run fallow for 76 days.

 

[Jdub968]

+1 with justin I cannot stress this enough all coral beauties will get something I have never seen a coral beauty without ick and I've seen quite a few new arrivals. I don't know why they are so prone to ick but they are. I would also use cu over hypo or ttm it treats more

 

[lagatbezan]

I would also vote to treat instead of living with it. You can try to manage it but sooner or latter there is always a chance of an outbreak.
You can also do ttm. that will get rid of ich in 13 days and you can use the rest of the time to observe them since your dt needs to be fishless for a min 72 days anyway. I personally don't like using copper on most fish specially angels unless it's necessary. This way You can treat ich with no chemicals. That's just my opinion.
I would also do 2-3 rounds of prazipro to treat for flukes. Angels are notorious for them. But be careful since some wrasses unfortunately don't handle it very well.

 

[JustinM]

Angles are definitely very prone to flukes so I would also prazipro for sure. A majority of the prazi is useless after 24 hours so you can dose, wait 24 hours and do a water change and run carbon if your wrasse reacts poorly to it.

 

[mcowan]

OK thanks so much for the help everyone!

The fish all continue to appear healthy right now (eating, swimming around actively) and the two white spots from the coral beauty are gone. The only fish showing symptoms is the wrasse which still flashes once in a while.

I'm new to this so just to be sure, fallow means no fish in the tank at all right? Do I have to remove the water from the DT as well?

What is a ttm?

I don't have a quarantine tank set up right now - do I have to set that up first and let it run for a few days? I'm also guessing I would have to get new live rock for that tank and I wouldn't be able to use the live rock from the old one? Would 10 gallons be too small for a quarantine tank for these 5 fish for 76 days? I am really worried about stressing out the fish by transitioning them into the quarantine tank if it's not properly set up or cycled. I worry that the transition to a 10 gal poorly set up QT will kill them, not the ich!! =/

 

[Jdub968]

Fallow for ick is 76 days and that means no fish everything else can remain in the tank including inverts. During the fallow period you will want to feed the inverts and tank to keep your biological filter alive as well. Ttm means tank transfer method it is a treatment option for ick only you can look it up make sure to fallow it to a T. If used.
A qt needs to be large enough to house all your fish so use your judgement on tank size if you have 5 fish I think you should consider at least 20 gal if not larger. It just depends on your fish size. A qt is set up bare bottom with some pvc elbows for hiding spots, a heater , and I like to have and air stone for added O2 when medicating,you will need a sponge filter (a large one) the sponge filter can either attach to a hang on the back filter intake or can be powered with an air stone get some bottled bacteria and seed the sponge filter with it this will kick off a nitrogen cycle. If you do this you can add fish right away however I would continue to dose bacteria until you filter is strong enough to handle the load. Here's some bacteria brands that work fine ( bio spira, dr times one and only,sea Chen stability,dr foster and smith live beneficial bacteria,) I've used all these they work good.
Lastly your rock will be fine leave it in the DT during the fallow period. Do not share anything between tanks nets pumps ect.