pearlscale questions

[mhills16]

Ok, i have a quick question that has been frustrating me for a couple of days. I recently bought two pearlscales, a red and a black, I am sure I could be more specific but I don't feel like looking their species up. Well, they are very, very hyper, like a kid with too much caffeine, it annoys me because they dart around the tank very fast, and have jerky movements, stop and go, and it scares the rest of the fish sometimes. I am beginning to think I do not like these butterflies! Can anyone here second my experience, are these species of butterflies like this? I almost want to take them in and exchange them for something else....................... Well, what do you think? also, when I say it scares the fish, it makes them hide, but, the butterflies are for SURE not being aggressive just crazy hyper LoL!

 

[SDguy]

Butterflies are very susceptible to ich and velvet. Are they flashing or twitching at all? That behavior doesn't sound normal....

 

[mhills16]

yes they are. I have a 12 gallon jbj nano cube, should i treat them in it? and what would you recommend i buy tomorrow to treat them with? ill treat for ich, but, i will not be able to do it until my wife returns from ohio where my tank is next sunday, so they will have to wait a week...... I know how to treat ich, i also know that doing this will not rid my tank from it, but, it will soothe my butterflies and make them happy atleast for now until i can figure something else out. i am deploying very soon and do not have to time to properly quarantine nor do i want my wife to have to deal with an extra tank while i am gone, she is going to have a hard enough time with one, she is so clueless on SW, but i am trying to teach her, lol, i just dont think she has much interest!

 

[mhills16]

well, here we go again lol , ineed to tackle this ich..... man, i just wish there was a way other than 6 weeks with no fish in the DT... to cure it that is... i just cannot do that right now, so, i am lost.... i dont want them to suffer though...my little 12 gallon cannot handle 15 fish while the tank sits lol, wouldnt try it anyways....

 

[limitdown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13267415#post13267415 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mhills16
well, here we go again lol , ineed to tackle this ich..... man, i just wish there was a way other than 6 weeks with no fish in the DT... to cure it that is... i just cannot do that right now, so, i am lost.... i dont want them to suffer though...my little 12 gallon cannot handle 15 fish while the tank sits lol, wouldnt try it anyways....

Since you don't have a suitable QT, you'll need to treat the DT directly. Take our your corals, inverts and most live rock and do hypo or drop in copper.
Else, buy a big enough QT today.

 

[mhills16]

yeah, i know, i just dont understand why only a couple of fish show signs, the other ones are immune i guess, someday someone will make treating ich more easy. it is rediculous we havent yet, there is a way, we just have to find it, and by that i dont mean the reef safe ones they dont work. it will be impossible, completely to remove my inverts! i have over 200, which is mainly my clean up crew......... although if i could catch them, they could all go into the 12 gallon nano cube with some live rock and sand. i will toss that idea around once it gets here. The other problem is i now have 200 lbs + of LR in the DT, so, would i still be able to treat with copper? will the copepr for sure kill the inverts? or is it hit and miss?

 

[mhills16]

hey limitdown, you are very knowledgeable on this subject so I will ask you, in your opinion if I do not treat what will be the outcome? also, because the butterflies are the only ones showing sings, what if I just treat them for a few weeks in the 12 gallon and put them back, do you think they will maybe be immune? I just cant quarantine the entire tank, so, I need to do what I can to make this right, I realize this will not be eliminating the ich, but I will NOT be adding anymore fish, only more live rock, so if I can get the butterflies to be immune that is my goal, well, the rest of the tank is obviously gotten some immunity to it, so, let me know!

 

[limitdown]

From my experience of just leaving the ich there and not treating>the ich parasites all fell off and I thought my fish had all recovered/developed immunity, but within a week, the parasites came back with a vengeance in much greater numbers and infected many of my other fish.

You can't just treat the fish that are showing symptoms because the parasites are all over the tank, hiding in the live rock, sandbed, in the water column, in/on the corals. So you'll need to treat all fish to truly eliminate ich.

If you treat only the butterflies in a QT, it doesn't mean that they'll develop immunity. It's like with humans, just because you treat a person for a parasitic infection like malaria does not necessarily make that human immune to malaria in the future. He could still get it again and again. You have to try to eliminate it from his environment.

Maybe consider getting a cheap 40g (or bigger) rubbermaid bin and setting it up as a QT? You'll only need 1 or 2 pieces of LR, a powerhead and a heater. Then administer copper. Leave your DT fishless for 6wks. Then you can be assured that you kill the ich on your fish and that the ich in your DT will die because they will be without a host. This is the best option.

The second option is move all of your coral and inverts to a QT and use copper or hyposalinity directly in the DT. After treatment, you'll need to run Cuprisorb to remove the copper from your system. Copper in the DT is a bit riskier though.

 

[mhills16]

well the rubbermaid is a pretty good odea, why wouldnt it need a filter though?

 

[limitdown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13273358#post13273358 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mhills16
well the rubbermaid is a pretty good odea, why wouldnt it need a filter though?

Yes, but since you won't have fish in the rubbermaid bin, the amount of filtration required is greatly reduced. You can move most of the live rock from your display, then use a small hang-on-back filter, like the ones we use for freshwater tanks.

 

[mhills16]

yes but in your previous post you had said put the fish in the rubbermaid which might be what i have to do, i dont know if a HOB can handle the bio load of all my fish, i have 15 small ones.....