prepping to treat ich

[2t2_crash]

well after reading much from here i am ready to treat my fish for ich.
my porcupine fish has a SEVERE case of it, while my sgt major, two blue damsels and my cleaner fish so only a couple spots or in the case of the cleaner non.

Would a 10 gallon tank suffice to house all these fish? I plan on doing a daily 100% water change in the hospital tank using natural sea water (I live 5 minutes from the beautiful okinawa beaches).

I feed the fish frozen brine shrimp and the puffer life hermit crabs (I bust them out the shell) how am I supposed to soak that in garlic?

 

[2t2_crash]

all setup
they are all in a barebones 15gal tank with a small powerhead with air intake and a hood w/light. I live by the sea on Okinawa so a daily water change will be the routine plus four days of treatment using an ich medicine supplied by the LFS... communication is always fun.

the main tank will sit by it's lonesome for a month to a month and a half with the inverts.. I have two skunk cleaner shrimp, a peppermint shrimp, brittle starfish, anemone, 4 or 5 hermits, many small crabs and at least a dozen bumblebee snails that will continue their cleaning of the tank.

 

[kevin2000]

What medication are you planning on using? Copper and hypo salinity are the two popular effective treatments and both take considerably longer than 4 days.

 

[2t2_crash]

I couldnt tell yah, it's all written in Japanese Kangi.

http://members.aol.com./kinkoubsn/

it's quite possible that the communications hurdles lead to a misunderstanding by my wife. She says the guy knew what she meant as soon as she said Ich.. the kid knows a little bit of English.

 

[kevin2000]

Heres a link that discusses ich and how to treat with copper or hyposalinity - may come in handy.

If you can get your hands on a decent hydrometer or a refractometer you might consider using hyposalinity - is easy to implement, easy on the fish, and effective at eliminating ich.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

 

[2t2_crash]

whoops, four cycles, not four days

 

[paulamrein]

I wouldn't use anything I couldn't read the directions on it. Get a translator to read the box or talk with you at the lfs. I've always been a fan of hypo myself. Not really comfortable with copper.

 

[2t2_crash]

puffer is eating and looks much better

 

[2t2_crash]

will the main tank be alright without a skimmer for a while? I have the skimmer in the hospital tank for now... I figure the fish are tearing it up, not the main tank

 

[sugartooth]

I would be careful about using copper with puffers, they are sensitive to copper. Go with hypo.

 

[2t2_crash]

I am using the hypo and also just waiting for the stuff to die in a substrate less tank. Puffer is doing 10x better, the stuff isn't hanging all over him, his eyes arent cloudy and he is moving much more.


my main concern now is should I put the skimmer on the main tank and do frequent water changes in the hos tank (remember I have an unlimited supply of clean ocean water) or leave the skimmer on the hos tank.

or just bounce it back and forth.

PS, thanks for all the help too!

 

[guardrail]

if your doing 100% water changes a day you shouldnt really need a skimmer unless where you are pulling water from is like a shipping port or busy waterway...

 

[kevin2000]

You don't need a skimmer in a QT .. further make sure you don't "bounce back" equipment between the QT and the show tank -- a QT is an isolation tank.

 

[AquaKnight]

One more thing is your skimmer should be nearly not working/a lot less effective in the hypo water.... If it's still working strong, I would test the salinty of the water with something else.