Temporary quarantine tank

[watergator]

I think my fish have ick. I'm going to set up a temporary holding tank with a 44 gallon rubber-maid trash can.

My plan is to use water from the main tank and put it in the trash can. Run a separate pump, light, heater, air stone, and protien skimmer with some old rock pieces in the can. After I add the fish, I'll add some copper in with them to kill the ick on them.

After a month, the ick should be dead in the main tank. I'll dip the fish (to get rid of any copper), and put them back.

Does this sound like a solid plan? Is there any considerations (besides stressing my fish out)?

Any comments are welcome or previous experience with ick in a reef tank...

 

[Andrew]

I would wait at least 4 weeks before putting any livestock back in the main tank. I've never been a fan of copper and prefer to use the hypo method but it's up to you. Skip out on the liverock in the holding tank as well. Just put some pvc pipe in the tank to give the fish a place to hide. Do some research and you'll be fine.

 

[mouscacha]

Do not put any live rock if you're going to use copper. You'll have to toss the rock if you do, as there may be future repercussions.

+1 on the PVC piping.

Hypo is definitely preferred, but if you use copper I agree in doing a FW dip.

 

[watergator]

Is the "Hypo" method simply raising the salinity? I'm not familiar with that. I will do some more research. Right now only my Blue tang and Powder Brown tang have any signs of it...

 

[inthesea]

nothing works best like copper for ick. But thats my opinion.

 

[watergator]

I'll leave out the rock and put pvc instead (I have a bunch of 2" pieces in the garage).

 

[watergator]

Correction, I meant simply lowering Salinity...

 

[engine]

yes, Hypo is lowering the salinity. You want to go no lower than 1.009, but do it slowly over a couple of days. blub blub

 

[jenglish]

As far as running the display fallow, 4 weeks will get many infestations of ich but most suggest 6 weeks. 8 weeks gets 99.9% of cases. You may want to bump up the temp a little bit in your display to get the ich to cycle through faster. You will want to check for ammonia and either salinity or copper (whichever you choose) twice a day. If you go the hypo rate, I don't like to lower it more than .004 at a time and not to raise it more than ,002 at a time (and never more than twice in a day)

either way its a PITA, but totally worth it IMO