Thoughts on what to do about ich

[xxxbadfishxxx]

First a little back story, I have a 120 gallon and a 15 gallon all tied into same sump. 4-5 years ago when I was less experienced I did not QT at all, I eventually got ich when I introduced a powder blue tang. The outbreak couldn't have happened at a worse time, 2 weeks before vacation and my friend who was taking care of my fish was not a hobbyist and didn't want to put him thru taking care of fish in hyposalinity or copper. I decided to pull my clowns as they only had minor signs and wanted to save them the most, they ended up dying in QT . For the remaining fish in the tank I just fed twice a day with garlic xtreme, dosed tank with garlic extreme, bought a 36 watt uv sterilizer, and did 35 gallon water changes every other day for two weeks and everyone kicked the ich and lived, some until this day. The powder blue eventually died but not from ich.


Fast forward 4 years, no outbreaks, I buy a powder brown and QT him for 2 months. Put him in display and he gets ich within a few days (yes I know it's been in my system all along). Powder brown has always eaten good and without the tell take signs of white spots you would think he is totally fine (no heavy breathing, flashing, loss of appetite). He has had ich for around a month now. Now one of my black ice clowns has a little, and two Picasso clowns in other tank on same system show some spots.

I am going to get a new UV bulb because other one is a few years old.

My options are

1) increase feeding, water changes, leave everyone as is and see if they kick it. A stress free healthy fish is an ich free happy fish. My scopas shows no signs at all, he is the aggressor. Set up QT tanks and have them ready for if it gets really bad.

2) pull everyone and treat with hyposalinity. This will require two seperate QT tanks because of clowns and also tank tear down to get my yellow watchman out

3) same as #2 but use cupramine treatment instead of hyposalinity.

Here's a video of my picassos, kind of hard to make out the ich. Looking for opinions/suggestions.


<a href="http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/typesjeff/?action=view&current=2E3B2BF1-4249-4312-AAA8-EA50FC5BF6B2-2755-000001F3B1C696AB.mp4" target="_blank"><img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/typesjeff/2E3B2BF1-4249-4312-AAA8-EA50FC5BF6B2-2755-000001F3B1C696AB.mp4" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[MrTuskfish]

Treat fish in a QT with Cupramine and leave DT fishless for 12 weeks.

 

[rc4kinu]

I had the same dilemma regarding goby. No outbreak of ich but knew it was in DT. Instead of tearing down DT and risk coral dying, to catch goby, I waited until the goby died of old age. It took a year but now I'm treating my fish in hypo in QT and keeping DT fallow.