Trying to form battle plan with ICH

[Swift_B_D]

Let me start off by saying that I have done quite a bit of searching on the topic over the last couple days. I am sorry to post something that is prominent on the forums but at this point I've decided I need to ask a couple very specific questions I cannot find answers to so I can take care of this ASAP. If you want to skip my tank backs tory and info just skip this section and read questions below it.

The back story to my tank is as follows:

This is my first reef tank. 4 months ago I acquired a 90 gallon reef tank through a co-worker who's father no longer was physically/mentally/financially able to keep it any longer. He had been in the hobby for many years. The tank I got was established for aprox 5 years before I got it and it was full of live rock he had personally dove for at various places around the globe. It also had 6 fish; 1 yellow tang, 2 anemone fish, and 3 damsels. The soil quality always seemed iffy at best and my outbreak begins with a couple of factors. First off, my anemone fish started to do the digging thing. Dig down till they hit bottom. Now the problem with this is that there are layers of muck. Light fluffy bad particle layers of mucky grey. Second, I got a new fish (pearlscale butterfly) to counteract too many featherdusters. I did not QT this fish. Because I am stupid. This is my first reef tank run and that's the only mark I'll give towards this choice. I read about QT and I took the risk and it wound up worst case. I will never do this again. The new fish developed ICH and it has spread to the others.

>>My questions>>

*If I do not have inverts or corals in my tank can I do hyposalinity to rid the tank of the ICH?

*Is it absolutely necessary to remove the infected fish from the 90 gallon to treat them, or is there some way to treat them in the main tank?

*If I do have to remove them and place them in a new tank what are the bare essentials to keep 7 fish alive in a 30 gallon tank? Or is that even possible?

Again sorry to :deadhorse1: on this topic but I am having a real bad time finding out these specific questions 100% and I need to get a plan together and take care of business right away. I do not have a ton of money, so I am trying to weigh my options to the advantage of the fish and my bank account. I'm pretty sure I will downsize to a 30 gallon after I get through this ordeal as that fits my price bracket better. Thanks guys : )

 

[Mrscribbled]

I personally do not care for hyposalinity. There is great room for error in keeping the the s.g. right at 1.oo8. It also seems there are hypo resistant strains of ich. Keeping the ph above 8.0 is very difficult and your clownfish won't tolerate the hypo well. Performing hypo on a display tank will require great deal of daily water changes which will cost money. You'll also ruin your nice coraline algae covered rock.


Your fish should be fine in a thirty gallon tank giving proper bio filtration. I like to use sponge filters ran by a large air pump. If you have any plastic bio media already in your system you can transfer it to the hospital tank and/or use instant ocean bio spira to seed the tank with nitrifying bacteria. Purchase abottle of cupramine and a copper test kit and slowly over several days get the copper to a therapudic level. An ammonia alert badge or seachem ammonia test kit will also be needed. Provide some pvc fittings for hiding spots and make sure the main display is fishless for12 weeks.

You could also move all the sand and rock into the 30 gallon and medicate the 90, once treatment is done use poly filters to remove the copper.

 

[gone fishin]

Mrscribbled covered it pretty well. The only thing I might add is if you are not happy with your sand I believe now would be a good time to swap it out since the tank will be fallow for 12 weeks. Good luck

 

[MrTuskfish]

I personally do not care for hyposalinity. There is great room for error in keeping the the s.g. right at 1.oo8. It also seems there are hypo resistant strains of ich. Keeping the ph above 8.0 is very difficult and your clownfish won't tolerate the hypo well. Performing hypo on a display tank will require great deal of daily water changes which will cost money. You'll also ruin your nice coraline algae covered rock.


Your fish should be fine in a thirty gallon tank giving proper bio filtration. I like to use sponge filters ran by a large air pump. If you have any plastic bio media already in your system you can transfer it to the hospital tank and/or use instant ocean bio spira to seed the tank with nitrifying bacteria. Purchase abottle of cupramine and a copper test kit and slowly over several days get the copper to a therapudic level. An ammonia alert badge or seachem ammonia test kit will also be needed. Provide some pvc fittings for hiding spots and make sure the main display is fishless for12 weeks.

You could also move all the sand and rock into the 30 gallon and medicate the 90, once treatment is done use poly filters to remove the copper.

Good Plan! BTW, the ich came with your tank; it just didn't materialize out of thin air. Only ich causes ich.

 

[Swift_B_D]

I personally do not care for hyposalinity. There is great room for error in keeping the the s.g. right at 1.oo8. It also seems there are hypo resistant strains of ich. Keeping the ph above 8.0 is very difficult and your clownfish won't tolerate the hypo well. Performing hypo on a display tank will require great deal of daily water changes which will cost money. You'll also ruin your nice coraline algae covered rock.


Your fish should be fine in a thirty gallon tank giving proper bio filtration. I like to use sponge filters ran by a large air pump. If you have any plastic bio media already in your system you can transfer it to the hospital tank and/or use instant ocean bio spira to seed the tank with nitrifying bacteria. Purchase abottle of cupramine and a copper test kit and slowly over several days get the copper to a therapudic level. An ammonia alert badge or seachem ammonia test kit will also be needed. Provide some pvc fittings for hiding spots and make sure the main display is fishless for12 weeks.

You could also move all the sand and rock into the 30 gallon and medicate the 90, once treatment is done use poly filters to remove the copper.

^^Thanks so much for the feedback guys. One more quick question. I read somewhere that I can use water from my sick tank and put it into my QT tank. Currently the QT is empty of water. Can I use water from my 90 in my QT 30 to get this ball rolling? Or will that defeat the whole purpose of the transfer? I don't really have time to wait for brand new water to be adjusted for fish. What is the best bet here?

 

[Mrscribbled]

Use current water.

 

[MrTuskfish]

I assume you just want to use the DT water because it has the same parameters; many folks think using "old' water will cycle the QT tank, it doesn't work that way. You need a plan to deal with ammonia in the QT. Well-seeded filter media from the DT is ideal.

 

[wooden_reefer]

Well-seeded filter media from the DT is ideal.

Ideal as the "seed".

Ideally, for use in QT you need ammonia to grow bacteria for QT. You need to grow the bacteria with ammonia, circulation in a separate container, which can be the QT.

Do you think your DT has build-in spare nitrification bacteria? In the long run, the bioload in DT need the bacteria in DT.

There are marginal considerations that make robbing bacteria in the DT to work fairly well often enough. If the bioload in QT is much smaller than that in DT, some brief period of small robbing can be overcome with restrictive feeding or stopping overfeeding.

Just using the seed for DT for QT without deliberately growing additional bacteria is not ideal, in fact, chancy.