ICH- Girlfriend is losing hope in tank

[commodorejoel]

I learned my lesson. I need a quarantine tank.

I have a 150 Gallon aquarium that I tore down when I moved and it is up and going nicely now...with one exception..Ich.

I made the mistake when I was experimenting with my new pumps- Neptune WAV pumps, and turned the flow too high while I was at work and it must have been a typhoon in the tank. Ever since the tank has had ich.

A few months ago I lost a number of fish due to the above situation.

My main concern now is my beautiful YELLOW BELLY BLUE TANG.

Another mistake I made was I bought him after seeing no ich in the tank for two months. I am learning the hard way that Ich is still in the tank.

I do not want to tear all the rock out and I only have a four frags on plugs, a RBTA, and a Orange Sea Star.

I need to save my fish and can then look into purchasing a quarantine before I add anymore fish. I will need time to cycle quarantine tank.

My plan is to maybe find someone local that can keep these for some cash and dose the tank with copper.

If I dose the tank with copper...will this be a problem for the live rock and future of the reef? Anyone local a good fish catcher without tearing apart the rockwork?
Maybe I can catch the tang, maroon clownfish and lubbocks wrasse that are in there and go fishless for two months? This would probably be ideal.

Any help/tips is greatly appreciated. That tang is my favorite fish and I need to save him.

 

[Tommy Ngo]

Yes, your rocks will absorb the cooper and all of the corals will die. Also all of your equipments will have trace of cooper absorbed on it. It'll take forever to get with of the cooper.

Get a cleaner wrasse that will eat the parasite off the tang. Mix the foods with kent garlic extract when feeding.


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[ndrwater]

[MENTION=3047]Adrock[/MENTION] has a good Reef safe remedy. You might PM him to get the recipe

 

[Tommy Ngo]

[MENTION=3047]Adrock[/MENTION] has a good Reef safe remedy. You might PM him to get the recipe

There's a thread that he had posted awhile back ago.

 

[ndrwater]

And here it is..

http://www.socalireefs.com/forums/s...ch-remedy-preventative-Cocktail-my-own-recipe

 

[russ13]

I have dealt with this a few times. You can try the food methods I help build there immune system . Ich can be in your tank for a long time and you just don't notice it. Only way to complete get rid of it is to pull the fish and let the tank run for a month(I think that's how long). If there are no fish in the system tye ich will cycle out and die. I think that's how it works. Correct me if I'm wrong. Have you tried making a fish trap???

 

[Justkeepswimming]

I have dealt with this a few times. You can try the food methods I help build there immune system . Ich can be in your tank for a long time and you just don't notice it. Only way to complete get rid of it is to pull the fish and let the tank run for a month(I think that's how long). If there are no fish in the system tye ich will cycle out and die. I think that's how it works. Correct me if I'm wrong. Have you tried making a fish trap???

72 days.

 

[russ13]

72 days.

wow that's a long time. I would be willing to bet it's in a lot of people's tank and they don't even know. It can latch on around the gills and you won't see it.

 

[Justkeepswimming]

wow that's a long time. I would be willing to bet it's in a lot of people's tank and they don't even know. It can latch on around the gills and you won't see it.

The 72 days is based off of this study.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa164

 

[Coelli]

wow that's a long time. I would be willing to bet it's in a lot of people's tank and they don't even know. It can latch on around the gills and you won't see it.

100% correct. I have 14 fish that have never showed any signs of ich. When I converted some freshwater mollies to salt and added them to the connected display fuge they started getting sick within a couple of days. The two survivors have been okay since then but the first batch of babies had some spots. Most of them survived and now (at about 2 months old) they have a spot now and then but seem to be resistant. Those mollies were seriously canaries in the coal mine, I never would have known there's ich in the tank otherwise.

 

[WayneL333]

So here's the thing that sucks for reef tank. even if you keep your tank fallow for 72 days and perform the tank transfer method for all new fish, you can still unknowly introduce ich into your system by adding new corals if those corals came from another system that had ich.

I litterlly have 4 separate systems - My main reef tank, a separate shallow reef system which I keep fish-less so I can QT all new corals for 72 days, and a separate fish only system that I observe fish after I perform TTM. I observe them because I want to make sure I performed TTmwithout any mistakes and unfortunately, there are a lot more scarier diseases and parasites out there than ich!

 

[watchguy123]

So here's the thing that sucks for reef tank. even if you keep your tank fallow for 72 days and perform the tank transfer method for all new fish, you can still unknowly introduce ich into your system by adding new corals if those corals came from another system that had ich.

I litterlly have 4 separate systems - My main reef tank, a separate shallow reef system which I keep fish-less so I can QT all new corals for 72 days, and a separate fish only system that I observe fish after I perform TTM. I observe them because I want to make sure I performed TTmwithout any mistakes and unfortunately, there are a lot more scarier diseases and parasites out there than ich!

+1

Ich doesn't always kill, and there are many other diseases or pests much worse.

Sometimes it's important to determine if all the parameters in the tank are optimal. Fish should have a pretty tough immune response

 

[commodorejoel]

Thank you everyone for your comments. I purchased a quarantine tank over the weekend and I ripped out all my rock work last night to catch my fish. I am going the fishless route in display tank for 72 days. I am dosing cupramine right now in the quarantine tank and have to keep checking ammonia.

 

[gonumber24]

Thank you everyone for your comments. I purchased a quarantine tank over the weekend and I ripped out all my rock work last night to catch my fish. I am going the fishless route in display tank for 72 days. I am dosing cupramine right now in the quarantine tank and have to keep checking ammonia.

This is probably you're best way to take care of the situation. I've had to deal with ich a few times in the past, and this is the best way.

 

[theMerchant]

Thank you everyone for your comments. I purchased a quarantine tank over the weekend and I ripped out all my rock work last night to catch my fish. I am going the fishless route in display tank for 72 days. I am dosing cupramine right now in the quarantine tank and have to keep checking ammonia.

I just went through the same thing with my tank. I was also running a UV light to kill the ick when it was fallow. As for the QT tank you can get a ammonia alert like this from seachem

http://www.marinedepot.com/Seachem_...water_Aquariums-Seachem-SC4111-FITKAM-vi.html