Looking for advice

[jeff690]

Hi,
I'm looking for some advice regarding my current situation. I am battling a really bad case of ich. I have done many hours of reading regarding various treatments (copper, antibiotics, garlic, hyposalinity. etc.) but I am unsure which one to do right now because I really don't want to stress out my fish any more than I already have. I know I screwed up by not putting them into a qt tank to begin with but I was under the impression it was best to feed them really well with garlic nori and Mysis rather than stress them out in a small qt tank. I've been doing this for 2 weeks and while it seemed they were getting better it now seems that its getting worse. All my fish are fat and for the most part eating but are all covered with spots and breathing a little heavy. No observed aggression. This tank was upgraded from my 28gal nano cube that I have sitting in storage now but was running for 5 years. I transplanted everything from that system on new years day and added some marco rock and aragamax dry sand. Tangs, cleaner shrimp, and more hermits were added 3 weeks ago

My tank specs are:
120 gallon starfire tank 48X24X24
40 gallon breeder sump with 3 sections and 3 filter socks
150 lbs live rock
120 lbs live aragonite sand
Neptune Apex system with WXM, 2 EB8, and AFS modules
Tunze 3155 ATO
Geo 612 calcium reactor
Vertex alpha cone 250 protein skimmer
2 vertex RX-U 1.5 reactors filled halfway with vertex Pro-Bio biopellets
2 Ecotech MP40WES powerheads
2 Ecotech XR30w Gen 3 Pro LED lights
ph 7.9 - 8.1
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
5 nitrate
0 phosphate
1480 magnesium
Alk 10
Calcium 430
all tests done with salifert test kits



My livestock:
2 skunk cleaner shrimp
6 sexy shrimp
2 fire cleaner shrimp
2 pom pom crabs
2 ocellaris clownfish 1.5 inch
1 Powder blue tang 5 inch
1 Chevron tang 3 inch
1 Hippo blue tang 3 inch
1 Diamond goby 4 inch
tank is mostly Zoas with a few mushrooms and a tube anemone



Options available to me:
Leaving them as they are and continue overfeeding
starting up the 28 gal nano cube as a qt
buying a 55gal freshwater system off of kijiji transplating its fish into the nano cube and using it to treat all my fish for 8 weeks while the DT goes fallow
QT with hyposalinity only
QT with cuprimine and possible maracyn 2



As you can see I have invested a lot of time and money into this system and am torn as to which way to go. Right now I am looking for any advice and positive opinions.

Thank you

[Trigger Man]

As always, the best bet would be to qt the fish and add cupramine, however I do worry about that many tangs in such a small qt for that long (I assume you would run a full treatment period). How about moving your shrimp, crabs, zoo's, shrums and tube, to the 28g and then treating the display with cupramine (you could move some sand and rock as well, however I treated a old display tank about your size with about 200 lbs live rock, way back with Cupramine with no long standing effects when I added corals afterwards). Of course run carbon after the treatment to get the medication out.

[jeff690]

As always, the best bet would be to qt the fish and add cupramine, however I do worry about that many tangs in such a small qt for that long (I assume you would run a full treatment period). How about moving your shrimp, crabs, zoo's, shrums and tube, to the 28g and then treating the display with cupramine (you could move some sand and rock as well, however I treated a old display tank about your size with about 200 lbs live rock, way back with Cupramine with no long standing effects when I added corals afterwards). Of course run carbon after the treatment to get the medication out.

Thanks for the reply. my only concern with doing it that way would be if I were to get some really sensitive corals in the future they would die because the copper never comes out of the rock and substrate 100%. When you dosed cupramine in the past did you have tangs? If you did have tangs did they stop eating on you?

[Trigger Man]

I did the copper dosing because of the tangs, at any given time I have had at least 3 tangs in my tanks. The Blue tang would be a bit more hesitant at first. I had all 3 of your tangs and a sohal and a kole for a while.

[daplatapus]

I didn't see any mention of the tank transfer method in your list of "have tried". It's by far the least stressful (IMHO) ways of dealing with ich. And if you understand the life cycle of the cryptocaryon (sp) it's why I think it's also the most successful if you have the gear to do it properly.

[jeff690]

I didn't see any mention of the tank transfer method in your list of "have tried". It's by far the least stressful (IMHO) ways of dealing with ich. And if you understand the life cycle of the cryptocaryon (sp) it's why I think it's also the most successful if you have the gear to do it properly.

I wish I could do that but there's no way I can run 3 tanks at the same time. I worry about the stress of transferring fish all the time.

[daplatapus]

Just to be clear, with the tank transfer, only one of the two will ever be running at any given time, right? Siphoning out water to catch fish quickly thus handling them for maybe less than 30 secs a piece is far easier on them than hypo or copper for days. Their appetite is not affected, so they still get lots of energy during the process.
To be sure, it is a bit of work every 3 days for 2 weeks, but I've never lost a fish to ich since I've started QT'ing this way.
But it is just my preferred method. Just thought I'd throw it out there in case you hadn't considered it.
Good luck :)

[gregzz4]

You mentioned your fish are breathing heavier than normal. Probably due to MI in/on their gills.
Try adding an airstone to saturate the water, and don't overfeed as you'll be putting more load on your bacteria thus depleting more oxygen.

I'll add this ...

Hyposalinity, in my experience, is not stressful on fish.
Rather, it helps them spend more energy healing, and digesting food. This is because they aren't exerting as much energy towards osmoregulation.

It takes longer than the tt method, but if the DT is going to be fallow anyway, there's no harm in my mind. And I prefer not to handle my fish any more than necessary.

Only drawbacks to hypo (for me) are;
- Keeping the hypo pH up. I've solved this issue by using my controller, a pH probe an alk dosing pump. Plus I have an ATO on the QT so it's very stable.
- Keeping the hypo filtration bacteria boosted with a start-up liquid as hypo slows down bacterial metabolism (for lack of the proper terminology).

[daplatapus]

Only drawbacks to hypo (for me) are;
- Keeping the hypo pH up. I've solved this issue by using my controller, a pH probe an alk dosing pump. Plus I have an ATO on the QT so it's very stable.


That's what I had problems with. It was also when I first was starting out with very little experience and I had no controller at the time. So it may totally have been me :redface:

[gregzz4]

So maybe you'll try it again ?
Not likely if you like the tt method now :smile:

[Myka]

I just Googled and you have a PetSmart in Grande Prairie. I'd go there and buy a couple 55-gallon tanks. Split the fish between the tanks. I don't like Cupramine, but since the disease is to progressed, it's probably your best bet (assuming you don't have Chloroquine phosphate as a treatment option). From your description, I would be concerned that both the TT and the hypo treatments (particularly hypo) would take too long.

However, you could try starting TT and if the fish all continue to eat, they should be ok. If that's the case, buy 3 40-gallon tanks. Your Tangs are pretty small, so you should be ok with a smaller tank doing the TT method because you're changing the water. This way you have the fish split between two tanks, and one dry/bleached.

You should buy a SeaChem Ammonia Alert for each tank (don't let it ever dry out), and some Prime or AmQuel. API test kits are compatible with ammonia detoxifiers, Salifert is not. Ammonia is more likely to kill your fish in a QT than the Ich.

In the future, with your fish list, I would strongly recommend a good-sized UV Sterilizer. Aqua UV is a good brand.

[jeff690]

Thank you everyone for all the good advice. I decided to go buy a 50 gallon tank from pet smart and put some cupramine in it. All the fish are in there minus the clowns (RIP) and will continue to be in there for 10 weeks. Keeping my fingers crossed.