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View Full Version : Substrate in hospital tank


martym
02-06-2004, 11:47 PM
Should I use any or leave it bare?

EmilyB
02-06-2004, 11:51 PM
Hospital tank - meaning you will be medicating - bare.

QT tank - I take to mean a place to put new fish to observe. My QT tank is like a little reef tank.

So, if you can't do both, you should possibly be prepared to treat the fish if you are prone to doing that kind of thing, which I personally am not.. :biggrin:

martym
02-07-2004, 12:00 AM
Unfortunatly, it is going to be medicated. The kick ick isn't going very well. I'm going to remove the fish from the main tank and medicate them there(HP tank). After 6 weeks I'll return them to the main tank, then I would like to start a seahorse/refugium in the HP tank.
I would also like not to have to medicate, but Nemo got the best of me and I don't have a QT so it effected the rest of the tank.

Buccaneer
02-07-2004, 12:32 AM
If it's Ick you are trying to get rid of then why not try hyposalinity first ? ... give the fish a freshwater bath then put in the QT tank and slowly drop the salinity to 1.009 ( over a few days ) and leave it there for 4 - 5 weeks ... then slowly raise the salinity back to 1.026 ( or whatever is normal in your tank ) ... Saltwater Ick cannot survive low salinity ... your display tank will be without any hosts ( fish ) so whatever ick was left behind will die in there also.

Cheers

martym
02-07-2004, 12:56 AM
The fresh water dip has always concerned me. I hate to stress the fish out like that. Leaving it there until it is in distress then pulling it out doesn't appeal to me. I would need to do that to 3 fish.
How long does ick live without its host?

EmilyB
02-07-2004, 01:01 AM
Up to six weeks.

As a tang keeper, I don't fear ick anymore and treat with nutrition and water quality, and a little garlic.

But severe cases do require attention - if it were me I'd do the hypo, I've done it and it is slick. Skip the FW bath imo, it is stressful and CAN kill your fish although clownfish seem to take it exceptionally well.

martym
02-07-2004, 01:21 AM
Emilyb, My yellow tang was the first to show signs of ich after the clown. Maybe i'll give it a try. The clown fish is the worst It is getting into its eyes now.

Beverly
02-07-2004, 01:34 AM
Marty,

To effectively do a hyposalinity, you need a refractometer. The swing arm salinity meters are not accurate enough. Here's a page on the hypo treatment:

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

I would skip the FW dip, and use water from your main tank in your H-tank to reduce stress on your fish. Keep your main tank free of fish for 6 weeks to get rid of the ick there before re-introducing the fish in hospital. You may have to do top ups a few times a day during hypo treatment to maintain the low salinity levels. Watch pH and alk as well since you are dealing with water with about half the normal alk.

On another subject, if you are going to get seahorses, please make sure you get captive bred. Here's the best SH site to do research:

http://www.seahorse.org/

Here's my own pages on our captive bred H. whitei seahorses:

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/hh-bw-28gal-whitei.htm

More seahorse pages and a gallery of seahorse feeding stations:

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/hippocampushaven.htm

HTH :smile:

martym
02-07-2004, 02:33 AM
Bev, I always try to get captive bred. Not always possible though. Thanks for the great links :smile: I don't have a refractometer so would I be better off going for one of the copper based medications?

EmilyB
02-07-2004, 02:42 AM
martynm, if the clown has it on his eyes, I would do the dip. Equalize temp and pH. JMHO. Use an airstone in there as well and watch for signs of obvious stress.

Bob I
02-07-2004, 02:45 AM
I am sick and tired of hearing about ick. There is only one cure, and that is TIME. If your system is old enough you will not get ick period. I have not seen ick in years, why,? because my system is old enough. I have no QT tank or hospital tank. I have purchased about four new fish recently from some of the worst disease purveyors here in Calgary. They went directly into my tanks. No ick, no disease period. Why :question: because my systems are old enough. Believe it folks, it works. :rolleyes:

martym
02-07-2004, 03:00 AM
Old tanks just magically appear do they.

Bob I
02-07-2004, 03:41 AM
Old tanks just magically appear do they.

Yes of course they magically appear IN TIME. TIME is your friend. I my experience (and that includes a lot of diseased, dead fish), it does seem like magic. Nowadays I would not dream of putting a fish into a tank that is not at least six months old, But I am offering this advice from EXPERIENCE. I do not care one bit if you listen to me or to the skimming, water changing folks. The only thing that matters is happy disease free animals. :rolleyes:

martym
02-07-2004, 04:14 AM
My tank is 8 months old. 75g with only 3 fish

aussiefishy
02-07-2004, 04:17 AM
if you intended to use medicine in hospital tank, substrate is not a good idea because the argonite tend s to absorbs the medicine, especially copper.

Buccaneer
02-07-2004, 07:26 AM
A freshwater bath is not going to directly kill a fish but give instant relief from the parasites already clinging to the fish which in fact are stressing out the fish... if a fish dies from a freshwater bath IMO then it was doomed to begin with ... as to hyposalinity it is probably the least stressfull method of ensuring the ick is eliminated ( Copper is rumoured to damage the intestinal tract of fish ) A refractometer is I think essential to this hobby or at the very least regularly check your swingarm hydrometer against a Refractometer ... maybe we should at our reef meetings ensure that there is at least one calibrated Refractometer for those that want to check their swingarm hydrometers.


I have a foxface that every now and then gets cloudy eyes and the occasional spot ... no other fish in the tank gets spots or cloudy eyes ... I feed garlic with their nori every other day and recently started sprinkling their mysis shrimp with Beta Glucan to improve their immune system ...

Although a stable old tank would be ideal it is not always feasable and alternate methods need to be explored.

Cheers

Beverly
02-07-2004, 01:15 PM
I am sick and tired of hearing about ick. There is only one cure, and that is TIME. If your system is old enough you will not get ick period.

Bob, I respectfully have to disagree on your statement. Have done some serious reading over the past few months on the subjects of ick and velvet, and what you say is not correct.

Have kept fw and marine tanks since 1998. Have QT-ed very few fish and have had no ick or other parasitic or bacterial problems in that time, until recently. Feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the nitrogen cycle and am getting better at understanding marine tank chemistry, but am still an utter chemistry dummy in the grand scheme of those who are chemists.

Since 1998, have kept everything from a 110g indoor goldfish pond, a 180g oscar tank, a 2.5 gal sexy shrimp pico reef, a 75g mixed soft/sps/lps reef (our first reef) that was eventually upgraded to a 180g, a 33g reef, and pretty much everything in between. Have moved around a lot over the past 10 years, so have never kept any tanks for over 2 years.

Back in Mar/03, we set up our first major tank since our latest move, our 42g hex. Put in 3" of aragonite substrate, NSW, ~40 lbs of cured LR. Waited a week or two for the thing to go through a mini-cycle, then put in a few fish and corals. Wrote about about my quick set up on this board and got ROYALLY blasted by several people for my total stupidity and ignorance :eek:

In the 42g, did not experience any algae blooms, ammonia spikes, dead corals or sick fish, though it would certainly have been prudent to quarantine the fish before introducing them to the tank.

Now, my 72g has been a different story. 3" aragonite sandbed, ~80 lbs LR, 3 months of curing and cycling before adding fish or corals. Once the tank was cycled, put in a posse of snails and began feeding the tank in preparation for the eventual addition of fish. At 3 months, put in some corals and fish. All the fish died within a month of velvet. Shoulda QT-ed them, which would have made treating them for velvet possible.

Waited 6-8 weeks before adding more fish to the tank, to make sure all velvet was gone. Added more fish without QT-ing. One of them had one itty bitty ick spot on it that I did not see until it was in the tank, and the tank got ick. Am still battling ick in the 72g and my H-tank is taking forever to cycle :confused:

Anyway, if a tank has not had fish in it before and no parasites have been inadvertently brought in on corals or mobile inverts, then ick, velvet or similar parasites will not become a problem. Ick and velvet have specific life cycles. When they hatch from the cyst phase of their life cycle and there are no fish to attach to, they die. Plain and simple. Young tank or old one.

If a fish becomes stressed for some reason, it will not get ick unless ick has been introduced to the tank. Stress is not a trigger for parasitic invasions unless the parasite has been introduced to the tank. That's why QT-ing new fish is so important. If new fish have parasites, the parasites won't be spread to the rest of the fish in the display tank, but can be treated in the Qtank.

Sorry for the long post. I'll get off my soapbox now :agrue:

martym
02-07-2004, 02:13 PM
Well said Beverly. There is anouther comment I would like to add but won't
Thanks for all the info and ideas everyone.

Bob I
02-07-2004, 04:32 PM
I realise the statement "sick and tired" is too strong for most people's sensibilities. It found its way into the post after testing a certain amount of wine to see if it was aged enough. The well aged tank, and the fact I never introduce store water into my syastems have worked well for me. I would also urge people who have disease problems to read this.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/eb/index.htm

In particular Myth #15. The whole series is well worth reading. :mrgreen:

Megalodon
02-24-2004, 10:12 PM
I'm a little reckless and rely on my fish winning the ick immunity challenge. Good water quality and a great diet tend to help out with this. If my tank ever had an outbreak I would do the six-week fishless tank thing while medicating the fish separately. I haven't had to do that yet but we'll see.

BCOrchidGuy
02-25-2004, 02:13 AM
So is the wine aged enough?

Marty, if you want to use a copper based medication I'd really recommend SeaChems Cupramine I believe it's much safer to use on your fish. The fresh water dip thing is a good idea, again Seachem makes a marine buffer and if you use it you can set your pH pretty well on the button. Ich (supposedly) is present in most if not all tanks, once a fish is weakened the Ich can gain a foothold. Tangs are especially susceptable to Ich.

Doug

Buccaneer
02-25-2004, 05:25 AM
Ich (supposedly) is present in most if not all tanks, once a fish is weakened the Ich can gain a foothold.
Doug

Based on what research exactly ?


Always thought that ich had a specific cycle and if a host was not present then the ich would die ( hence not be in that tank anymore )

BCOrchidGuy
02-25-2004, 03:00 PM
Steve, yes that seems to be a popular train of thought but think about this, you've got 5 healthy fish in your tank, drop the temp 10 degrees, and they get ich, where did that ich come from? As far as research, hmm I guess it depends on who and what you read.

Doug

Aquattro
02-25-2004, 03:08 PM
Doug, gotta agree with you on this. I've gone forever without ich and then if something stressful happens, my tang will stat developing ich again. Luckily she gets over it with a bit af garlic. But I've gone 8 months between ich outbreaks and nothing new was added to the tank.

Buccaneer
02-25-2004, 03:43 PM
Well Brad ... IMO your tang never got rid of the ich in the first place ... maybe only one or 2 that you might not notice ... even in the gills where you cant see it ... but being healthy the ich does not take a stronghold till he gets stressed and then boom ... they break out

If the fish are healthy I think you can have ich in your tank and they can deal with it but the best situation would be to eliminate it altogether so they can deal with a little stress ( our hands in the tank for instance )

Cheers

BCOrchidGuy
02-25-2004, 04:43 PM
Steve, that's the point Brad and I were trying to make. The ich is always there, healthy fish don't succumb to it though. Stress your fish and the parasite will grow quickly. You can take a sterile tank and put a fish in there and the fish will develop Ich if it's stressed that means the fish carry the ich. So yes, your fish never get rid of it, yes it can die off in a tank but as soon as another fish goes into that tank it brings ich in with it. So, when I said it's present in most if not all tanks I mean tanks with fish. That being said, once a parasite dies it may leave behind an egg/cyst that can be dormant until a new host picks it up. I'm not sure how long that cyst can lay dormant with Ich.
Just a final thought, yes you can bleach, copper treat, bake your tank in an oven etc to get rid of ich out of a tank with no fish but as soon as you add a fish, you've got Ich in that tank.

Doug

Aquattro
02-25-2004, 04:49 PM
Doug, exactly. I didn't suggest my tang got rid of it. I merely stated that after 8 months of no visible signs of ich, and no new additions to the tank, ich was still present in the system. Whether it was in the gills or hiding ina snail shell, I don't know. But it is in the system and short of bleaching the system and treating everthing with coppoer, I believe it will always be there. It just isn't anything I worry about unless I can see it.

BCOrchidGuy
02-25-2004, 04:54 PM
Brad yes exactly, I believe the Ich can live on coral or like you say on a snails shell etc. The only way to keep a tank an not have ich would be to not add water, live rock, corals, fish, inverabrates etc...

That being said, have you given any thought to that thread about water temperature and rapid tissue loss? I'm thinking of trying to aim for 78 degrees for my tank temp on the new tank.

Doug

Buccaneer
02-25-2004, 05:10 PM
My point is that I dont think all fish carry ich ! ... a healthy fish can deal with it ... it is proven scientifically that ich has a specific cycle and if it is broken the ich will die ... because we all dont get rid of ich in our systems does not mean that it is a impossible task ... I believe that if a tank is left fallow for 4 to 6 weeks and the fish put in hyposalinity the cycle will be broken for good ... the problem is when we get a new fish or coral we have to be meticulous to QT them so as to not introduce ich back to the system. For most of us this would be a daunting task as that would mean a Fish QT tank with it's own filtration and yet another QT tank for corals as well with seperate filtration :eek:

Aquattro
02-25-2004, 05:12 PM
have you given any thought to that thread about water temperature and rapid tissue loss? Doug

Not sure which thread that is....

Aquattro
02-25-2004, 05:24 PM
... I believe that if a tank is left fallow for 4 to 6 weeks and the fish put in hyposalinity the cycle will be broken for good ...

In regards to this, my concern is why do I care? Since my tank has seen 8 dots of ich in as many months, isn't your suggestion a lotof work for not a lot of return? I know, the level of return is relative, but really, I wouldn't empty my tank of fish for 6 weeks while soaking them in fresh water. That would be more stress than they could ever experience in the main tank. JMO.

Buccaneer
02-25-2004, 05:54 PM
In regards to this, my concern is why do I care? Since my tank has seen 8 dots of ich in as many months, isn't your suggestion a lotof work for not a lot of return? I know, the level of return is relative, but really, I wouldn't empty my tank of fish for 6 weeks while soaking them in fresh water. That would be more stress than they could ever experience in the main tank. JMO.

I guess you dont care ... if you have seen 8 dots then maybe it is not problematic in your eyes ...hyposalinity is no more stressfull on fish than having a parasite attached to it ... this discussion is not whether you care if your Tang has 8 dots of ich every now and then ... it was the blanket statement that every tank with fish in it has ich which is not true

What lengths we will go through to get rid of it ( or not ) is up to the individual

BCOrchidGuy
02-26-2004, 12:09 AM
Steve, I believe the "Blanket" statement was most of not all tanks have ich and I still believe that to be correct.

Doug