What to do, what to do?

[marie]

Here's my dilemma, as some of you know Doofus has ich and the plan is to treat him (and the rest of the fish) before being transfered into his new quarters.
I can treat with cupramine in a hagen 48g (4ft long), that's risky because he won't be happy in such a small tank.
I can empty the 175g of all rock, sand and corals leaving the fish in there and treat with hyposalinity but I risk a big ammonia spike with the die off of whatever inverts get missed in the tank cleanout and doing large (over 50%) water changes would be hard because I can only make up 60g of new water at a time
Any other options out there that anyone can think of?

[reefgirl189]

You could look into getting a big livestock watering through (whatever they are called) and treat everyone in that at the same time. They have all the way from 50 gal to 300 gal and this way you don't need to contaminate a tank with the medication. I believe you can even rent these from some agricultural and farm supply stores:


http://www.rubbermaidcommercial.com/rcp/products/detail.jsp?categoryCode=agriculture&subCategoryCode=agriculture_stock_tanks&rcpNum=4247&categoryCode_subCategoryCode_rcpNum=agriculture_ag riculture_stock_tanks_4247

[rastaangel]

You could do hypo and use prime to keep ammonia in check, thats what ive always done and its worked so far.

[daplatapus]

If you have access to a couple other small tanks you could do the tank transfer method. I've done this with a couple fish and it seems to work. RC has a thread on it in the fish disease forum. The basic principle works on the life cycle of the parasite. Basically you do this:
Day 1 - fish in QT
Day 4 - in AM, but before tank lights come on, transfer fish to new tank, matching temp and salinity. Transfer as little water as possible. (what I did was siphon out 3/4 of the water and hand catch the fish and gently transfer over to 2nd tank)
Day 7 - repeat
Day 10 - repeat
Day 13 - repeat and done

This tank transfer method interrupts the parasites life stage as they leave the host fish and leaves any parasites behind and you sterilize the tank before setting up for the next transfer. You must sterilize all PVC fittings, heaters, filters power heads, thermometer's etc with mild bleach solution, then rinse and allow to dry thoroughly between transfers.

What's nice about this method is you really don't have to worry too much about nitrate as they aren't in the tank long enough for it to develop. I've done 2 fish at a time in a 20 long and I never even registered ammonia. All I've had is a power head, heater and PVC fitting for them to hide in. Works like a charm.
I tried hypo but could never keep my pH up once my salinity dropped below 1.015 so had to give up on that method for the sake of my fish.