Quarantine Help/Question

[phillybean]

I recently got a Hippo Tang and failed to Quarantine her. After 24 hours in the tank, she was covered in ich. I quickly set up a 10 gallon tank, filled it with tank water, added a sponge filter running off a Maxi Jet 400, a heater and a piece of LR. I'd dropped salinity from 1.026 to 1.021 over the past 8 hours and plan to lower it to 1.009 by the end of tomorrow.

My problem seems to be Ammonia. I was hoping that by using Rock and existing water, I would not see a cycle, however my Ammonia readings are currently at 1ppm.

What's causing the cycle?
What can be done about it?
Should I remove the rock?
If not, at what salinity should I remove it?

The fish looks to be getting better, is swimming (was on her side most of yesterday) and the ich doesn't seem as bad as it did this morning.

[marie]

When quarantining I find it helpful to keep a sponge in the sump of the display tank to be ready and "seeded" for when I need it.In your case it is too late so I would do large water changes to keep the ammonia down until the proper bacteria set up house.
The live rock is probably not a good idea because the pods and worms in it can't take the lower salinity and will die, creating more ammonia.

You could also try using Cycle its supposed to contain the bacteria needed to cycle a tank.

Are you quarantining your other fish as well? The display tank should now ideally be kept fishless for the next 6 weeks to kill off any ich in there

[Slick Fork]

A couple of things sort of jump to my mind right away. First, pull the piece of live rock out. The organisms inhabiting it will NOT be able to tolerate the drop to 1.009 so they will die and rot and cause ammonia. The sponge is a good idea, I would take it down to 1.009 a little slower, maybe take 2 days to get there, that will help make the most out of the sponge as it too will become useless at those lower salinities. Unfortunately, you're going to be stuck with a cycle, no two ways about that. You can mitigate with "Prime" and water changes.

Secondly, what other fish do you have in your display? I would consider your whole display infected with Ich at this point, you need to get all the fish out and into either a low salinity treatment like the tang or a copper based treatment tank and leave the display fishless for 6 to 8 weeks. Otherwise the tang will be infected again as soon as it goes back into the tank.

[Slick Fork]

no fair that marie hit submit before I did!

[Lance]

After the hyposalinity treatment is over raise the salinity slowly; fish can handle a drop in salinity much better than a quick rise.

[AndyL]

Couple options... Seachem prime and others detoxify ammonia; that'd be a good place to start.

Believe there's a few resins/media that absorb ammonia - mid term solution if needed.

HTH good luck

[Trigger Man]

If you have other fish in the display and also have a reef setup then I have found No Sick Fish Ick Medication to work well without killing your snail, crabs, coral etc. Like the others have mentioned, Ick is now in the display tank and being that tangs are already high candidates for ick, you risk infecting the hippo tang again if you just put it back into the main tank without treatment. If you have a fish only system then a cooper treatment works fairly well and is a little cheaper.

[phillybean]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I've always had the belief that ich is always in every display and when fish are stressed, they get it. I'm fine with having it in the tank as long as the fish are healthy and have strong immune systems. From the transport from the Wild, from Vancouver to Kelowna and being picked on by another fish, she was highly stressed out. Part of my treatment is to help the Hippo tang's immune system, so if she will be able to fight off the ich in the future. I'll also be removing the "problem" fish for a couple weeks before adding her back to the display.

I spoke to Chris over at Interior Reef and will be picking something up from him to help with the ammonia. I can't remember the name of it, but I think it might be prime. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Thanks Again,

[phillybean]

Oh, I forgot to add the I've also removed the rock.