Plans to rid ich, need advice

[gregzz4]

Besides your losses ... glad to hear it's going well
Sounds like you have a good plan and you should do just fine

Don't forget that you can use things like Ammo Lock or AmGuard if you have a serious issue
Then you can do a WC without freaking out

Don't fret the nitrites you are seeing. Just keep more than one foam in the filter and only rinse them ( one per session ) in old tank water ... unless they become so plugged you have to toss them

What I do in my 20g QT ( Aquaclear 50 ) is rinse the bottom foam and exchange it with the top one
You can do either/or and keep rotating them without losing beneficial bacteria

Keep us updated

[asylumdown]

For posterity's sake, I'll just update this and mention that the hypo didn't work. Or at least my hypo set-up didn't work. After 5 weeks in hypo, and 1.5 weeks in hypo plus paraguard, the purple tang got ich again. I think water from the main display got in to the QT system at some point, and the salinity bumped up a bit.

Fish are all now in the garage getting treated with cupramine.

[sphelps]

With hypo treatments it's my understanding you need a minimum of 4 weeks with no spots then another four weeks with increased salinity to verify the fish is cured. That means holding the fish in hypo for an additional 4 weeks after all ich has disappeared and then another 4 weeks to verify so it's probably minimum 9 week treatment if the fish has ich.

[asylumdown]

yep, that's correct, What I'm saying is that after they had been in hypo for almost 6 weeks (I was extending the hypo period longer so that I could also dose Paraguard in conjunction with hypo at the end), they got ich again. The tang developed spots of ich out of the blue while the salinity was still down in the 1.010 range, after not having had any at all since a few days after the hypo treatment began. So either there was contamination from the DT, which hadn't been fallowed long enough, or the ich had stuck around in the QT system for all that time even with a hypo conditions and the addition of paraguard, or both.

In either case, for me it failed, but there are a bunch of reasons why that could have happened and is not necessarily a problem with the method per se. However, the more reading I do on the interwebs about it, the less I think it's a method that can truly eradicate the parasite for good.

[sphelps]

It's definitely more finicky and not something I would peruse for that reason, 1.010 is too high I think as well, has to be 1.008-1.009 and you'll need something to measure that and be accurate as well which is hard in that range. If the fish are healthy the cupramine is a better option anyway IMO.

[daniella3d]

Your QT was connected to the main tank? how can water from the main tank get into the QT? that should not happen because it will recontaminate the QT and thus the fish. Same way if you put your hands in the main tank and then back into the QT you run the risk of contaminating the fish again.

Hyposalinity work but it must be constantly at 1.009, and if your instrument is out of wack, only one degree can make a difference.

I used hypo a few times and it always worked for me at 100%.

It is imperative to monitor the tank for evaporation so that salinity does not goes yo yo and rise over 1.010.

Originally Posted by asylumdown

yep, that's correct, What I'm saying is that after they had been in hypo for almost 6 weeks (I was extending the hypo period longer so that I could also dose Paraguard in conjunction with hypo at the end), they got ich again. The tang developed spots of ich out of the blue while the salinity was still down in the 1.010 range, after not having had any at all since a few days after the hypo treatment began. So either there was contamination from the DT, which hadn't been fallowed long enough, or the ich had stuck around in the QT system for all that time even with a hypo conditions and the addition of paraguard, or both.

In either case, for me it failed, but there are a bunch of reasons why that could have happened and is not necessarily a problem with the method per se. However, the more reading I do on the interwebs about it, the less I think it's a method that can truly eradicate the parasite for good.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

Your QT was connected to the main tank? how can water from the main tank get into the QT? that should not happen because it will recontaminate the QT and thus the fish. Same way if you put your hands in the main tank and then back into the QT you run the risk of contaminating the fish again.

Hyposalinity work but it must be constantly at 1.009, and if your instrument is out of wack, only one degree can make a difference.

I used hypo a few times and it always worked for me at 100%.

It is imperative to monitor the tank for evaporation so that salinity does not goes yo yo and rise over 1.010.

My Hypo QT system was in my sump. The plumbing under my tank has a massive two way valve on it. When it's turned one way, water enters the skimmer chamber and flows through all 5 chambers of the sump. When I turn it the other way, it cuts off the flow and drops water right before the bubble trap baffle that's in front of the return chamber. Effectively, turning that one valve isolates 3/4 of my sump from the tank above it. Normally I use that valve do do water changes right in the sump, as the largest chamber in the sump is about 50 gallons, but for the hypo process I had the fish in there.

It was an experiment to see if it would work at all, and in my case it didn't. It was too tricky to keep the salinity maintained perfectly because the ATO system was plumbed in to the return chamber, so I had to add water to the QT system by hand. Also, I'm pretty sure there was some splash back from the DT.

I'm sure there are cases where hypo can work, but I didn't have the right set-up for it. Cupramine is pretty much guaranteed to work, and is way more forgiving on my end, though I recognize it's harder on the fish.

[daniella3d]

ok but how will you decontaminate your sump from copper after that? this is very dangerous if it is connected to your main tank as any trace of copper might kill all your corals, and only a tiny amount will do that.

I speak from experience having lost a lot of corals from copper poisoning from carbon. There was not that much of it in my tank, yet I lost a lot of good pieces.

Originally Posted by asylumdown

My Hypo QT system was in my sump. The plumbing under my tank has a massive two way valve on it. When it's turned one way, water enters the skimmer chamber and flows through all 5 chambers of the sump. When I turn it the other way, it cuts off the flow and drops water right before the bubble trap baffle that's in front of the return chamber. Effectively, turning that one valve isolates 3/4 of my sump from the tank above it. Normally I use that valve do do water changes right in the sump, as the largest chamber in the sump is about 50 gallons, but for the hypo process I had the fish in there.

It was an experiment to see if it would work at all, and in my case it didn't. It was too tricky to keep the salinity maintained perfectly because the ATO system was plumbed in to the return chamber, so I had to add water to the QT system by hand. Also, I'm pretty sure there was some splash back from the DT.

I'm sure there are cases where hypo can work, but I didn't have the right set-up for it. Cupramine is pretty much guaranteed to work, and is way more forgiving on my end, though I recognize it's harder on the fish.