doomed aquarium?

[jbirdy]

I have a 55 gallon tank.
1 Gramma
1 Dotty back
1 Worm Goby
1 Firefish
1 Clown
1 Cardinal
1 Starfish
2 shrimp
1 sally light foot
2 featherdusters
10 hermits
I Quarantine all fish and inverts before main tank. Recently Gramma has been scratching himself against rocks. I removed him into hospital tank. Now dotty is scratching himself. No fish show any visible parasites. Water paramaters are good.
I've been in the hobby for eight months. I have been very meticulous and very proud of my success, until now.
Questions? Do I have to remove all fish and treat? Is my Tank doomed? Will the fish fight these evil doers(ich). Do I risk further infestation by leaving the dotty in?
Does the dotty definitely have ich?
Thanks

 

[jlem]

Try raising your temp slowly to 82 degrees to speed up the parasites life cycle. There is also invertabrite safe ick medicine. I forgot the name but it is in a big bottle and about 24 bucks. I have had good results from 5 min fresh water baths for 3-4 days, just make sure to dechlorinate the water and that the temp is exactly with your tank. A good gravel vacumming could also be useful with a 20 percent water cange. remove charcoal if treating tank

 

[pufferlover]

Whoa slow down here a minute. First with inverts using a med might be the end of them. Many meds say invert or reef safe (such as Greenx and yet it will kill some inverts right off). Now unless the fish is showing spots I would not panic and start changing things to fast- why. In my reef at the beginning after I set it up I had a royal gramma that showed spots every morning and evening but not during the day when active, it also scratched on everything. Since this was a full reef I decided (in my case this was a unusual decision) to wait a while and watch closely. For a month the fish kept showing spots but the others did not (except for a dwarf angel which showed the same thing am and pm only). I did my water changes weekly but did no meds and by golly in time the fish stopped doing all the things that were driving me nuts. The spots left the scratching stopped and now 18 months later everything has been just fine. As Terry B says and I fully agree good water changes can make a big difference and sometimes solve a minor problem before it becomes a big one.

 

[jbirdy]

Thanks for advice. I think I will let it ride and increase water changes like pufferlover said. I am hesitant to use meds in the main tank. Every time the fish scratches my blood boils. I must add, none of my fish are stressed.
Should I spend the bucks for a UV sterilizer. Would that help with my possible parasite problem?
I have 1 1/2" of sand.
Now I just stir the sand before a water changen to clean.
Should I clean the sand?
How do I clean the sand?

 

[pufferlover]

I never was that fond of UV's until I added 3 to tanks that were giving me problems, and since then they have been fine (so there must be something to them after all). For your size I would go 15 watt with apowerhead that has mfg suggested water flow rate and a pre-filter unit to keep the fish and inverts out of harms way. I use seastorm double pass u2 units and am pleased with the 15 watt units (1 on 135 and 1 on 120 tanks) also have a 8watt which I am not to pleased with (has been replaced once due to pooping out after a couple of months). I had been warned that the 8 watt units are a problem and should have listened but it was for my 45 and I thought a 15 to big. After they replaced it I use it now on a 20 gallon tank that is set up as a QT tank (or holding tank for smaller fish waiting for room to open in some other tank- I have a few too many fish you see) and on that is has done fine.
I cannot answer your sand question as I use only CC in my tanks but I am sure someone will come along and help you out.

 

[beth]

Yes, get a UV, unless your tank is a reef tank, there is no reason not to get one and, IMO, they do help considerably in the combat against parasites. Take Puffer's suggestion and do water changes. Don't change the temp of your water as this will stress fish, decrease O2 is water and do nothing to kill parasites.
Begin feeding your fish with garlic soaked food. Garlic is a good natural remedy for ick and could just do the trick, since your fish, at this point, don't have any overt signs of ick....except for the scratching.
Good luck!

 

[peasly1]

some of my fish scratch againts the rock ..just like human you have an ich?they all are fine though, but I have had a coulple w/ ick and I have raised the temp to 82 degrees a few times for about a week and its worked every time.....

 

[jlem]

let me type very slow for people like puffer
There is perfectly safe meds that will not hurt inverts. I know fish stores in L.A that use them with great success.Raise your temp slowly, key word slowly and bring it down slowly after the parasite ( if you think it is ick) The temp increase will speed up the life cycle and won't stress the fish anymore than a prolonged bout with a parasite. The fresh water dips once a day for three days have worked great for me. The ick or parasite falls right off, this works great for black spot parasites. Now keep in mind that this is only my opinion but have first hand seen these techniques work. With everyones elses advice added to mine it,s still only worth about 2 cents put together. read/research

 

[beth]

jlem, I see that you are new here, so perhaps you didn't read the rules of this BB very carefully.
Thus, let me type very slowly for you so that you understand. We don't tolerate flaming here or sarcastic remarks. You can give your opinion or even disagree with a fellow hobbyst but leave the snide remakes at your sign-on screen. You and your opinions are welcome here, but cuts leveled at fellow members aren't...there are plenty of other BB's that would thrieve on such, but this is not one of them.
Also, as to use of the UV, let me clarify. I would not suggest that a UV will cure any parasite. It is, IMO, a good preventitive for parasites, but definately not a cure. That is why I suggest that FO tanks can certainly benefit from this equiptment--to avoid or cut down on the odds of getting parasites.

 

[jlem]

dear bath. Thankyou for typing slow. I see that your snyd remarks are right up my alley. Welcome to my bandwagon, nice to have you on board.