I think my fish have ich

fishwater

fishwater

Member
I have a 29g biocube with 30 pounds of live rock and 20 pounds of live sand. It has been set up for about a month and half. I have 11 hermits, 8 snails and an emerald crab. I also have a small xenia frag. I have had a clownfish for about two weeks and he was doing fine. Last week I added a royal gramma. A couple days ago I noticed my clown acting a little weird and not eating as much. Today I noticed the royal gramma is covered in white spots. I can't really see many, if any on the clown. I am new to saltwater and do not have a quarintine and don't really know what is needed for one. What should I do now. Since both fish seem to have it should I just see if they can pull through? I don't know what to do. Will it affect my cleanup crew or coral? What can I do to increase their chances of survival? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
Hey fishwater, first you will need to set up a qt tank. With the small fish that you have you can just pick up a 10 gallon tank, a hang on the back filter, a small heater, a thermometer, and a few pieces of pvc pipe for them to hide in. The best way to treat these fish (they both need to be treated) is hyposalinity. This involves bringing the salinity in the qt tank down to 1.009 and keeping it there for roughly 4 weeks. What are you using to measure salinity? A refractometer is needed to perform hyposalinity. You will need to let your main system run fishless for 6 weeks to be certain that all ich have died off. Ich cannot suvive without a host. First things first. You should buy the qt tank ASAP. While you are at the lfs, pick up an aquarium sponge (sponge filters are quickest, but require an airpump). Put this into your display to gather some bacteria for a few days. Then place it into the qt tank. I don't want to overwhelm you, so I am going to stop here. Let me know if you have any questions so far.
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
Originally Posted by fishwater
Once I set up the qt and put the bacteria in it do I have to let it cycle or anything like that.
If you get the sponge and seed it with bacteria from the main tank you may still have a small cycle, but no where near as bad. You can also take a small cup of your live sand and sacrifice it to the qt tank. It can go back into the dt after you are done treating. The bacteria will live on it, but any microrganisms will unfortunately die. The sand will become live again very quickly once it goes back into the display.
 
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