ich help

cimpow137

cimpow137

Member
My tank had a slight out break of ich. I have the fish in a hospital tank/qt and I will start dosing copper tomorrow. (the qt tank is in hypo salinity right now) The people at the LFS said that I could raise the temp to 83 for 3 days and the ich left the in DT would die. Is this true? and if so should I take out my coral and shrimp or would it be ok to let them stay in there. (the coral is a mushroom rock and i have 1 pep shirmp and a few snails)
 
elfdoctors

elfdoctors

Active Member
Slow down!
Why are you doing hyposalinity AND copper? Copper will be toxic to your live rock, corals, and all inverts. You should consider doing just hyposalinity in your QT.
Raising the temperature only speeds up the lifecycle. It is not toxic to the parasite. It only grows faster.
If you treat your fish with hyposalinity in your QT, you can leave your display alone. If you keep the tank fishless (inverts and corals are okay) for a full month, the ich that is still in the tank now will die off and not come back (unless reintroduced on another fish).
 
cimpow137

cimpow137

Member
ok so no copper? I was told that the copper will kill the ich in the water and the hypo will kill it on the fish.. Dunno if it's true or not.. I'm gonna leave my fish in the QT for 3 weeks and that should be enough time to kill the ich still in the DT.. I'm not going to add any more fish to this tank so once this is gone it should be gone forever.... hopefully
Thanks for the reply
 
elfdoctors

elfdoctors

Active Member
Hyposalinity does not even kill ich on the fish. (They are able to survive underneath the slime layer of the fish, absorbing the salt from the fish). Otherwise you would not have to do it for three weeks. Hyposalinity is toxic to the free-swimming forms of ich so you still need to go through a complete life cycle (23-28 days, depending on temperature) to be sure that you have eradicated it.
If there are no fish in your display tank, there is no need for copper. Just keep it fishless for 30 days (for a little leeway) and the ich will die off on its own. Your live rock, substrate, corals and inverts will appreciate this.
 
cimpow137

cimpow137

Member
I was looking at my male clown today and he has small red sores on his head.. Did the ich get big enough to burst and go out into the water or is this some other disease. and should the sores heal by the time i put them back into the DT?
 
cimpow137

cimpow137

Member
Well my fish have ich yet again but they are still in the QT tank and the tank is still in hypo salinity so I don't see why they gave it again.. Should I treat with copper if it doesnt go away in a couple days? When I first put them in the QT the ich was gone within 3-4 days and they have been in the tank for almost 2 weeks and now its back... I dont know if i should treat them with the rid ich stuff I have or not..
 
elfdoctors

elfdoctors

Active Member
If you are sure that you did hypo correctly and you are still seeing spots, then I would probably use copper.
 
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