ick in FOWLR

[teen]

i have a fowlr tank, and one of my dominos has recently died, when i took it out, its sides were red and looked like sores. now, 3 days later, my second domino has what looks like ick. is there any way of treating ick in a tank with live rock? if i take the live rock out, and keep it in a rubbermaid, wont the ick stay on the live rock, and then be brought back into my tank when i reinsert it into my tank? hypo isnt an option for me right? i will not touch copper with a 50 foot pole. any suggestions? i am currently treating the domino with freshwater dips, i dont have a quarantine tank but i am trying to get one started. if i do hypo my tank, is there any way that the ick can stay in my aragonite substrate through the hypo? if my tank is just left for like a month, without fish, will this kill the ick?

 

[lefty]

You'd need to take the LR out if you want to perform hypo. I swear you had another thread on this around here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. I replied in it saying that your fish might not've died from ich. Ich = lots of small, salt-looking spots all over the fish. Red sides and sores sounds more like a bacterial infection.
Ich dies without a fish host. So, if you left your tank fishless for a month, the ich would be gone. If you had your LR in a separate container for a month, the ich would be gone. Your main issue is getting the ich off the fish, and hypo is a very effective method of doing so.
The ich in the substrate would be dead as well if it were to undergo hypo.
-lefty

 

[teen]

so ick can live only on fish? nothing else like inverts or bacteria or anything else that can be in the tank? i dont feel like taking the live rosk out so i think i can leave the tank for a month fishless, cause my other fish died last night and he was the last one left, im 90% sure it was ick. it was a couple little white tiny spots on his sides, then at night he was laying on the substrate with his gills kinda puffed out. he died about a 1/2 hour later

. so this will 100% get rid of ick from the substrate and water and everything for leaving the tank fishless for a month, or can the ick survive in the substrate even without fish?

 

[mwaraxa]

Nope, it needs that fish host. So if you wait the month you'll be set. But be careful though when you start putting fish back in. Don't rush it. And use your QT tank so you know that your not putting a fish with ick back in the display tank to start it all over.

 

[teen]

ok thanks im gonna try to get a qt going in a few days. thx

 

[lefty]

Hmm, only a couple white spots? Usually when ich gets to the point of being fatal, the fish is covered in the spots. Take a look at the Diseased Fish picture thread at the top of this board; you'll see fish with more than just a couple spots. Red sores aren't too characteristic of ich either. Keep in mind that there are other diseases that will form white spots on the body of the fish.
-lefty

 

[teen]

yea, neither one was covered in white spots, more like 3-4 tiny spots that were the size of a grain of salt, or smaller. come to think of it the fish werent rubbing on the rocks or anything, they just kind slowed down and layed on the bottom and died?

 

[teen]

the dominos were small, but didnt have that many white spots as the fish in the above pics had. it was more like 3-4 small white specks on there sides, and then when they died there sides were like red and white? any ideas