ick on flame angel, ?'s about emergency qt?

[gilpil]

I am setting up a 10g emergency qt tank, which will have a flame angel as well as a green chromis placed in it. It will have 2 powerheads, a sponge filter, heater, and airstone. I will fill it with water from the main tank.
From what I understand, I am going to have to vacuum out any waste and food at least everyday. What percentage of water can I take out a day????
Also, is there anything I have not put in the qt tank?
Finally, what do I do if the qt starts to cycle?
Thanks in advance for your help. :nervous:

 

[beth]

First off, what kind of display do you have?
Are the clown and chromis your only fish?
How are you going to treat them?
Put a couple of cups of sand from the display into the QT.
Also, some hiding places need to be in the QT.
You could add a couple of pieces of "sacrifical" Live Rock to the QT to add to the biological filtration. Understand that if you use medication on the rock, then it can never be returned to the QT.

 

[gilpil]

Thanks Beth, I know you are the guru for this stuff, but before you respond to everything below I want to give you a history of the flame angel in question. He is 2 weeks old. About a week ago, he did get some whit spots on his fins and one on his body, they were there the first day, got worse the second, and on the third were completly gone. Now a week later, he had a few spots on his fins the day before yesterday, then yesterday were all over his body, now today they are still on his fins, but very few on his body. I have been watching him very close. The green chromis in question has a couple discolored blotches on his tail fin, but no signs anywhere else, other than he has lost his original color and is a pale yellow right now. He looks terrible and stressed and has stopped eat. Some of these symptoms did not match up with ick, so I am not sure. I will try and post some pictures, but my camera is not great and only has one zoom position.
My dislply right now is a 55g FOWLR and inverts. I have 10# of live rock and about 30# of base rock, some of which is starting to get some coralline algae. I run 2 maxi jet 900ph that are hooked up to an UG filter, and have two more weaker powerheads running. I have a millineum wet/dry filter, as well as a protein skimmer that was cheap, and probably not very effective, but I cannot afford to upgrade right now to a quality one.
My Livestock list is as follows, and go easy, I bought a yellow tang early on before I knew better, and I am trying to convince my wife to take it back for store credit before it gets too big. So here it goes:
Fish:
1 YT
1 Flame angel -the sick fish(this fish is only 2 weeks old by the way)
5 green chromis- 1 of which is sick
1 four striped damsel
Inverts:
1-CBS
1-CC starfish
3-Zebra hermits
5-Red legged hermits
1-Pom Pom Crab
5-Mexican turbo snails
I was going to treat in a QT with Kordon Rid Ich+, but after having my wife read the disease FAQ in this forum, decided that if I want to buy a refractometer so that I could perform hyposalinity, I could. So, I want to do this, but the LFS does not know what a refractometer is (I have asked), so I would have to order online, and hope it gets here in time. Any suggestions?
I am planning on putting some pvc from home depot in the qt, but I have CC in the Display, will this be alright to move a couple of cups to the QT without starting a cycle. I know I need to get rid of the CC, but it was another newbie mistake and will be switched out in June when we move.
Thanks for listening and helping out Beth, I always recommend you when they have a problem. One more question I have is, if I perform hyposalinity, could I move all my inverts to a qt tank, minus the snails, because I would not have enough algae(I would just have to risk them), coul I perform the hyposalinity on the display tank instead? Would this be easier? I am just thinking that with the fish in the QT it will be so hard to prevent a cycle, but hopefully the inverts will not produce as much waste. Any suggestions?
Thanks again, sorry for rambling, but I really need help, this is my first crisis.

 

[gilpil]

here is the flame angel, sorry, told you my camera sucks, especially when the fish is moving so much like my flame angel does.

 

[gilpil]

The green chromis

 

[gilpil]

you can tell how pale he is compared to the others. The sick one is on the left.

 

[beth]

Well, in order to perform hyposalinity you can not have live rock. So you need to decide if you want to move the rock, or the fish.
If you move the fish to a QT, then you will struggle with cycle and water quality. Yes, you can use a couple of cups of cc from your display to the QT. You only have a few small fish, so it will be ok. Hyposalinity in a 55 gal will mean major water changes to bring that size tank down to hyposaline conditions, and visa versa to bring it back up to within the standard salinity range.
Go ahead and order the refractometer. The important thing is to begin the hypo to interupt the lifecycle of the parasite. Once you have the refractometer, you can adjust your water salinity precisely and start the countdown on hyposalinity. Do try to use a glass hydrometer now, though, to start bringing down the salinity. It will get you into the close range of the target salinity which you can adjust to precision once the refract arrives. No swingarms, however, has these are totally unreliable. In fact, if you have one of these, just throw it away.
If you read the post on ich, you know that ich is a cyclical parasite, thus it has the appearance of coming and going. It doesn’t go, its just not on your fish 100% of the time.
Of course your fish are suffering from the parasite bites and the tissue damage caused by the infestation. They will start doing better as soon as you begin the hypo.
As for the QT, you should have a good headstart by adding the display water, and the cc. At the moment, put any filter material you plan to use in your QT in you display or sump so that it can be getting conditioned while you wait to setup the QT.

 

[gilpil]

alright, I do not even have access to a glass hydrometer though, the lfs only has the swing arm, so I will try to find out what I can do. Unfortunately I live in a pretty small town.

 

[gilpil]

Also, the FAQ post above keeps mentioning PH, what can I buy to keep the PH at a good level during the hyposalinity??? I have never had a PH problem, so have not had to treat it.

 

[gilpil]

Sorry, but one more question. If I order the hydrometer here, will it get to me in time??? Thanks.

 

[gilpil]

OK, here is the low down. I ordered a refractometer online, with fed-ex overnight, so I am hoping it will be here on Wednesday. Tell me if this is alright. Can I slowly, slowly start dropping the salinity tomorrow with the swing arm, as long as I do not come close to getting it too low? I just do not know how bad those swing arm hydrometers are? Otherwise, the only thing I can do is take the fish out and leave them untreated for one more day. What is my best next step?

 

[gilpil]

My chromis has gone MIA, cannot find him in the filter, but the full lights have not gone on yet. I am guessing he is probably gone though. I will finish the set-up for the QT today and move the flame angel.

 

[gilpil]

Are there any addatives that I can put into the QT to assist the bacteria, or at least keep the bacteria healthy? I do have some Stress Zyme, will that work?

 

[beth]

No. Better to seed a spare sponge filter in your display, and after a week add it to the QT.

 

[gilpil]

ok, how much of a water change can I do a day?

 

[beth]

It depends on the size of the tank. You want to space out the water changes over a 48 hr period. I usually remove all the water that I will add back in a 24 hr period, then over the course of the day, add back fresh, buffered water. The 2nd day, do the same. In my 20L, that amouts to about 5 gals a day.

 

[gilpil]

So, if I understand you correctly, I want to replace about 100% of the water, but just do it slowly over 48 hours? So, if the QT is 10g, I want to remove and add 10g over 48 hours?

 

[beth]

No! You want to replace the water until it is down to 1.009/14ppt. This is not 100%.
Sorry I must of missed your previous posts and neglected to respond.
10 gal QT remove 3 gals on day one and then slowly, over the course of the day, add back fresh, buffered water. Same for the next day until you hit the target. Take a look at the post on hyposalinity in the FAQ Thread. Its pretty detailed.

 

[gilpil]

Ok, thank you, now I get it. When I get the salinity down, how much do I remove a day and replace, for the weeks that I have the salinity at 1.009? In this I mean the daily water changes to prevent a cycle from occuring.

 

[beth]

Obviously you are going to age your water first, so just prepare your water at the hyposaline reading, rather than the standard reading.