Originally Posted by mdruiz
What is hyposalinity? There is no way I can pull all my live rock out of the tank. What I am wondering is, Since he is the cleaner of ich does it make him become infested with ich since he is cleaning it off the other fish? This is if the other fish had it at one point. Can I use the store bought cemical that treats ich? I actually got some that came with my whole setup when I purchased it from ----.
What I am thinking is that ich has been, or was brought in by a newer purchase that was not quarentined. The goby will bite the ich off of the others, but cannot bite it off of himself. Again, was this a wild goby? The tank raised oned don't tend to get ich. Anyway, to address the other issue, ich is in your tank. There are only two methods that stop ich's life cycle so ich will die off. You can remove your fish to a Cycled QT and either perform hyposalinity treatment ( I will post directions) , Move your rock and inverts, or use copper in a qt. You have to be very carefull of what kinds of fish you treat with copper. Some are sensitive. I would recomend Hyposalinity treatment. There are a few meds that claim to be reef safe. The fact is that ich is an invertebrate. So are your shrimps, snails, crabs, etc. You cannot kill one invert without killing them all. However you want to do it, your fish need to be separated from everything else to treat.Here are directions for hyposalinity treatment.
NOTE: This procedure can not be performed in an environment containing live rock, live sand or inverts [including crabs, snails, corals, etc.] If you have a strictly Fish-Only setup, then the treatment can be done within the display, otherwise, you will need to treat infected fish in a quarantine/hospital tank.
You will need: Refractometer or a glass hydrometer calibrated to tank temperatures, pH buffers, a tank or quarantine area for the infected fish that is adequately filtered.
Hyposalinity is a procedure involving lowering the salinity from normal tank levels to 14 ppt (1.009 Specific Gravity) over the course of 48 hours. This is done by doing a series of small water changes using fresh dechlorinated water. During the procedure, pH must be closely monitored as pH tends to drop as water become less saline. Fish are maintained in hyposaline conditions for three weeks after all symptoms are gone. Again, accurate measuring is essential, and the standard swing arm hydrometers are not going to work. A refractometer or large glass lab grade hydrometer calibrated to tank temperatures is needed. Once the fish have been asymptotic for three weeks, the salinity is then raised back to display tank levels over the course of a week. Fish can not tolerate rapid increases in salinity. Leave the fish in quarantine at display tank levels for another week.
Your display will now have been fishless for at least four weeks, sufficient time to allow the parasite’s life cycle to be interrupted. ****** is an obligate parasite that requires a fish host. No fish=No host=No parasite. Ich is a fish-only parasite, it will not affect inverts.
Continue to monitor pH daily during the process and be prepared with buffers to address any pH problems. Also keep the water clean through proper filtration.
If you have any questions at all, please ask. We are here to help!
