need advice please..

[cowabonga]

I have a 72 gallon reef tank...currently have 1 flame angel, 1 firefish, and 2 clowns. My flame angel has ick for the past week and ive been trying to treat it with garlic..but its still there. Everything else is fine. I plan to move it to the hospital tank which is 20L and fully cycled. But the problem is that i have a small 2 inch blue tang in there right now for quarantining. Hes been in there for almost 2 weeks. I know i should treat the flame angel as soon as possible. Should i just remove him(2.5 inches) and put him in the same quarantine tank as the blue tang and perform hypo on the tank? Will the tank support the 2 fish or is there too much biomass. I can set up a 10 right now..but it will take a while to cycle. Are angels prone to ick and can fight them off itself? Or should i act now. The angel has approximately 10 spots on the tail and fin..but is very active. Thanks
ps..i have 100lb live rocks,5 inch dsb, 5 shrimps, variet of hermits and snails. and 10 corals...

 

[beth]

This is a judgement call for you to make.
You could add the ich fish to the 20gal with the angel, but there are risks---namely what you mentioned---aggression.
If you set up a 10gal, then you will really have to be diligent about not letting that little tank cycle.
How do you plan to get a fish out of a reef tank????
Always, QT first.

 

[kev]

Correct me if im wrong, but your gonna have to take out ALL of the fish from the 72. If you leave any fish in an ick infested reef, you'll never completely get rid of the parasite. You gotta leave the main tank running AND fishless for a minimum of 30 days to let the ick die off due to no host. If you don't take out all the fish, its almost a given that your tang and angel will get ick again and you'll have to start all over.