One more bout w/ Ick and I quit!

[aquarius 1]

I swear that if I have one more bout with ick, I'm gonna quit the hobby all together. Since December I have battled with ick on 5 different occasions. After the second bout, I completely stripped down the tank and began from scratch again but that didn't help because a couple of months later, more ick. And here I am dealing with ick once again. I don't know where its coming from because all of my fish are QTed before addition and my tank parameters are near perferct. The last bout I had was about a month and half ago and I removed the Koran Angel and Niger Trigger and treated them with copper in QT. I then proceeded to leave the tank empty for an entire month and after these 30 days, I added the Niger, Koran, and a newly acquired Powder Brown (There's a hippo too but I decided to leave him in QT longer because he's prone to ick). (All fish were formalin dipped before going into the show tank as a preventative measure.) Well about 2 weeks ago the Koran's color wasn't looking good and sure enough the Niger, Koran, and Powder Brown were all scratching. I immediately removed the Niger because he had a severe infestation and he's been sitting in QT ever since. So I've been feeding the Koran and PB garlic soaked flakes for the past 2 and a half a weeks and it's not really doing anything. So now what do I do? If it is really neccessary I can remove the fish and put them in QT but that's going to be a chore. I'm willing to do just about anything at this point so what would you recommend? Hypo? I want to end ick forever....
The tank is 75 gallons w/ 25 lbs. of liverock and I'm running a protein skimmer w/ a Fluval 304 canister filter. Now what?

 

[beth]

Here's the solution:
QT all fish before they ever enter your display for 1 mo. If they come down with ich then treat using hposalinity using a refractometer.
For added protection, treat all incoming fish with hyposalinity using a refractometer even if they don't show signs of ich.
Check out where your LFS houses LR, LS, corals, etc. Avoid getting any of these things where filtration or tanks are shared by fish. Unless you are willing to QT these items as well.
If you follow this advise, you'll never have these problems again.

 

[eric4usa]

Yup, Hypo is the way to go.
After reading all the stuff about Hyposalinity, I was skeptical.
After performing it in my QT tank and main tank, it honestly saved my fish's Life.
+ NO CHEMICALS

 

[aquarius 1]

Beth, do you think I should do hypo. in the main tank or take the fish out and put them in QT? If I had to treat the tank, I would pull out the liverock and put the rest of the fish in the tank and just drop the salinity in the 75. Which route? I can't say I'm too nuts about leaving the tank fallow...again...

 

[beth]

What did you do when you had the fish in QT before? Were they there for 1 month? What type QT do you have?? Does the QT have lights?
You can certainly hypo the tank and fish, but you must remove the LR. Substrate will do alright in hypo but an aged DSB with applicable detrivore critters may have some die off. I recently experimented with a degree of hypo conditions in my QT that I had brittle stars and bristleworms. I did not bring the salinity all the way down to hypo treatment conditions but it was considerably lower than normal marine salinity. They did fine. Can’t say what will happen at the treatment level of hypo. [Actually the coralline on a piece of LR did fine too].
If all you have is LR to worry about, and no inverts [except what comes on the rock] it may be more convenient for you to perform the treatment in the display. Just remember that where ever your LR is, you still need to “feed it”. LR has many critters that you will want to take care of.
Your problem is likely in the way you are QTing. What do you use to measure salinity for hypo? It should be a refractometer.