Parasites

[hunterdaddy]

I just today set up my very first salt water tank. It is a 55 gallon with approx. 4 inch sand bed. (2 5 gallon buckets 3/4 full) aprox. 100 lbs. I have 2 filters both are whisper filters with the black bio pad. It has 2 lbs live rock which is all i can afford and plan to add a little at a time untill i have 1.5 lbs per gallon at that point I was told I can shut off my filters and just use a protien skimmer.
I bought 6 damsels to start the cycle 3 of which have ich and possibly fin and tail rot. What can I do to rid them of ich?? I have nox ich which is supposed to be safe for salt but I do not want to kill my live rock. It is 1% sodium chloride, malachite green and 99% inert. Can I use this?? And any other info would be GREAT.

 

[stupid_naso]

Why did you use the six damsels? They'll be a pain to get rid of. We'll now the question is do you want to spend money on saving those damsels?
Since you just started, most people would recommend you getting a quarantine tank. Basically get a ten gal tank from walmart add filter, powerhead and lights. And let it cycle. It's like a hospital tank, so when your fish get sick, you put them in there and cure them without ruining your lr and ls, and inverts.
The best way to cure ick is hyposalinity. Do a search on this site, or go to archive, there should be a lot of info on hypo. Another way, I don't think there's any. If you have a mild case, feeding them garlic soaked food will help. Or more natural way is getting them a cleaner shrimp, though I don't recommend it since you just started. It will die before it has the chance to cure anything.
I hope that helps...
sebae_the_clown

 

[hunterdaddy]

How else do you cycle a tank clown?? You need fish to do it or enough live rock right? Well I dont have 200$ to get enough live rock to cycle my tank. My question though is can I use noc-ich or should i just toss the infected damsels and pray the others dont get sick??

 

[beth]

You can cycle the tank using fresh shrimp from the grocery store seafood section. Now that you're damsels have ick, not only do you have a problem on your hands with the damsels, you also have ick in your tank. You will not be able to add any new fish for quite some time.
Do you have Live Sand? If not, you can preform the hyposalintiy in your tank, if you absolutely can not get a separate hospital tank. You will, however, have to find a temporary home for the LR, as it will not survive hyposalinty.

 

[reefnjeff]

don't take my word for it, but i'll tell what I know. Malachite green does not contain copper and will not kill your benefical bacteria and should not harm your life rock, the worst it will do I stain some of your stuff with it's color... there are other stuff on the market such as Probiotic Marine Formula or Non-Ich marine that should harm nothing in your tank.

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

Well,
Fortuneately your tank doesn't have very much LR in it - hyposalintiy is Terry/Beth's best recommendation and you can do this right in your main tank. Also - Damsels are typically very tough, they should survive the endeavor.

 

[reefnjeff]

funny!! those medications were developed for the marine fish to destroy salt water ich, but as I said don't take my word for it. I personally have never used them, I have used copper safe with very good results.

 

[hunterdaddy]

Ive used nox-ich with GREAT results in fresh water for ich. Only question is is it reef safe. (which it is NOT) I have found

 

[jakob4001]

hyposalinity & garlic...good thing is you can do BOTH;w/ that little LR, should not be concerned;if nothing else it ends up as base rock anyways;possibly when you get more LR, the organisms on new LR might spread to the old LR depending on lighting & water conditions; is you shop around online, you might be able to get 45 lbs for less than $200; about maybe $150 depending on S&H

 

[reefnjeff]

Terry
Through my lack of experiance< I will agree with you on your comment and due to the fact I have never used the 2 products I mentioned, but through personal experiance I can say copper safe was very affective against saltwater ICH on all my fish in my fish only tank which has, yellow tang, niger trigger, heniochus butterfly, pearlscale angel and two coral catfish, I treated the main tank and it worked very well