Questions For The EXPERTS...

lkgrenegade22

lkgrenegade22

Member
First let me say I know who Beth is and I have read her thread about diseased fish and treatments so don't tell me to go read it. I know the 2 main treatments of ick are hypo and copper and how to do it.

My question is regarding ick, as most of the questions here are. Can someone please tell me to point of using a QT tank when a fish can show no signs if ick for 6-8 weeks, then add him to the DT tank and have an ick outbreak later WITHOUT ADDING ANYTHING to the tank? I have read where a few people have had this happen and I am really wondering why.
Another question I have is if you have an ick outbreak in your DT tank but have tons of LR that you DO NOT want to remove to treat it, can you move all the fish to another tank, treat them and just leave your DT empty of all fish and inverts for a certain amount of time and the ick parasite die? To me that seems much simpler than removing a bunch of LR and LS. I read 4 weeks with no fish in the tank would be long enough to disrupt the life cycle of the ich. If that is a sure fire way to rid the bug in the DT tank I would think just taking the fish out for that long and leaving the LR alone would be easier, correct?
Beth, Sep and whoever else has experience with this please answer these questions. THANK YOU in advance.
 
mboswell1982

mboswell1982

Active Member
lk, im pretty sure some people do it 6-8 weeks with no livestock of any kind in the DT to give the ich time to die off, but, i could be wrong on this, so dont quote me on it LOL
 
snakeblitz33

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
I don't know what or who you have been reading or listening to, but I have never heard of someone removing live rock or live sand from the display tank to treat the tank for ich.
Always have a quarantine tank. Remove fish with ich and put them in quarantine for at least four weeks. You should have all the basic equipment for your qt tank as you do your display tank. If you are persistantly having problems with ich, cloudy water, or algae blooms then get a decent UV sterilizer.
I don't think quarantine is used just for ich, however. Quarantine is great to use for starting new fish - seeing if the new fish will eat, if it has vitamin deficiancies, lateral line disease, fish lice, and a whole slew of other diseases, not just ich.
99.9% of all fish get ich at some point in their life and is almost unavoidable if you deal with any amount of fish. Live fish stores have to deal with it on a regular basis. Quarantining and using a slight amount of copper in holding tanks is ideal.
 
geoj

geoj

Active Member
Originally Posted by LKGRenegade22
http:///forum/post/2859080
Can someone please tell me to point of using a QT tank when a fish can show no signs if ick for 6-8 weeks, then add him to the DT tank and have an ick outbreak later WITHOUT ADDING ANYTHING to the tank? I have read where a few people have had this happen and I am really wondering why.
If a fish has Ich, most will show Ich when stress weakens their system. This may happen with a tank change, but some people are better at acclimation then others and their fish stay healthy looking longer. The QT gives you a chance to notice any sickness before you add it to your DT. You also can use the QT to put bad behaving animals on time out, Keep any frags of your corals, or turn it into HT in a pich.
Originally Posted by LKGRenegade22
http:///forum/post/2859080
Another question I have is if you have an ick outbreak in your DT tank but have tons of LR that you DO NOT want to remove to treat it, can you move all the fish to another tank, treat them and just leave your DT empty of all fish and inverts for a certain amount of time and the ick parasite die? To me that seems much simpler than removing a bunch of LR and LS. I read 4 weeks with no fish in the tank would be long enough to disrupt the life cycle of the ich. If that is a sure fire way to rid the bug in the DT tank I would think just taking the fish out for that long and leaving the LR alone would be easier, correct?
Yes you can remove all fish from the DT and if left like this long enough the Ich will die-off.
 
lkgrenegade22

lkgrenegade22

Member
Thanks for the replies so far.
SnakeBlitz, it even says it underlined right on Beths fact page and pretty much everywhere I have read that using hyposalinity will kill the organisms on the live rock. Obviously that is the route I would go and not copper since it is a DT. If I could do hypo and it not hurt my 100+ lbs of fully cured LR I paid premium price for I would be one happy man.
 
mboswell1982

mboswell1982

Active Member
LK u do not need to do anything to your DT once you have your fish out of it, just let it sit empty of fish for 4-8 weeks and the ich will die off, thats what all the information says at least LOL hypoing your LR can actually kill it, unfortunately
 
lkgrenegade22

lkgrenegade22

Member
Originally Posted by mboswell1982
http:///forum/post/2859253
LK u do not need to do anything to your DT once you have your fish out of it, just let it sit empty of fish for 4-8 weeks and the ich will die off, thats what all the information says at least LOL hypoing your LR can actually kill it, unfortunately
Dude I paid $7-$9 a pound for the LR I have. If it requires the DT sitting there empty for 2 months to keep the rock alive that is what I will have to do. I'm not about to kill it and start the cycle all over again.
I did setup a 20 and 29 gallon SW tank a few weeks back. I do have options.
 
mboswell1982

mboswell1982

Active Member
sweetness, and man, i wasnt yelling at you, just reiterating what geo said about not hypoing your DT, thats some bad bad joojoo lol letting it sit, from everything ive read, as long as there is nothing in there for the ich parasite to get ahold to, will eventually cause them to die off
kinda like the ebola virus, once it runs outta people to infect, it dies off LOL
 
lkgrenegade22

lkgrenegade22

Member
Originally Posted by mboswell1982
http:///forum/post/2859287
hey, am i right geo? has my research paid off and im actually learning something?


I swear if you didn't live a light year away I would bring you one of my tanks and let you do some hands on research!
 
mboswell1982

mboswell1982

Active Member
Originally Posted by LKGRenegade22
http:///forum/post/2859309
I swear if you didn't live a light year away I would bring you one of my tanks and let you do some hands on research!

hey, im only 3k miles away damnit LOL its not that far, an hell, make a vacation of it
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
It looks like you are on your way to treating your fish. How long has the QT tank been running? Is it cycled? How many fish do you have?
 
lkgrenegade22

lkgrenegade22

Member
Originally Posted by sepulatian
http:///forum/post/2859521
It looks like you are on your way to treating your fish. How long has the QT tank been running? Is it cycled? How many fish do you have?
After selling/trading some to reduce my stocklist I think I have 12 or so left. I have setup a 20G and 10G QT tanks that are cycled and just setup the spare 29G I had also but that tank is not cycled yet. I had to freshwater dip the tang today because she was looking terrible. I removed most of the fish (at least the ones with the visible ick) earlier today and put them in the 20 and am hypoing it as we speak.
I think I am going to take the remaining few out and put them in the 10G until the 29G cycles so I can leave the display tank empty for 6 or so weeks. I Know some people say they just feed and let the ick stay in the DT and don't have problems but it keeps coming back worse each time.
 
mboswell1982

mboswell1982

Active Member
you'll get it under control man, its just gonna take a lil time, it just sucks to see such a nice display as yours was come down with that crap, sorry to hear about it an i hope everything pulls through ok
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
Originally Posted by LKGRenegade22
http:///forum/post/2860026
After selling/trading some to reduce my stocklist I think I have 12 or so left. I have setup a 20G and 10G QT tanks that are cycled and just setup the spare 29G I had also but that tank is not cycled yet. I had to freshwater dip the tang today because she was looking terrible. I removed most of the fish (at least the ones with the visible ick) earlier today and put them in the 20 and am hypoing it as we speak.
I think I am going to take the remaining few out and put them in the 10G until the 29G cycles so I can leave the display tank empty for 6 or so weeks. I Know some people say they just feed and let the ick stay in the DT and don't have problems but it keeps coming back worse each time.
It sounds like you have a good plan so far. Be sure to keep water mixed at 1.009 to dilute any ammonia spikes. Move the larger fish into the 29 when it is ready. It doesn't hurt to keep a bottle of Amquel plus on hand as well. That will help out with those sudden spikes, which are bound to happen with that many fish in smaller tanks. Would you mind posting the exact fish that you have? We can help you decide which fish to put in each tank.
 
lkgrenegade22

lkgrenegade22

Member
Originally Posted by sepulatian
http:///forum/post/2860187
It sounds like you have a good plan so far. Be sure to keep water mixed at 1.009 to dilute any ammonia spikes. Move the larger fish into the 29 when it is ready. It doesn't hurt to keep a bottle of Amquel plus on hand as well. That will help out with those sudden spikes, which are bound to happen with that many fish in smaller tanks. Would you mind posting the exact fish that you have? We can help you decide which fish to put in each tank.
Surely I will and I thank you in advance for your answers. I mixed up 20 gallons of 1.009 water today...I also found another 10G I think I am going to setup in my closet (it's HUGE) just in case...
1- Flame Hawfish 2.5"
1- Blue Hippo Tang 3"
1- Cleaner Wrasse 3"
1- Coral Beauty Angel 3"
1- Sixline Wrasse 2"
1- Neon Goby .75"
1- Pink Spotted Shrimp Goby 3"
2- Engineer Gobies 2"
2- False Percula Clowns 2"
 
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