Treating main tank with hypo

[ron s]

I have been having alot of trouble with with ick in one of my tanks. Quarantining new arivals and treating with hypo in a seperate tank have not seemed to work so I was thinking of treating all the fish in the main tank this time. The tank is 150 gal with 175 lbs of live rock and 3" sand bed. I do not have enough space to keep all the live rock during treatment so I was thinking of taking out as much as I can fit in the 30 gal qt tank and the large container I used to treat the rock, probably over half. My question is what will hypo do to the rock in the tank and will it recover when I put the other rock back in after treatment. The reason I want to try this is so I can treat them longer this time, at least for 1 1/2 to 2 months and the fish wont be cramed into a small tank. The tank has been running for 6 months and I am getting tired of walking by a empty $3000 tank. In the past I have been treating and quarantining the min, with something swimming in the tank it will make it easier to treat for a longer time. Also on a related topic what is the lowest salinity level that I can run my fowlr tank at all the time and still be safe for the live rock and maybe some crabs and snails. Thanks for any help.
Ron

 

[stacy]

I'm not an expert, but I have the same problem. What I've been told to do is move all fish to q-tank, even though not all show signs of ich, and treat using hypo in q-tank. Hypo can kill of living stuff in LR and LS. If you leave your main tank empty for 4-6 weeks this should eliminate any ich living in the tank. Treating all your fish with hypo should remove any ich living on them. Thus the problem should be cured. Treating with hypo should take 4-6 weeks if done correctly. What I have been told is bring salinty down to 1.009 over a 2 day period. Leave at this level for 3 weeks. Bring back to normal over a week. Then monitor for another week to make sure ich does not come back. Like I said I'm not an expert just stating what I've been told to do by a couple of sharks on the BB. HTH

 

[ron s]

After the first outbreak I did remove all the fish and left it for 5 weeks with no fish and treated the only survivor a sfe with hypo in a quarantine tank even though he did not show any signs. I have a refractometer so I know I was low enough. I put the eel back after treatment and the first new fish I added after a three week quarantine (a porcupine puffer) came down with ick about 4 days after I added him. This is why I was thinking of treating the main tank this time.
If I leave some live rock in there during hypo will it kill the corralline algea also or just the worms and copepods.
As for nets each tank has its own but this is the only tank that I am having trouble with.
Ron