treatment of ich without a QT!!!

[timsedwards]

HI guys,
Right well before you say, yes I have not got a QT, but I am buying one on sunday and that will take a month to cycle properly, so that is out of the question for this little batch.
My fish are randomly having ich, always just 2 of the fish, never more (i have 4). I havent got corals at the moment although I intend to get them, I have live rock and some snails/crabs, so copper is out the of the Q. I have some Kent RX-P and am getting some garlic to soak the food in, will this do for now and hope for the best? Better than nothing I say.
Any help would be really appreciated,
Tim.

 

[oceanic110]

A quarantine tank is an isolated holding tank where newly acquired fish are “quarantined” for a period of time—minimally 3 weeks. It is used to observe new fish for health and potential diseases. QTs facilitate easy treatment of recently acquired specimens if disease is present or arise during the QT process. But, most significantly, it prevents fish disease contamination of healthy fish in your main tank by not exposing healthy fish to incoming fish who may be carrying diseases. With a Quarantine/hospital tank you can either set up a permanent tank, or, "as needed" which is only used when new fish are going to be intro-ed to your tank or treated for a disease. The best way to do it is set up a permanent tank.
I borrowed the above from Beth. It is my understanding that the QT tank does not have to be cycled. You just have to do alot of water changes, you will need to do this anyways to lower the salinity to 1.009. Use a refractometer to measure the salinity.

 

[timsedwards]

Thought I recognised it
I dont think you followed my post - I need to know what to do regardless of QT (and I will use some water from existing tank to see if this speeds up cycle), i cannot do Hyposalinity as this will kill off live rock which in Englands costs £100's and I dont have anywhere to put them, so any thoughts on the RX-P and garlic?
All the best,
Tim.

 

[timsedwards]

Thought I recognised it
I dont think you followed my post - I need to know what to do regardless of QT (and I will use some water from existing tank to see if this speeds up cycle), i cannot do Hyposalinity as this will kill off live rock which in Englands costs £100's and I dont have anywhere to put them, so any thoughts on the RX-P and garlic?
All the best,
Tim.

 

[timsedwards]

sorry dont know why it posted twice.....

 

[jauringer]

hey buddy, I just went through the same thing with a Coral beauty. I researched a lot of different methods on how to cure ick. Most of them were very lengthy and required a QT. (such as take all of your fish out and treat them with copper and then leave your tank dormant for a month or longer) needless to say i was not going to do that. So i started to call LFS. I was told at a very reputable FS on in my area that somtimes they get fish in with ick and they just feed it away. I went there and picked up some live brine shrimp and just started feeding the crap out of them and raised the temp up to about 80-81 deg. It took three days and there are no more signs of ick. I would definantly try that. Some people try to make such a big deal about ick. I don't think it is as complicated as some people make it. I am definatly not an expert by any means, but i would try this first. (you may have to be carefull since your NO2's are a little high.
Hope this works

 

[oceanic110]

Ich is a BIG problem!

 

[oceanic110]

If you are going to buy a QT Sunday, Why not use it on Sunday?
Why do you need to cycle it before you can use it?

 

[timsedwards]

Because otherwise I will have to do thousands of water changes!
It may be that it only takes a week to cycle, if so, great, ill use it then. Or am I wrong on this? I dont want to put my fish out of one danger and into another if i dont have to! Also I dont think i can start on Sunday (although I have bought tank today) as the heater I am getting is off ----
However I fed them some new food i bought (realised I have been feeing them on Mysis for months....) with some garlic, they seemed to like that, so fingers crossed!
All the best,
Tim

 

[slick]

You could use a product like Amquel which removes amn from your water. Then you could get away with weekly water changes.

 

[timsedwards]

Interesting I have some Ammo Lock about the place I could use....
So how do you propose I go about it? Just put water, leave for 24 hours then bung fish in? How often water changes? Should I start the cycle with anything?
Thanks for your help, and your help would be appreciated on my other post about filtration in this forum!
All the best,
Tim.

 

[beth]

Yeah, you will have to do a lot of water changes, but you're going to be doing that anyway with hyposalinity treatment. That is the treatment you plan to use, correct??
You can also set up a rubbermaid container for your LR and inverts, along with a PH and heater if necessary. Or, you could place your LR in the new QT and then hypo your fish where they are at.
If you're not going to treat your fish now, then place some LR in the new QT to help the cycle along. If you have any filter material you plan to use in the QT, place it in your main tank now, so that it can seed, then, once the QT is up, you can transfer seeded filter media over to the QT. Use 100% water from your main tank [as long as it is quality water] in your QT. Add a couple of cups of substrate from your main tank to your QT. All these things will get the cycle going.

 

[radioactive]

Tim
This is what i did . I had a coupe fish get ICH and die !!!! I did not have a QT set-up , so i bought a 10g with a bio wheel filter , heater , 1- maxi fet 400 powerhead and a few peices of PVC . I di not cycle the tank as I had a fish that needed "HYPO" right away . I started out with 1.021 sal and slowly dropped to 1.009 over a 48hr period . I am using amquel as "slick" suggested . I test the water about every 8hrs for ammonia and so dar everything is fine ...
I plan on doing HYPO on all fish from now on before they even hit my display tank , even if they are not ill i will HYPO them for 4 weeks before they return to my display ... best of luck
btw - i will be cycling my 10g after the fish have left QT .....

 

[timsedwards]

Well actually i hadnt intended on using hypo.... I dont have a proper measurer of salinity, only a hydrometre.
I was going to do this: Set up the QT and let it do a natural cycle over a a few weeks, and treat the fish in my current tank with Kent's RX-P along with some garlic soaked up food and hope for the best. Any thoughts?
All the best,
Tim.