Computer glitch with the lost post I suppose; and of course I am not mad, helping people is what I'm here for, and what we are all here for, helping, learning and sharing.
Good question about the mandarin; this will be difficult time for him while he is out of the main tank. You are basically looking at a month's worth of treatment of fish as well as main tank. Since your hospital tanks should be setup wo substrate, the mandarin will have a difficult time feeding. I'm thinking that perhaps you will need to try syringe feeding him. Fixing up a mixture of food then offering it to him directly from the syringe. Let me see if I can get some other advise on that and let you know.
Yes, place the LR and inverts in the main tank. The main tank will sit for a month wo any fish, and then it will be free of ick. You will, of course, need to continue doing regular maintenance on the tank.
You can do a 50-50 on the water for your hospital tanks--50% water from your tank, and 50% new salt water. Hyposalinity is not difficult so let me go ahead and recap here. Place all your fish in the hospital with normal salinity levels. Be sure that the water ph and temp in the hospital tanks are the same as the tanks that the fish are coming from. Acclimate them to the hospital tank and, once they have settled in to the new environment [a few hrs at least] then begin a slow, gradual reduction in the salinity levels. Better to do several very low increments of change in salinity than a few large changes. Stretch this over a 48 hr period, checking fish for any sign of stress. Stress is a key factor here in seeing fish thru this illness, so don't underestimate it! 1.009 is your goal. Pay close attention to your PH, because PH falls as salinity drops, so you may need to mechanically raise your PH to compensate.
Ick is cyclical. Over the course of 3 wks the parasites run their course in various stages. You will only see ick on the fish as the salty dots; at this stage hypo will have little effect on ick. Once the ick falls off the fish this does not mean that ick is gone, it is just cycled into another phase. It falls into rocks and substrate---which is the reason that live rock and substrate can carry ick. After this stage, the ick will become free-swimming and it is at this stage that hypo becomes effective. In the free-swimming stage, ick cannot tolerate the lack of salinity and will die.
Now, you need to wait 3 weeks AFTER all signs of ick have disappeared from all your fish in the hospital tank before beginning to raise the salinity levels slowly back to normal over the course of one week. By this time, ick should be gone, and the fish can be returned home. One month total time. During this time, feed your fish garlic soaked food. Garlic is a parasite repellent and will also work at ridding ick while they are actually on the fish.
Needless to say, since these hospital tanks are rather small, you will need to keep a very close watch on the quality of your water. For your main tank, I would suggest you look into equipping it with a UV sterilizer, quartz sleeve style, and one that is rated for your size tank. UV’s are not a cure-all for parasites, but it does help. Since I have used UV, I have not had any parasitic problems.
Water quality is of the essence in the hospital tank. The sponge filters should be alright, but you must make sure that water circulation is maintained, particularly at the top of the hospital tank. Gas exchange will be critical in these smaller tanks. Keep that sponge clean, feed fish sparingly, and maintain good water circulation and water quality.
Let me see what I find out about the mandarin feeding.
[ September 08, 2001: Message edited by: Beth ]
