Quarantine/hospital tank setup questions

[bubbarockies]

So I have researched a little bit and I am almost sure my fish have ich. I have also done alot of research and it seems that there are many many myths as to how to treat it. I want to run hypo or copper in a hospital tank, where all of my fish will be for at least 8 weeks. The 8 weeks/60days seems to be the amount of time that is recommended to leave a tank fallow to let all of the Ich die off. As far as treating the fish my plan is:
1)to take enough water from my DT to fill up my QT and then over 3 days take the Specific Gravity down to 1.008-9. Then I will daily inspect the fish, and once I have gone ich symptom free for 4 weeks I will bring the salinty up over 7 days to match my DT again then place the fish back in the DT.

or

2)Take enough water to fill my QT from my DT and then use Cupramine or another type of copper medication. Again I will continue treatment until they have been symptom free for 4 weeks.
can
In both cases I will be using traditional FW type filtration. Here is where one of my main questions arise. Can I use ceramic bio media such as fluval biomax pellets or API Biochem Stars? I know you can't use calcium bicarbonate filtration such as LR. I am also considering using biological sponges in the FW filters. If I can't find any that are already seeded I will run them on the DT for a little while to establish some bacteria. Does anyone have any filter media that has been seeded that I can buy off of you? I don't have a ton of cash, but I would love to work something out. Usually I would offer frags but... Haha. I'm doing pretty good at not getting too frustrated so we'll see how long that lasts...
Anyways,
The setup will consist of:
Tank (what ballpark size do I need to treat 2 small clowns, clown goby, one spot foxface, Powder Blue and Purple tang?)

Stand
Heater
FW style filtration
FW style light

Suggestions are VERY VERY welcomed as this is the first hospital tank I have set up.

I will be using one of the two methods mentioned to get rid of the ich. I know that copper can decrease the life span of a fish, but if it is significantly quicker I would be open to using it instead of hypo. So,for those that have treated ich using copper or hyposalinity, how long did it take?
And did I mention that I am open for suggestions?
Thanks everyone!

 

[jahmic]

Haven't dealt with SW "ich", so I can't offer specifics on treatment...

but I do have a sponge or 2 in the back of my nanocube that you can have...they've been in there for as long as the tank has been up and I cut off pieces to seed other tanks. I also have a sponge you can take from my 20 long...it's been in there at least 6 weeks or so.

 

[bubbarockies]

Haven't dealt with SW "ich", so I can't offer specifics on treatment...

but I do have a sponge or 2 in the back of my nanocube that you can have...they've been in there for as long as the tank has been up and I cut off pieces to seed other tanks. I also have a sponge you can take from my 20 long...it's been in there at least 6 weeks or so.

I really appreciate that. Thank you!

 

[bubbarockies]

Haven't dealt with SW "ich", so I can't offer specifics on treatment...

but I do have a sponge or 2 in the back of my nanocube that you can have...they've been in there for as long as the tank has been up and I cut off pieces to seed other tanks. I also have a sponge you can take from my 20 long...it's been in there at least 6 weeks or so.

I tried PM'ing you and your inbox is full.

 

[jahmic]

already? I just deleted a bunch on Monday, lol. Should be working now...thanks for letting me know.

 

[Andrew_bram]

Quarantine/hospital tank setup questions

Also if you go the copper route you will still leave some bacteria in tact if you go with hypo you will have a die off which will require prime or wc

 

[bubbarockies]

already? I just deleted a bunch on Monday, lol. Should be working now...thanks for letting me know.

I had the same experience. Turns out my problem was I had no idea that it saved all of my sent messages as well. I had somewhere in on 3 less than the limit in my sent folder so I only had 3 in my inbox and it was telling me that I couldn't send because I had used my allotted data. :idea:

 

[ialtalal]

Re: Quarantine/hospital tank setup questions

I have extra sponge filter you can use too if you want they just need lil rinsing and they should be good to go. When I set up a qt tank I usually just make how ever many gallon and I need and get it the right temp and put a new filter in there and should be good to go. I dont really worry much about seeding bacteria live rock etc

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[bubbarockies]

Also if you go the copper route you will still leave some bacteria in tact if you go with hypo you will have a die off which will require prime or wc

I thought that copper killed the bacteria too. Am I wrong to think that?

 

[ialtalal]

Re: Quarantine/hospital tank setup questions

I have different sizes of the sponge filters and air pumps as well and a 55 gallon tank if you need it
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[jahmic]

I read this a while back to get my up to speed in case I had an outbreak...it's an old article, but the information is solid.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/

 

[Andrew_bram]

Quarantine/hospital tank setup questions

Copper will kill some of the bacteria depending in what copper you use some kill more than others. If you use am ionic copper in theory you biological media stays pretty much intact or so it is claimed

 

[Dr.DiSilicate]

have you tried feeding medicated food? how bad is the ick?

 

[ialtalal]

Re: Quarantine/hospital tank setup questions

have you tried feeding medicated food? how bad is the ick?

+1 garlic and vita chem

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[daverf]

Are you fairly certain on Ich? Any deaths? Or near deaths?

+1 on Andrew's warnings. I have used everything right in my display tank. Well, I haven't used Gold Bond powder in it. Yet. But I've seen die off / recycling from copper and hypo. I think it is primarily when you have other sea life, such as sponges. Some believe that hypo will cause the bacterial strains that thrive more in brackish water to replace the seawater strains (as the latter dies when you drop salinity...then converse occurs when you raise). I think the bacterial filter impact risk exists, but IMO it is small and always worth taking to treat the fish.

Just choose your poison and follow the regimen. Having done all of the above and way more (mostly for Ich), I will never try anything but hyposalinity again. I've spent lots of money on Ich, and that's the way I'd do it (having beat it). But copper or quinine meds (chloroquine phosphate) are the other proven options...

If you do hypo, you need a refractometer and ATO. If the Ich is advanced, I would get the salinity down ASAP (in 1-2 changes...24 hours). It will shock the fish, but have a bigger parasite shock (thus increasing their chance of beating the Ich). If any fish die while you are dropping salinity, chances are it was due to their weakened state from Ich and that they would've died soon anyway. I would do 1.009 for minimum 8 weeks. 1.008 makes me nervous, personally.

If you do copper, I would agree on ionic (suggest Cupramine), and because you need to stay accurately in the "kill zone" (shoot for .25ppm) you need a copper test kit (suggest same manufacturer as the copper brand).

If you use ionic copper, DO NOT use Prime or any other ammonia reducing agent. It will reduce the ionic copper to the toxic copper which could everything. It would be nice if the chemical manufacturers acknowledged this on their labels, but they don't. I know this from talking to the Seachem chemical engineers.

If you can't wait for a bio filter media in the QT, just get the fish in, stop all feeding, and keep on eye on the ammonia (small water changes) until you have bio so you can start treating. Or worse case, if you accept risks, you could lower your DT salinity to 1.020ish (will buy fish some time, but not much, and not good for any other life in your tank).

Tank size, hm, would get as big as you can (55G). That's a lot of fish. Could you throw all your rock/corals in a brute and treat in your DT? And sand if you do copper? (Copper = no can have substrate).

It takes work, but it can be beat!

 

[bubbarockies]

have you tried feeding medicated food? how bad is the ick?

I have been feeding garlic. However, I am shooting for as close to an ich free system as possible and to truly obtain that I have to treat everything. That means leaving the DT fallow for 60 days and treating all fish with some sort of agent to kill the Ich. Really good read right here... http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...nts/23131-hyposalinity-treatment-process.html
Follow the links as it just keeps giving more and more information.

 

[Andrew_bram]

Quarantine/hospital tank setup questions

You can get food from ambrosa that contains cp according to mr fenner cp is very effective against ich and there is a write up on reef builders about the food. Only problem with cp is long term/over dosing can cause blindness.

 

[bubbarockies]

Are you fairly certain on Ich? Any deaths? Or near deaths?

+1 on Andrew's warnings. I have used everything right in my display tank. Well, I haven't used Gold Bond powder in it. Yet. But I've seen die off / recycling from copper and hypo. I think it is primarily when you have other sea life, such as sponges. Some believe that hypo will cause the bacterial strains that thrive more in brackish water to replace the seawater strains (as the latter dies when you drop salinity...then converse occurs when you raise). I think the bacterial filter impact risk exists, but IMO it is small and always worth taking to treat the fish.

Just choose your poison and follow the regimen. Having done all of the above and way more (mostly for Ich), I will never try anything but hyposalinity again. I've spent lots of money on Ich, and that's the way I'd do it (having beat it). But copper or quinine meds (chloroquine phosphate) are the other proven options...

If you do hypo, you need a refractometer and ATO. If the Ich is advanced, I would get the salinity down ASAP (in 1-2 changes...24 hours). It will shock the fish, but have a bigger parasite shock (thus increasing their chance of beating the Ich). If any fish die while you are dropping salinity, chances are it was due to their weakened state from Ich and that they would've died soon anyway. I would do 1.009 for minimum 8 weeks. 1.008 makes me nervous, personally.

If you do copper, I would agree on ionic (suggest Cupramine), and because you need to stay accurately in the "kill zone" (shoot for .25ppm) you need a copper test kit (suggest same manufacturer as the copper brand).

If you use ionic copper, DO NOT use Prime or any other ammonia reducing agent. It will reduce the ionic copper to the toxic copper which could everything. It would be nice if the chemical manufacturers acknowledged this on their labels, but they don't. I know this from talking to the Seachem chemical engineers.

If you can't wait for a bio filter media in the QT, just get the fish in, stop all feeding, and keep on eye on the ammonia (small water changes) until you have bio so you can start treating. Or worse case, if you accept risks, you could lower your DT salinity to 1.020ish (will buy fish some time, but not much, and not good for any other life in your tank).

Tank size, hm, would get as big as you can (55G). That's a lot of fish. Could you throw all your rock/corals in a brute and treat in your DT? And sand if you do copper? (Copper = no can have substrate).

It takes work, but it can be beat!

I was thinking 55 so that's good. I was leaning hypo as it seems to be less toxic seeming and less of a financial investment. I am fairly certain, but as this is the first time I believe to have had Ich, it is hard for me to tell. They get to about salt sized white dots, they show up for a day or two, then some fall off then I see some new ones in a couple of days. I tried garlic etc. but after some research I believe that this just helps prevent the onset of other diseases... Anyways, I did have another reefer say that he thought it was Ich, but not to hold him to it.
I did fail to mention that I will be regulating the salt level with a JBJ ATO.
As far as moving rock/coral. I have 170 lbs so that would likely be a bigger endeavor than I can undertake.

So... I think that I may just go with hypo. Now I just have to get the tank in here, hopefully tomorrow.

 

[daverf]

I was thinking 55 so that's good. I was leaning hypo as it seems to be less toxic seeming and less of a financial investment. I am fairly certain, but as this is the first time I believe to have had Ich, it is hard for me to tell. They get to about salt sized white dots, they show up for a day or two, then some fall off then I see some new ones in a couple of days. I tried garlic etc. but after some research I believe that this just helps prevent the onset of other diseases... Anyways, I did have another reefer say that he thought it was Ich, but not to hold him to it.
I did fail to mention that I will be regulating the salt level with a JBJ ATO.
As far as moving rock/coral. I have 170 lbs so that would likely be a bigger endeavor than I can undertake.

So... I think that I may just go with hypo. Now I just have to get the tank in here, hopefully tomorrow.

OK. So then I would do nothing. While I don't believe Ich Free Systems are mythical, I think most systems have some parasitic activity. I would do nothing until one or more fish start going from bad to worse (in which case I would treat all, go fallow, etc). All the work/stress to the fish to kick something that may not become a full blown issue is not worth it (and by the way, some people run 12 week fallow and see Ich return...some believe cysts can lie dormant for up to a year). Stick with good water parms/husbandry, lower tank inhabitant stress, and just keep watching it. You may see spots come and go on Ich's reproductive cycle (10-21 days I think), and even get to the point where you time the cycle for your own system, and see it go like this for a year with no problems. Eventually the Ich will disappear.

I never got Ich Free but I have a bullet proof (knock on wood) approach now. For the last 5 months I have seen 2-4 spots come and go on my harlequin tusk every 10 days (on the clock). He always shakes them off within 1 day, 2 days max. If I do anything irregular (water changes etc) that adds stress, he'll have 1-2 more than usual. I almost never worry, but when I do, I just drop the salinity a few points overnight then gradually raise it. So Ich is no problem for me now.

Do you see the bouts getting worse? Are you planning to add more fish?

 

[bubbarockies]

OK. So then I would do nothing. While I don't believe Ich Free Systems are mythical, I think most systems have some parasitic activity. I would do nothing until one or more fish start going from bad to worse (in which case I would treat all, go fallow, etc). All the work/stress to the fish to kick something that may not become a full blown issue is not worth it (and by the way, some people run 12 week fallow and see Ich return...some believe cysts can lie dormant for up to a year). Stick with good water parms/husbandry, lower tank inhabitant stress, and just keep watching it. You may see spots come and go on Ich's reproductive cycle (10-21 days I think), and even get to the point where you time the cycle for your own system, and see it go like this for a year with no problems. Eventually the Ich will disappear.

I never got Ich Free but I have a bullet proof (knock on wood) approach now. For the last 5 months I have seen 2-4 spots come and go on my harlequin tusk every 10 days (on the clock). He always shakes them off within 1 day, 2 days max. If I do anything irregular (water changes etc) that adds stress, he'll have 1-2 more than usual. I almost never worry, but when I do, I just drop the salinity a few points overnight then gradually raise it. So Ich is no problem for me now.

Do you see the bouts getting worse? Are you planning to add more fish?

Right now they aren't too bad but the PBT got pretty bad as far as number of spots goes this last time around. My PBT actually seems to develop a bump where each of the parasites burrow, a little less than 1/4 of an inch in an oval shape. Is this unusual? It isn't happening on my purple tang which is the only other fish with spots. As far as more fish goes, I was considering trying to add another clown pair down the road, but I'm not going to be terribly upset if I am unable to do so. If one of the fishes die I would want to replace it, but in that case I would definitely be treating. I was trying to avoid having to treat all the fish, but I'm just not sure I am going to be able to get the tangs "cured" without treatment. If the fish have the white spots then they are likely in a decent amount of discomfort and I don't want them to have to just live with it. If it was just a few spots I might just let it go, but when the purple has 15+ per cycle and the PBT 40+ per cycle I just can't imagine they are too happy. A little over a month ago is when I saw the first couple spots on the PBT and a week later the Purple had a few. The ich cycle is progressing about every 5 days for me. 2days on the fish, 3 days off, although the fish never completely clear up.
They both still eat pretty well. The PBT has not eaten frozen since I got him, but still eats any flake/pellet/noori I put in. My purple eats anything, and lots of it. He usually eats as much as the rest of my tank. I'm pretty sure he'd eat my foxface if my foxface wasn't venemous. Anyways, I just can't imagine the tangs could last that long with an infection of this magnitude.