Ick Problem Starting - Not sure what direction to take

[JestersCourt05]

Ok everyone, I'm starting to get a little frustrated - I've had my 55g setup for a while, and I had numerous fish in there going along beautifully. I had two 3 Stripe Damsels, 1 Domino Damsel ( which are all out now ), 2 False Perc Clownfish, 3 Firefish Gobies, 1 Blue Sided Fairy Wrasse, 2 Cleaner Shrimp, and an assortment of snails and hermit crabs.
I noticed the one day that the Wrasse had come down with ick and I knew it was the damsels harassing him, so as planned, I got the damsels out, put the wrasse in a hospital tank, and started to treat him for that. Well, the wrasse is now doing good - still in the hospital tank - but now I've noticed that one of my Clownfish has ick!!!!! However for that past week, everything seemed to be fine, with just the Firefish, and the Clowns, along with the cleaner crew mentioned above.
Ok, so I know if you catch ick quick enough it's not that bad to treat, but here's my quetion - Should I get the clown out, and put it in the hospital tank, or am I better off just treating the entire 55??? I don't want to have to tear all my rock (40lbs) out again to get to him, if I can safely treat him while in the tank. He doesn't seem to have it too bad, just a little on his head, but since I"m at work right now, I'm not sure how bad it'll be when I get home. He seems to eat just fine, but after that he goes and hides behind the rock. I haven't lost a fish yet in this tank, and I don't plan on losing one now. Water quality seems to be fine, there's algae growing, as normal in this stage, and ammonia is extremely low if any. Everything seems to be ok, except for this ick outbreak! Opinions anyone?

 

[OCCFan023]

If the clown fish has ich Id say get him in the hospital tank asap. Mine started off with like one dot and exploded and just destroyed my entire tank (ich poures and such in the sand)...


WHatd id do is take all the fish out and just treat them all with hyposalinity.. and let the tank resettle itself and let it rid itself of ich.

THats what I would do, but someone may have a better idea, but thats the only thing I could think of

 

[1979camaro]

you can't really treat the main tank itself...you should probably treat all your fish and keep them in QT for 6-8 weeks to allow the spores in your display to die

 

[JestersCourt05]

you can't really treat the main tank itself...you should probably treat all your fish and keep them in QT for 6-8 weeks to allow the spores in your display to die

That's kind of what I was afraid I would have to do. I only have a small QT setup, but I do have 2 tens laying around, and I could get those up pretty quick for some more tanks.

OCCFan023, how do I treat with hyposalinity?? I've never done that before?? Is it just raising the salinity up to a certain point???

 

[1979camaro]

its actually lowering the salinity...wayne made a good post about this process a few days ago...but i can't recall what post it was in. might do a search for hyposalinity

 

[OCCFan023]

yea as Camaro said Wayne had a good post about it a little bit but I cant remember which post it was in either... sorry


Heres a good article/reference about Hyposalinity:

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

 

[JestersCourt05]

Well that doesn't sound all that bad with lowering the salinity, just getting the other tanks setup will be a chore, since I don't have an RO unit with water available.

Is there any reason that I should be having this "outbreak"??? I've taken everything really slow only adding in a fish or two once a week - making sure that the water quality stayed consistent from week to week. I'm not sure why all of a sudden, this is happening - I don't know if I overlooked something in my process or what?!?!?!?!

 

[1979camaro]

youve got a lot of fish in theat 55 and they are all very aggressive so it could be stress induced. my guess is one of your newly bought fish brought it in. do you quarantine your new purchases?

 

[JestersCourt05]

As far as I've been researching, Firefish and False Perc Clowns are peaceful fish, and the wrasse isn't even in there right now, so I dont' think it's an aggression problem - Stress, yes, but due to agression, I would have to disagree. I've never seen any aggressiveness except when I had the Damsels in there, and they're gone.

As for the quarantine question, at this point, no, I didn't have the tank setup to do that before I put them in the main tank. I would always watch them for about a week at my local guy, and if I felt they were ok, I would bring them home. The only problem I've had so far is when the wrasse got the ich. It's very possible the wrasse brought it into the tank, and I didn't notice it.

 

[JustinP]

Stress, no matter how it occurs will lower the fish's immunity allowing parasites (Ich) to take hold. Once it does it can spread rapidly. I once had a yellow tang that would not leave my coral beauty angel alone. There was no real aggression but it was enough stress to make the angel sick. Once I removed the tang and treated the angel all was well. Depending on the degree of the clown's Ich infestation, hyposalinity may not be enough. You may need to get meds.

 

[wayne]

Hyposalintiy will likely get rid of , the other 'real' option is copper. You drop the salinity 1.010 and keep it there for a month or so, making sure you use a buffer to keep the pH up. Don't worry sounds extreme, but safe for most fish.
I would split the fish between the two tens, keep them barebottom and add some bits of plastic drain pipe for cover. If you have some old hobs or similar use them for filtrations, seed it with a small piece of live rock to provide a 'startup' filter bacterial culture. You'll need a filter and heater for each tank, don't worry about nitrates and so on. I use a fluval internal power filter with all the media in.

 

[JestersCourt05]

Well sadly enough, I thought the wrasse that I had in my hospital tank was doing ok, and come to find out he wasn't - He actually died on me last night, and to be honest I'm not sure why. He seemed like he was ok with everything, as he was eating, and swimming around just fine, but I was gravely mistaken.
I decided that instead of moving everything to the tens, I would just get out my shrimp, and snails, and work the hyposalinity on the main tank, since it won't hurt the fish, and I don't have any corals to worry about. I've started that process last night, but of course taking it slow not to "shock" the fish with the sudden drop - But you mentioned a buffer to keep the pH up - What would I use for that?

 

[wayne]

Fish handle downturns in SG much better than going up so you should be looking down to go 1.010 over 2 days at most, and you could likely go down in less. Going back up will be week 5's job.
You can diy the buffer, but I just buy one - it's not like it only lasts a little while. I think I use Kent Superbuffer.

 

[JestersCourt05]

I'll have to look around and see if I can find that Kent Superbuffer. - And I planned on taking 2-3 days to bring it down. I did a 5 gallon change last night, and plan to do another 5 gallon change today, and see where the salinity is. I was told I may have to do as much as 15 gallons, but I'm hoping 10 will get me where I need to be. I just don't want to lose any other fish, that wrasse was the first one I've lost, so I hope that by going "hypo" for a few weeks, I can really kill off anything else (disease) , stable off the tank, and then continue to add what I want in there. Thanks for the help, and any other suggestions please tell me - I'm very much a beginner, so all the help is VERY much appreciated

 

[wayne]

I would say you're likely doing the best you could. You're going straight to one of the more reliable treatments without messing around with Kick-Ich or similar first.