Ick question - Urgent!

[phattreefrog]

I currently have a small saltwater tank with one small percula clown and a medium firefish, along with several hermit crabs and snails, live rock, a porcelain crab, a baby starfish, and a cleaner shrimp. It appears that my two fish have developed ick (small white dots sporadically spaced on bodies), affecting the clown fish the worst at this point. I was hoping that my cleaner shrimp would help the situation, but every time it tries to get close to my fish they dart away. I have considered hitting the tank with Coppersafe since I have had good results with freshwater systems, but I am affraid it will kill the shrimp, crabs, and starfish, and possibly the live rock. Any suggestions??

Thanx!
Tim.

 

[1979camaro]

any meds with copper will kill everything in your tank except the fish

you need to quarantine the fish in a hospital tank and treat them there...then leave the fish in that tank for another 4-6 weeks to give the ick in your main tank a chance to go through its life cycle and die off

 

[KahluaZzZ]

I only had one case of ich, so my experience is very limited..but, i managed to save my percula with hyposalinity baths. Also i added vitamines in the food to slightly help his recovery.
Hypo is a more natural way to get it done, and clownfish are hardy

 

[phattreefrog]

I recently got the tank from a friend who moved across the country, so I do not have an established quarantine tank yet. Is my best bet to try freshwater baths? How long would it take for a quarantine tank to stabilize?

Tim.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

baths means your fish will return sooner to the main tank, so it can be riskier than QT because he can infect other fishies.
Oh ok you only got 2 and both infected...can try it.
Anyways...a QT can be simple to set up, a bucket and a powerhead + heater will do the trick. Avoid substrate and live rock. If you use medications, it can kills what's inside the liverock. Parasites loves substrate too

 

[wayne]

Don't bother with freshwater dips - ineffective.

Copper in a separate tank, or hypo and expect to lose some inverts. The only vaguely reef safe thing that might work is metronidazole

 

[KahluaZzZ]

i did one hour hypo baths ...and he's fine. Pure hasard ?

 

[wayne]

Waste of times. The ich bugs doing the damage are buried in the flesh, and in experiments survived 17 hours in freshwater just fine (which is more than most fish will). All the little white dots are the scabs where they emerge.

Hypo only works on the free swimming bug bit of the life cycle

 

[JustinP]

One word of caution, it's been my experience that firefish do poorly in copper also. I had ich once and it wasn't showing in the firefish but moved him along with everyone else to the QT for treatment. After a couple of days he was half dead and gasping for his life but with no signs of the disease. I bit the bullet and moved him to his own 10 gallon with no meds and he recovered perfectly after a week. And yes, no substrate or porous, calcareous substances in the QT, only inert this will make stabilizing your copper dose easier. PVC tubes work great for cover.