more ich questions.....

J

jammerz

Large Fish
#1
Feb 28, 2005
308
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Boise
#1
Hi all been reading the posts for awhile now i have some questions, great site btw-how fun. ok So I have a 80g FOWLR and 2 corals, with UGF, seaclone 150 protein skimmer, cascade canister filter, 80 lbs of LR. Being the newbie I'am I bought a powder blue tang even though the guy at the LFS stroingly advised me not to because they get ich relly easy. Within the first night in my tank he had ich, so i treated immediatly with the common blue ich medicine, for 3 days as directed.He started looking better. This whole time I was learning that i need a QT- newbies dont even try this hobby without a QT- SO i got a 30g and was letting it cycle, I couldn't put anything in there yet cause it was right in the middle of cycling.Then the ich exploded in my big tank again so I treated again. I also forgot to mention that the first time I saw the ich I went out and bought a 15 watt UV sterilizer. So now the QT is done cycling so i took all the LR out of the 30g and put it in the big tank so that i can treat the QT with copper. I tried Freswater dips on the powder blue but lost him, I lost my yellow eyed tang the next day. So ther remaining fish are in the QT tank with copper and are looking much better they are a blue jaw trigger, an engineer, a Goby, and a green corris wrasse. Needless to say after dumping all of those fish into the new small tank my bio load is HUGH my nitrites are soaring, I am changing 4 to 5 gallons/day and readding the copper each time. The copper says it will treat the water for a month but how long should I keep these fish in the 30g under these conditions of the high nitries? I've also heard alot of different things on how long the ich lifecycle is I've heard 7-15 days, 30 days, and 4-6 weeks. How long should I wait to put the fish back in the 80g if iam using a UV sterilizer and treat the tank with the blue med for ich? Also should i just keep doing my daily water changes on the 30g to keep the nitrites managable until i can remove the fish. Also how long do I need to treat the fish with the copper, its been 5 days and they looking better and eating again. But i don't want to risk another ich flare up so shoul I wait as long as possible? My green chromis never got the ich so i left all 4 of them in the big tank, is it possible they have it and i cant tell, they are acting normal and the guy at the LFS said they are pretty resilient to the ich any ideas on that? Thanks for all your help this is a sweet site full of info thanks to all who make it possible. *celebrate
 

S.Reef

S.Reef

Superstar Fish
#2
Dec 1, 2003
1,830
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Michigan
#2
Basically all fish exposed to the disease are possibly infected, including the chromis.

My advice...keep up the water changes, move the chromis to the qt. I would keep all the fish in there for at least 2 weeks. Three is much better. In the mean time do not add anything to the display tank! What filter are you running on the qt? I would probably adda piece or two of live rock just to aid in biological filtration altough you shouldnt add it back to the display tank. Copper will be in that water forever. It will be pretty effective for a month or so.

And remember qt all fish you get.
 

J

jammerz

Large Fish
#5
Feb 28, 2005
308
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Boise
#5
I have a cpr bakpak on the QT. and a regular dual chamber HOB the bak pak has a skimmer will remove the dual chamber HOB when bak pak seeds alittle more. The dual chamber been on since feb 1 and bak pak since feb 14
 

TRe

TRe

Elite Fish
#6
Feb 20, 2005
3,645
1
0
ft. lauderdale
#6
the man at the lfs said that when you see the little white spots on the fish thats the ich in the cacoon stage..the copper doesnt affect it while its in this stage so you raise up the temp to about 80 or so (to speed up the cycle) and when the ich comes out of the cacoon then the copper will kill the ich off

the question i have is : is the copper safe on live rock??? and by using the quarentine will the the ich kill it self off (starve to death) ???? or must the main tank be treated too?
 

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