spotted boxfish with ick, help!

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saltwater84

Large Fish
#1
Apr 11, 2006
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#1
Hello guys, I just bought a beutiful spotted boxfish few days ago and today I noticed two to three white dots on her top fin. I neither have the abliity to set up a qt nor use medication because my tank is a reef tank. All I could do for now is just do water change and raise the temperture in the tank and hope that the ick will go away, I doubt the ick will disppear. I really like this fish and do not want to take it back to the lps or give it away. Any suggest will help, thanks guys!

20gallon
16 lbs lr
uv sterlizer
romeora aquac skimmer
pengiun 200 fliter without bio ball
tiger watchman goby
mandarin
and of course corals
 

OCCFan023

OCCFan023

Superstar Fish
#2
Jul 29, 2004
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#2
well with no medication he will die and the ich will over tank the tank (any other fish?)

at this point in time I would say give it to someone with the capability to treat it or it will die.
 

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saltwater84

Large Fish
#4
Apr 11, 2006
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#4
yea i do, the recommend tank for this fish is 55gals. Right now he is about 2-3 inches, still small, very beautifuly fish. I will upgrade my whole system very to maybe a 90gals soon. The ick seem to go away, hopefully it doesn't come back.
 

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demons9872

Small Fish
#5
Jul 23, 2006
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#5
this is gonna sound stupid but i did it with my yellow tang and it worked get some tap water dont add anything to it get it to the same temp as your tank and stick your fish in it for like 30 seconds then put your fish back in your tank it should kill the ich if you watch it you will see them ich come off the fish the impuritys in tap water will kill the ich may also kill the fish if you leave him in there to long i know im prolly gonna get flamed for saying this but i tried it and it worked no more ich in my tank but still raise the temp some i did
 

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saltwater84

Large Fish
#7
Apr 11, 2006
261
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#7
As you guys may know, the boxfish release a toxin that will kill their tankmates when stressed, I afraid that I may stress my boxfish and make her release her toxin when I do a fd. I should have thought of that in the first place when I got her from the lps. Anybody owns a boxfish? How stressed does the fish has to get for it to release its toxin?
 

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saltwater84

Large Fish
#9
Apr 11, 2006
261
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#9
Yea, I might have to do a fw dip if I want to keep the fish. The ick is starting to come back again, this time with more white dots. I had an banner butterfly fish before and it had ick, I did a fw dip but it did not work. Maybe because I use the dechloride before I put the fish in. Anyways, do anyone reading this thread know for sure if I try to net the boxfish or do a fw dip on the boxfish, will she release her toxin?


Anyone kept a boxfish long enough to experience the release of its toxin, or any stragies on how to get rid of the toxin asap if the toxin is release??
 

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demons9872

Small Fish
#12
Jul 23, 2006
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#12
If you cant do a fresh water dip or an unable to sepertae the fish from your main tank see if your lfs has somewere they can medicate the fish and quarintee him for you my local fish does it maybe yours will 2
 

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saltwater84

Large Fish
#13
Apr 11, 2006
261
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#13
I crank up the temperature to about 86 degrees now, the ick seem to disappear but I believe they will come back. I guess if the ick advance again, I will have to use my empty 25gals to qt it. By the way guys, how do you effectively set up a qt tank? I had never done it before.
 

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aresgod

Superstar Fish
#15
Jan 14, 2004
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#15
wait, you have an empty tank? There is no reason that you shouldnt have QTed it in the first place, now the other 2 fish in your tank will most likely become infected at some point, you now need to QT all 3 of your fish for 6-8 weeks using medication in the seperate tank. Not to mention that the mandarin will most likely die during QT from starvation, and a mandarin in a 20 with another fish that will compete with it for food (the goby) is almost certainly doomed. I think the ick QT period might be a good time to rethink this tank, and plan accordingly.
 

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saltwater84

Large Fish
#16
Apr 11, 2006
261
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#16
I have this mandrain for almost 4 months now with the goby, they are doing fine. As I mention before, I had a banner butterflyfish that had ick and at the time it was with these two fish, they never caught the ick. I also had few fishes that came and go because of ick, I guess my tank is too small for those fish, my mandarin and goby did not caught the ick, I don't know why, so I don't see the reason to put them in qt and risk losing the mandarin. I crank up the temperture for the whole day and it seems like the ick is going away, all the fins on the boxfish seem to be clear. I'll put the boxfish in the qt anyway.
 

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wayne

Elite Fish
#17
Oct 22, 2002
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#17
It will return. Ick is an easily treated disease, but you need to do it properly and stop messing around. Assuming you have no corals in your tank I would really consider dropping the salinity a lot as most of what is on/in your live rock will survive hyposalinity down to 1.010.
You really ought to stop buying fish that have no place in a 20 gallon nano such as boxfish and banners. I don't want to sound like your mum, but it's not really very good form.
 

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aresgod

Superstar Fish
#18
Jan 14, 2004
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#18
four months is really not a long time at all, we will see how they are doing in a year, remember this hobby is about longevity. why do you think you keep getting ick out breaks? because it never was treated properly and is just lying dormant in your tank.
 

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