AHHHH ICK!!!!

[dlcrawle]

So my room mate chooses not to listen to my rules about my fish tank and goes out and buys what his girl friend calls a "cute fish" this little fish apparently brought in some ick with it. after 2-3 days all my fish are covered. Going to take all the live rock out today to try and catch them. Would like to just treat the main tank but cant with what I have to treat it. Is there anything I can use in a tank with inverts and corals to cure ick or do I just need to take them all out and put into another tank to treat? Fast response please and thank you

[micki]

Soak their food in garlic.

[lazylivin]

There are no reef safe in tank treatments that work well. You will have to remove all your fish from your display tank and leave it void of fish for 45 days. The ick will die off with no host. Then the quarantine tank where you move your fish to can either be treated with copper or hypo-salinity.

[Steve]

Might want to consider a dip for the roomate.

[dlcrawle]

I took them all out and have them in a 20 gallon tank and added copper. but then read that copper may not be good for mandarins or tangs is this true?

[starfishprime]

copper is real tough on fish. A lot of times I see them end up with HLLE, after being treated with it. If you can I would try hyposalinity. Works great you just have to go slow.

[dlcrawle]

how much should I drop it a day? how long should I leave them in hyposalinity? thanks

[lazylivin]

A fish can go to hypo-salinity immediately and should be 1.010 and stay there for 6 weeks. Going back to full salinity over a weeks time.

Read this http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_4/V4I4/hyposalinity/OST.htm

[muttley000]

Research Quinine Sulfate, which I think will someday replace copper.  I still wouldn't use it in a display, I think you are on the right track with the hospital tank.  Hopefully your room mate is learning from your pain!

[dlcrawle]

His  wallet is lol thanks for the help and advice. I supplemented with copper and I am dropping the salinity tomorrow. Should I redose with copper when I remove salt water and add straight ro to drop the salt level?

[HUNGER]

you want to keep the copper at a poper level

[lazylivin]

You can't do both copper treatment and hyposalinity.

[starfishprime]

I wouldn't do both. One or the other. And when you are done with the hypo if you did it properly you should not have to worry about re-treating with copper. If you still were unsure you could do a FW dip. but after hypo you really shouldn't need it. The key is to cause the least amount of stress as possible.

[The WuSue]

We've had a lot of luck using Rid Ick (I think that pets mart is the only place that carries it[don't get ick attack, it's worthless]). It isn't as strong as copper (both in terms of treatment and stress to fish) and is more effective that hypo.... we had to use it in our 150g FOWLR when the fish that were too big to house in any of our iso tanks caught a nasty bought of the white dots. Didn't lose a soul.

Btw, it's malachite green and formaldehyde based if you want to look up the active ingredients.   

[cyberwollf]

We've had a lot of luck using Rid Ick (I think that pets mart is the only place that carries it[don't get ick attack, it's worthless]). It isn't as strong as copper (both in terms of treatment and stress to fish) and is more effective that hypo.... we had to use it in our 150g FOWLR when the fish that were too big to house in any of our iso tanks caught a nasty bought of the white dots. Didn't lose a soul.

Btw, it's malachite green and formaldehyde based if you want to look up the active ingredients.   

Doesnt that leach into LR?

[HUNGER]

copper will and in the sand and it will leach back in to the watter

[dlcrawle]

Okau everyone I dropped my salintiy down to 22ppm and treated with copper. It has been 10 days and I am wondering if I should start to raise it back up? There are no more spots on the fish. I am going to do a water change to elimante some copper and not put it back in there. How much % water change should I do. The only deaths I had where of my green mandarin and my flame tail blenny who jumped out.