clownfish ick

[Blondek727]

i have two clownfish in a 10 gallon QT iv been doing the hypo treatment for a little over a month the smaller male has been ick free for about a week but the larger female just can shake the few that are left on her there both doing great they eat like pigs the only thing i can think of is that the areas in which they sleep is keeping the larger one from getting better she likes to sleep at the bottom on the sand and the male likes so sleep at the surface usally on top of my powerhead. should i remove the sand from the tank. the reson there is sand in there is because it used to be the main tank but got replaced with a 40 gallon breeder that im slowly turning into a reeftank but an suggestions would be awsome. should i put the small one in anuther QT and aclamate him to the main or just leave them both in there till the ick is gone for good?

 

[thincat]

first off what is the SG in the QT? It should be down to 1.009.
Here is a good post on the QT process:
Reef Frontiers

Reef Frontiers

I hope these links are Okay

 

[Blondek727]

salinity is at 1.009

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

I'd leave them both in there. Clock doesn't start ticking until the last bit of ich disappears from all fish in the tank.

Assuming you have some other type of biological filtration on the tank, I'd take out the sand. Using a bare bottom QT allows you to siphon the bottom off daily and keep a much cleaner tank. I'd read somewhere (and of course can't find it now) that the ich parasite will often drop off at night, ending up where the fish normally sleeps. It will then reproduce there - kinda sneaky since the fish will normally come back to the same spot to sleep. Once new generations of parasites come to life, the fish comes back to sleep, and gets a new crew of parasites.

The hypo will eventually kill all generations of ich, but if you can keep the bottom cleaned it may speed up the process.