Dealing with Ich ... =(

[GuOD]

Hey everyone,

So I was silly and added the powder blue tang to my tank without a QT (I simply don't have space in my current house). He seemed fine but I thought I noticed ich. My friend confirmed it and we immediately went on a mission to capture him. We quickly transported him into a spare tank and then proceeded to do a 10-15 min FW dip. Now, about 3 days later his breathing has become totally normal, ALL white spots are gone, and he seems to be perfect. A complete success with healing him from ich I guess. The problem is, the tank he's in now really can't stay there and needs to be moved. Is there any way it'd be safe to move him from the QT tank back to my main tank at this stage? All the other fish are 100% healthy.


Sadly - my maroon clown died from this. Not because of the ich... but when we went after the PBT at night, he made a jump for it. Didn't find him for 2 days =(

 

[dskidmore]

Ick has a 1 month life cycle. You can't be confident it's gone before that. You may consider slowly lowering the salinity of the water (over a few days) if you have a refractometer to test with. At a specific gravity of 1.009, the ick can not complete it's life cycle. Slowly lowering the salinity in the QT is less of a shock to the fish than a FW dip, and will get the parasites that are not on the fish. (The parasites on the fish are actually the least vulnerable to treatment. Killing the parasite after it naturally falls off the fish has a higher sucess rate.)

If you don't have a refractometer, a copper treatment may be in order. At the very least, do frequent water changes, making sure to clean the bottom of the tank very well.

Read up on Ich: http://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showpost.php?p=914831&postcount=6

 

[GuOD]

Thanks.

The salinity of the QT tank is being kept at 1.019

I'm going to do a PWC later tonight I think. I'll siphon the bottom of the tank. It's bare bottom so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[melosu58]

When ick falls off the fish then it falls to bottom where over 200 tomites come from that one parasite. I would assume the parasite is not going. Here are some links

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/article_view.php?faq=2&fldAuto=50

http://www.fantasyreef.com/showthread.php?t=572

 

[flanque]

I've always found the idea of fresh water dips as cruel and stressful. It may be completely fine.. it just doesn't seems it to me for some reason.

 

[melosu58]

I never recommend FW dips. I have never seen it work completely and most of the time the fish dies from the stress. JMO

 

[flanque]

Agreed