Need help. Things are getting out of hand!!!

[Ingy]

You can use ammolock to make the ammonia non-poisonous. But, yes treatment is stressful. On the plus side, the filters still work to remove poop and food bits, and as long as you change the filter floss more frequently, you should be ok. The fish hopefully too. After the recommended time in the hypo water passes, you get to slowly raise salinity back up. Your bacteria may reactivate or just repopulate in the tank and bio filter. Then you leave them in the normal levels hospital tank for the duration of the quaranteen to ensure all ick is dead in the tank and that the fish are truely cured. Not the entire 8 week period will be in hypo, so it shouldn't be too bad.
Good luck

[TheTodd]

And if you plan to QT future additions, you only treat if something shows up. Many times it will not.

Good luck and keep us updated!

[begginersluck]

Definitely QT'ing new additions going forward. I'm getting the treatment going tonight so I will show you a picture of my progress later and let you know whether I chose hypo or copper. I have a bottle of cuprazine so I might use that. It's a 10 day treatment which uses copper sulphate.

[Ingy]

The disadvantage to copper is you contaminate the entire tank and bio pads with copper. You may be able to remove some or even most of the copper, but it still might be there for future use. Hypo treatment can be interchangeably used with a QT tank and hospital tank (i.e. 1 tank for both purposes) for any and all tank inhabitants.

[Nosaj81]

Originally Posted by Ingy

The disadvantage to copper is you contaminate the entire tank and bio pads with copper. You may be able to remove some or even most of the copper, but it still might be there for future use. Hypo treatment can be interchangeably used with a QT tank and hospital tank (i.e. 1 tank for both purposes) for any and all tank inhabitants.

hypo is not 100% and can not be done in dt with inverts

[begginersluck]

I've gone with copper.

All fish are in QT and I've started the first day of treatment. All the fish look rather peed off. The corals got knocked about along with the anemones, all the rock had to be remove to catch the fish. I've used almost half a bucket of salt and running out, I've mixed and hauled so many containers of water around and this is excluding he daily water changes I'm going to have to do. I've just say down after 4 hours of hard work and I hope to never have to do this again.

I now understand why no one bothers with this method but if you want to save your fish its the only way.

Anyone reading this that is unsure about QT'ing your fish then I highly recommend you do it for every single fish you buy in future.

I've not even talked about QT'ing coral, inverts and anything else living you want to put in your tank as I'm guessing this will involve another QT just for them!

[Ingy]

Sorry, that's not what I said/meant. If you use hypo in your hospital tank, you can later use it as a QTank, even for inverts, with the correct salinity of course. Thing is hypo does not contaminate the tank for future use.
I believe hypo IS the more reliable method for killing Ich. Better than adding poisonous copper medication. Of course I suppose nothing is 100% effective.

[begginersluck]

Yeah there's so many people that have said the 'I believe' line since I started my adventure in quarantining I decided I need to pretty much pick one and go with it. I ended up going with a majority vote which leant towards copper and an un cycled tank. I will be doing daily water changes and replacing the copper treatment I remove whilst doing so. I have a daily checklist and I plan on designing a chart to print out and keep next to the QT so I can monitor all parameters and remind myself what I've done and need to do while I treat!

Pain in the arse but my beloved regal tang and clowns have been with me far too long to loose them to a school boy error. Not quarantining!

[begginersluck]

Sorry ingy that wasn't a personal dog at you I very much appreciate your input as others reading this may not realise you'll need a separate QT if treating fish with copper instead of hypo.

[TheTodd]

Hope it all works out for you and the fish. QT after a breakout is always more of a pain than just putting new additions in for observation and then adding them into the DT.

When I started my new tank about a year ago, I used QT for the first couple of fish, but gave my QT tank to my son for a science fair project. Of course, I find a bicolor Foxface for a great price and decide to just throw it in my DT instead of just going and buying another tank. It ends up with MV, all but my Chromis die and all over a $10 tank. I knew better and am kicking myself for doing what I did.

[begginersluck]

Thanks Todd and yes I totally agree, just QT all fish to prevent sickness and disease.

Il keep you all updated on my progress.

One little treat I can buy myself to make me feel better is possibly a couple of new corals once everything settles down as they won't be exposed to the copper treatment. But hold it I should QT them too!

[Nosaj81]

Originally Posted by begginersluck

Thanks Todd and yes I totally agree, just QT all fish to prevent sickness and disease.

Il keep you all updated on my progress.

One little treat I can buy myself to make me feel better is possibly a couple of new corals once everything settles down as they won't be exposed to the copper treatment. But hold it I should QT them too!

you can use a coral dip to make sure they are critter free

[begginersluck]

Yeah il adobe some sort of dip idea before adding them to my DT.

Not taking anymore chances!

[TheTodd]

I'm not as good with reef advice, as its been many, many years since I've had one, but my understanding is that corals and inverts do not carry stuff like this. It could be in the water that they come with though.

[Ingy]

coral dipping is easy to do and cheap. By a small bottle, a quick dip in a container with some CoralRx and poof, yer dun. Throw the dip out and add the coral.

[begginersluck]

I think you can get carried away sometimes but as a precaution a coral dip would be good. I recently lost the most stunning green hammer coral to brown jelly and was nothing I could have done about it as I didn't catch it in time. Lesson learnt again.... Dippy dippy!

[begginersluck]

On the fish side of things I desperately need to go out in the morning and grab some PVC piping as the fish look quite stressed with no where to retreat!

[Nosaj81]

Originally Posted by TheTodd

I'm not as good with reef advice, as its been many, many years since I've had one, but my understanding is that corals and inverts do not carry stuff like this. It could be in the water that they come with though.

corals and inverts can bring ich into the tank, ich can not host on corals or inverts but when they drop off the fish they can attach to them during the reproduction cycle

[begginersluck]

Yes I think we know this is a possibility.

Coral dips will sort this out. Wait didn't we just say that?

[TheTodd]

Sorry...started typing that response and got distracted and had to finish it later. Didn't know someone else had already posted.