2 Sick Swallowtail Angels in QT - not sure how to treat

[ReefGirlSara]

I'm trying to decide what to do. I ordered 2 juvenile swallowtail angels at my LFS. They came in, and I prepaid but didn't have my QT set up yet so they held them for me.

I'll try to make this long story short...one died, they replaced it for me for free, but wanted me to get them right away. I went to get them and one looked fine, the other had ick. The owner wasn't in so they held them for a few more days. I talked to the owner and we decided it would be best if I just took them home and tried to nurse them back to health in my new (used) QT - it's a 38 gallon eclipse with live rock and live sand.

So one has ick, and the other one - the healthy beautiful one - decided to take flight while they were trying to bag her up at the LFS. She rolled and flopped all around on the concrete, covered with dirt and salt creep back behind all the tanks. Now they are both here at my house, in the QT.

I matched the salinity to what they were in at the LFS: 1.016.
Temp: 80.5 - 81 F
Nitrates: 0
I don't know what other info would be helpful.

Hyposalinty or Kick Ick or Both or Neither???

The one with ick has a lot of white spots right now, but good color and is eating really well.

The one that was healthy but was on the floor looks pretty bad. His color is faded, his fins are a little rough around the edges, some scales are messed up, and he just seems weak. He ate a little.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

[ReefGirlSara]

Oh yeah - I bought a cleaner shrimp to throw in there thinking he might help with the ick, but I wasn't sure if he would be ok in such low salinity (1.016). Any thoughts on that?

I put him in a different tank w/normal salinity for now.

[Playa-1]

I don't think it's a good idea to put the shrimp in low salinity.
I would treat in the qt for 4 to 6 weeks with Hypo salinity of 1.009
I would also treat with an antibiotic for secondary infections.
Keep a close eye out for Ammonia.
I'm not sure that those fish would make it through a copper treatment.

[ReefGirlSara]

I would like to avoid using copper - the live rock in there is decent looking rock, so I'd rather not put copper in there. Kick Ick doesn't have copper - I've used it in my 54 gallon reef tank and it saved my yellow tang from ick with no noticeable bad side effects.

I wasn't sure if the hypsalinity would be unnecessary stress for the one that did not already have ick. Of course now that he's in the same tank I'm sure he will/does have it...

What kind of antibiotic would I use?

I soaked their food in selcon and garlic tonight.

I have been watching them for a long time and they are both kinda twitchy - kinda like a firefish darts around - does anyone know if that is normal for these fish or is it because they are not well?

[Playa-1]

I definetely would not introduce the fish into the display tank until you confident that the ich is gone.

The nice thing about Hypo is that it doesn't stress the fish at all. If anything it's the opposite. The hypo treatment takes longer but it's safer with the least amount of stress.

selcon and garlic is good to intice the fish to eat.

Furan-2 or Maracyn would likely be good choices to help prevent secondary infections. I'm sure there are plenty of other products out there that would work just fine.

[demonsp]

Whats used for flow in this tank?
What size tank and its age?
Do you test and there readings?

[ReefGirlSara]

My display tank has been fish-less for almost 2 months now, believe me I am not putting anything in there EVER again without QTing it first.

So hypo does not stress the fish out? I have never done it, just read about it on RC mostly.

How would I dose Furan-2? I was thinking of getting some to treat some zoas that might have white pox, but for that you just dip the zoas in it.

The tank has the eclipse built in pump set-up, it is about 38 gallons, and I have a Koralia one in there, so not a ton of flow, but some all around.

I have only been monitoring temp, salinity and nitrates so far - as listed above...
salinity 1.016
nitrate 0
temp 80.5

This tank had been set up for 6 months when I bought it on Tuesday. There was a good bit of hair algea on the rocks, but the water params were good. I didn't test for phosphate - but it's just a QT so I wasn't worried about it.

I think I'm leaning towards hyposalinity and Furan-2, any additional thoughts?

[demonsp]

Did you add the fish right after you added the water?
Was the water added all new or reused?

[ReefGirlSara]

I bought and set up the used 6 mo. old tank Tuesday night and re-used about 20 gallons (also re-used live rock and did not even disturb the sand very much, just transported it in the tank.) I added about 18 gallons of new water on Tuesday night.

I picked up the fish Thursday night, since they were in SG of 1.016 and I was planning on doing the hypo treatment, I just took out enough water so that I could add new fresh water w/ matched pH, and make the SG 1.016.

I acclimated them seperately for about 1.5 hours each.

They have now been in the tank for about 27 hours.

[demonsp]

Why would you drop the PH so fast in your main tank.This is bad. The fish would have been fine with the PH level. Its the ammonia level for fish that matters.

[demonsp]

You looked great untill that point.

[ReefGirlSara]

We are not on the same page here - I have not done anything at all with my main tank. It is a 90 gallon reef tank with no fish - I have not done anything with it at all.

The only tank I'm talking about is the new/used 6 mo. old eclipse tank that I am using for a quarantine tank.

I did not lower any pH at all. Maybe I misworded something. I matched the pH in the new water that I was adding to the QT, because my RODI water has a pH of about 7.6 or so. I raised the pH in the freshwater to 8.2 which is what the Qt was already at.

What I was saying I lowered was the salinity, it was the standard 1.025 when I bought the tank on Tuesday. Since I was thinking I might do hyposalinity, and they were coming from the LFS where the salinity (SG) was 1.016 I decided to adjust the QT water to match the salinity they were already in, so the acclimation was not too stressful and so I don't have so far to go when I drop it down to 1.009 for the hypo treatment.

[ReefGirlSara]

I have a pinpoint salinity monitor, and it came with a conversion chart, but 1.009 Specific Gravity is not on the chart. The monitor's readings are displayed in Salinity, so a reading of 53 is equal to 35 ppt which this chart says is equal to 1.026 (all at 77 degrees F).

What should the salinity reading be for an SG of 1.009? (I think it would be 14 ppt, but I need to know in Salinity mS.) The tank is slightly warmer than 77, it is 80.5. I think it should read right around 23 or 24, but I think I need to keep it pretty exact for the hypo.

[ReefGirlSara]

Any thoughts on that? I am thinking it would be right around 22.

[Playa-1]

It looks like 21.5
Check out this chart.
http://www.americanmarineusa.com/salinityconversion.html

[ReefGirlSara]

That's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks Playa-1.

[Macimage]

You may want to repost this in the fish disease section on RC for more input:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=87

Good luck!
Joyce