Did I Hospitalize Correctly?

[cayenne]

To make a very long story short... I came home on Thursday to find my Scopas Tang cover in spots (Presumed to be Ich) and my Royal Gramma scraping itself against my rocks.

On Friday I began setting up a hospital tank (Bare Bottom, PVC, 81 Degrees, Power Filter) in preparation. Tank ran most of the day Friday, and into Saturday morning with no livestock.

I woke up Saturday morning to find my Kole Tang lying on it's side dead. He was not showing any signs of symptoms so it is possible he was further along than the others. All live stock has been moved into the hospital tank which is being dosed with Copper. All fish are doing better with the exception of my Royal Gramma which gave up about six hours after acclimating to the Hospital tank.

My plans are to run the main tank with out fish for 6-8 weeks to make sure all of the parasites die off. Any recommendations? I have never had to do this before so any comments are appreciated.

[stingythingy45]

I don't think you need to run your hospital tank that warm(81 deg).When water is that warm the disolved oxygen level also is decreased.If you have a small powerhead also place that in there so it aggitates the water surface.What size hospital tank is this?
You're going to need to test for ammonia quite often now.There's no biological filter in place anymore for the fish.Water changes and Amequel will help this from becoming toxic.

[kevin2000]

My 02

I suspect that major water changes may be required to keep your QT ammonia free ... I would purchase a rubbermaid trashcan and make up a large batch.

Make sure you have a good copper test kit that works with the kind of copper your using. Not all copper test kits work with all copper products. When you make a water change you will need to adjust copper levels ... also note that some copper products tend to precipitate out of the water column so you may need to adjust copper concentrations even when you not making water changes.

Hope this helps.

[tylorarm]

Don't use copper and amequel together, they react and turn the copper deadly. I found this out the hard way and was confirmed by Seachem (I used cuppramine).

[cayenne]

stingythingy45,
I have read that keeping the tank warmer will speed up the parasites life cycle. I am running two powerheads to stir up the water. It is a 55 gallon tank, and I am doing ammonia tests twice a day.

kevin2000,
I am doing water changes daily after I siphon up the debris on the bare bottom. I also am monitoring the copper levels, and I am running chelated copper so it will not precipitate out so quickly.

tylorarm,
Thanks for the warning, I am planning on combating ammonia with water changes, so hopefully that will keep it under control.

[kevin2000]

Having warm water is an old FW cure which really isn't effective in SW. Yeah .. it does accelerate the life cycle of ich but that doesn't compensate for the downside of further stressing the fish.

For what its worth I would lower the temperature back to normal and let the copper do its job. The fish have to stay in QT for a long time for the show tank to cure itself so whats the rush?

[cayenne]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12891956#post12891956 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kevin2000
Having warm water is an old FW cure which really isn't effective in SW. Yeah .. it does accelerate the life cycle of ich but that doesn't compensate for the downside of further stressing the fish.

For what its worth I would lower the temperature back to normal and let the copper do its job. The fish have to stay in QT for a long time for the show tank to cure itself so whats the rush?

Good point, like you said I have plenty of time on my hands. No need to be in a rush...

One other question, I have an Remora Protein Skimmer laying around, is there any advantage to running it on the hospital tank?

[kevin2000]

Not really and I would be concerned that it may remove some of the copper.