Coral Beauty in QT, Ick breakout

[jscarlata]

ive had a CB in QT for 1.5 weeks and up until yesterday he was fine, high strung, but fine. yesterday evening he had an ick spot on his head, then late last night his body had a lot of ick spots. The oddest thing, he was eating more than he ever ate in thelast week and he had calmed down a bit he was more calmly swimming and grazing. previously whenever i entered the room he would pace the short side of the tank. it was too late for me to decide on a treatment last night, i have copper power in my fish room, but i was planning to try hypo. Originally i wasnt going to be around this weekend, so i was going to roll the dice with copper. this will be my first attempt trying to cure ick in a marine tank, thankfully its my QT. i do have some live rock in the QT so that he had some grazing material. I know it has to come out for the copper treatment, what about hypo?
any advice on hypo is appreciated, i read most of the stickies last night.

[h2so4hurts]

Depends how big the rock is and what's living on it. I'd take it out. Hypo will probably kill everything but the bacteria. That could cause an ammonia spike.

[MrTuskfish]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of hypo. It seems to be failing for more folks than it should. Probably human error; but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a hypo-resistant strain of ich around. Hypo is easy to screw up; a perfectly calibrated refractometer is a must. An ATO is a big help; just a little evaporated water can raise the SG above 1.009 and allow another generation of ich can emerge and find a fish. Many folks don't like copper with Dwarf Angels, especially Flames. I think a CB can handle Cupramine at .3-.4ppm, but the longer it has ich, the more likely he will react adversely to the copper.

After all that drivel, I'll get to the point. I think tank-transfer is the best way to prevent/treat ich; especially when you just have one fish. Its easy and idiot-proof. There's a sticky that explains it. TT, like hypo, is only for ich. Neither will cure velvet or brooklynella.

[h2so4hurts]

I second Tank Transfer over hypo, but he asked for advice on hypo ;)

[jscarlata]

Thank you both. I will read the tt sticky again.

[MrTuskfish]

I second Tank Transfer over hypo, but he asked for advice on hypo ;)

True. Most folks aren't familiar with TT and IMO & IME, its far superior to hypo, especially when only one fish is involved. I'd be doing a disservice by not mentioning the alternative, IMO.

[jscarlata]

I read thru the sticky and it seems straight forward. I think I have enough containers to do it. I'm going to start tomorrow morning, today is day 3, but my lights come on at 4pm and go off after 1am after one.
Yesterday many of the spots had fallen off, the fish seemed unfazed by it do far. It's eating well and it's colors are great. I'm fairly convinced this is a wc fish, I've not seen many cb's this vibrant in the stores recently.
So, if I understand the process, I'm going to setup another container tonight with fresh salt water, some heat air and filtration or flow. Keep the fish here for three days, so Tuesday during dark I transfer to the next tank. Then again Friday. Now, is Friday the last transition back into the qt tank, or do I let it go three more days and then the fourth transfer is back to the qt. cleaned and dried in between each xfer obviously...

[jamesbaur13]

you should go a min of 12 days... 4 transfers.

You should also QT the fish after the TT's are done just for observation.

It's a little late now, but I feel it's best to treat with prazi-pro while you are transferring. Reason being, prazi-pro will mess up the water a bit... it's not unusual to see hazing of the water by the 3rd day.

You can still treat with prazi-pro and it would be a good idea to do so.

It's a de-wormer and it'd be a good idea to treat an angelfish with that because they are susceptible to worms.


One very important thing to note... if you are not using RO/DI and you are using a water conditioner instead. Check with Hikari and the maker of your water conditioner. Hikari should be able to tell you what ingredients are not compatible and the manufacturer of the conditioner should be able to tell you if they have an ingredient which is not compatible.

RO/DI, for obvious reasons, makes this much easier.

Another thing to note... most ammonia detoxifiers will lower PH instantly. At a lower PH ammonia is less toxic. Your best course of action whenever you detect a harmful amount of ammonia is to do a water change, with the detoxifier you are trading one problem for another.

[jscarlata]

Thanks for the tips. I just moved it to a 5.5g tank with some new PVC fittings for hiding, lights out etc. have a lot of air for water movement, but no filtration yet. Will have to stop and get prazipro later today/tomorrow along with another 5.5 or 10g tank. 12 days! This fish better appreciate this effort, sheesh! :)

[snorvich]

Thanks for the tips. I just moved it to a 5.5g tank with some new PVC fittings for hiding, lights out etc. have a lot of air for water movement, but no filtration yet. Will have to stop and get prazipro later today/tomorrow along with another 5.5 or 10g tank. 12 days! This fish better appreciate this effort, sheesh! :)

Your other fish will appreciate it even more.

[jscarlata]

Haha. Good one... True true true

[jscarlata]

Hi all. So we are on the 2nd tank and there is no sign of the parasites on the fish. I noticed when I did he first transfer that even then the spots had all dropped off. Fish seems fine although I imagine he's not loving the bare digs of a 10g Hosp tank.
Going to get some prazipro today if I can find it. I have a feeling that the fish got stressed and ick popped up. It wouldn't eat much if anything the first few days I had it in qt. so after 4-5 days I had to remove the uneaten food.
I believe this stressed the fish out big time and then ick popped up. Since I saw the ick on. Friday, the angel had been eating much, since I fist saw the ick on fri, the fish has been eating much better. Surely that has helped..

[MrTuskfish]

Ich will usually go through periods when you don't see any. Don't think that you've eliminated it at this point. The spots aren't even the actual parasite. I'd read the stickies on ich, understanding their life-cycle will explain why the seem to disappear, but don't.