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View Full Version : Got Ich - read the sticky, have questions


ExpensiveHobby
05/11/2016, 07:54 AM
So I've got myself in a situation. My own fault. I have been in the hobby for about 10 years but fighting ich is relatively new to me. I'm stressing over this really bad right now. I have read all I can read and I have a great understanding of the life cycle and the treatments. However, the stickys don't answer everything and I need to make a decision on my treatment today.

THIS IS A FISH ONLY TANK WITH LIVE ROCK AND INVERTS (thank god no corals)

HARDWARE:
130 gallon (4' x 3' x 16") - BARE BOTTOM
oversized ASM g4XX skimmer
dual reactors - carbon /gfo
chaeto in the sump
(2)xf150's for flow

LIVESTOCK:
Fish with symptoms- Big purple tang, small hippo tang, sm/med yellow tang, med saifin tang, med powder brown tang. (notice a trend?)

Fish without symptoms - six line, pair of clowns, banghai cardinal

also have about 40-50 blue leg hermits, 100+ lbs of nice live rock

TIMELINE:
All inhabitant 1 year plus in system with no ich, 8 days ago I introduced the Purple tang from one source and the brown tang from a different source. The purple tang is the fish who brought in the ich. Days 1-3 of new fish the purple had ich, began feeding heavily LRS fish frenzy, lots of algae sheets, mysis everything soaked in garlic power. All fish eating great. after 3 days the ich was gone off the purple tang. Day 7 ich is back stronger, now infecting every tang in the tank. That brings me to today.

MY THOUGHTS AND UNDERSTAND:
It appears the only way to rid ich from the fish and system is to run hypo, copper, fishless. I dont trust anything in bottle that says ich be gone or ich-x. I DONT NOT HAVE A HT UP AND RUNNING RIGHT NOW

Hypo - If I ran this in the display I'd have to pull out the inverts which wouldn't be a big deal. I have a ten gallon they could go in. However all my LiveRock would die off and I don't know how to maintain healthy bacteria to prevent a cycle by running hypo.

Copper - If I ran copper in my display all my rock would die off and I don't know how to maintain healthy bacteria to prevent a cycle. I also would have never be able to put coral or inverts in the tank as the copper leaches from silicone and rocks. I'd also have a lot of trouble selling the tank down the line once Copper enters the tank.

Do Nothing - Some members of my local reef club seem to think that as long as all the fish are eating well that the problem will go away on its own. I thought that might be true until the ich dropped off to reproduce and came back 10x more powerful. What will the next reproduction cycle bring?

CURRENT PLAN OF ACTION

So I'm currently thinking that the best course of action right now would be to set up a HT and put all the fish in there. Run hypo on the HT for a month while keeping the display fishless for 8 weeks. I think this would work. I actually have a local guy with a 90 gallon plus stand for $120. I think the 90 would be just big enough although i'm worried putting all these tangs in a 90 and running hypo will stress them out more. I've got so much money into these fish I don't want to lose any. I need to get a jump on this asap as Im going out of town at the end of the month and I need everything on cruise control before I go.

QUESTIONS

-What would you do in my situation?

-If I do buy the 90 gallon and fill it up with fresh made saltwater and a cheap HOB filter and a bunch of PVC then how do I prevent a cycle? Wont the fish just die from ammonia being that I just tossed a dozen fish in a smaller tank with no bacteria at all?

- If I were to run hypo right in the display how long would I need to run it before all the ich would be dead and I could bring it up? A month from the last visible sign of ich? How do you prevent a cycle once my liverock is basically nuked from hypo?

http://vid216.photobucket.com/albums...9CA82AF222.mp4