ACBlinky
10/08/2006, 07:05 PM
For the first time since I started with SW, I'm dealing with ich. I know sometimes fish pull through on their own, and since only a couple of my fish were showing signs I left the tank alone for a couple weeks, but now they're just getting worse. I've decided to remove all the fish and put them through six weeks of hyposalinty, while leaving the tank fallow to hopefully kill off the parasite for good.
While I was catching them today (no easy task, had to empty the tank and remove some of the rockwork) I noticed that the clown and blenny each have a small ulcerated area and I'm worried that it's something bacterial. IME it's very important to start treating bacterial infections ASAP before they get out of hand, so I want to act quickly.
I know it's not good to combine hypo with copper, but how about other meds? Is it safe to treat with EM for four days (per package directions) while the fish are going through the first stages of the hypo treatment? They're at 1.025 normally and I'm planning to lower the SG to 1.009 over about three days, so the SG would be constantly lowering over the course of the EM treatment.
I wish I could figure out what's going on with the tank -- water checks out fine, nothing out of the ordinary (SG 1.025, 9dKH, ~430ppm Ca, temp steady 81F, NH3 & NO2 0, NO3 5-10ppm, PO4 undetectable). The only thing I can come up with is stress from overcrowding (8 small fish in a 65g) or compatability issues. The fish all appear to get along, but there are occasional bouts of posturing, so maybe they're just constantly under small amounts of stress.
While I was catching them today (no easy task, had to empty the tank and remove some of the rockwork) I noticed that the clown and blenny each have a small ulcerated area and I'm worried that it's something bacterial. IME it's very important to start treating bacterial infections ASAP before they get out of hand, so I want to act quickly.
I know it's not good to combine hypo with copper, but how about other meds? Is it safe to treat with EM for four days (per package directions) while the fish are going through the first stages of the hypo treatment? They're at 1.025 normally and I'm planning to lower the SG to 1.009 over about three days, so the SG would be constantly lowering over the course of the EM treatment.
I wish I could figure out what's going on with the tank -- water checks out fine, nothing out of the ordinary (SG 1.025, 9dKH, ~430ppm Ca, temp steady 81F, NH3 & NO2 0, NO3 5-10ppm, PO4 undetectable). The only thing I can come up with is stress from overcrowding (8 small fish in a 65g) or compatability issues. The fish all appear to get along, but there are occasional bouts of posturing, so maybe they're just constantly under small amounts of stress.