Reef Discussion

[SigourneyGrace]

a few days ago i noticed white spots on a few of my fish, and immediately removed them from my reef tank to a quarantine tank to start the medication cycle. After only 2 day in cycle, one of my domino damsels have died and now my poor little boxfish doesnt look like hes going to make it either. I dont know what to do?!?! I have 2 boxfish, 2 tangs, a tuskfish and 2 yellow tail damsels in the medicated tank, have i overloaded the system? HELP :'( I dont want any more of my fish to die!!

 

[Sarg]

Have a quick look in the wiki under quarantine tank as that will give you a quick run down on running the quarantine tank. Sorry if I wasn't on the phone I'd give you the link.

 

[NiCd]

how big is the QT tank?, what filtration have you got in place? what medication are you attempting to treat with?

 

[chimaera]

If the fish do have ich, then moving them to quarantine could stress them more. So as Nic asked, give us some details on the display and quarantine tank and setup and I am sure we can help.

 

[MagicJ]

The domino dying is a big concern as these are normally bomb proof. Two sick box fish in a, presumably small, QT together with a number of boisterous fish ie tangs and damsels could lead them to release their toxins which is likely to wipe out everything.

Also keep in mind that you will need to leave your DT without fish for 6-8 weeks to ensure that the whitespot dies out - can your QT support the fish for this long?

Please provide details of the QT and the medication so that we can provide some advice.

Good luck.

 

[Salty]

bomb proof

Love it

 

[MagicJ]

I wonder how the OP got on - she hasn't been back since the original post :rolleyes

 

[Ian G]

1. Unless its a fish only tank AND always will be, DO NOT medicate your display tank as you will kill other things.
2. If you use a copper treatment, everything that gets touched by that copper tainted water will be poisonous to invertebrates for years, even the tank.
3. The only proven treatment for marine ich is hyposalinity & you must have a refractometer and do it right. Most commercial products may (or may not) heal the symptoms but will not erradicate the ich.
4. If you have ich then ALL fish in your tank have it whether showing symptoms or not and the only way to deal with it is to move fish to a hospital tank and leave the DT fallow for at least 6 weeks to break the ich breeding cycle.

If you want some links, help, info on any of this, let me know.

Good luck.

Ian

 

[Ian G]

I should also have mentioned that ich is naturally present on most wild fish & even liverock, can be found in natural seawater too (pelagic stage). It has a theoretical life cycle of about 6 weeks but I always work on 8 weeks to be safe. It must also have a fish host at two stages of the life cycle to survive. For that reason everything I do in this hobby is in 8 week cycles.

• Setting up a new tank, I let it cycle for a minimum of 8 weeks.
• New live rock goes into quarantine (QT) for eight weeks.
• Livestock gets quarantined for 8 weeks, etc.

Although this is still no guarantee, when following this regime I have NEVER had marine ich in my display tank but it has shown up in the QT stage where I've treated it with very accurate hyposalinity treatment to destroy the organism.