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Old 10/09/2003, 12:35 PM
speckled trout speckled trout is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: South Texas Gulf Coast
Posts: 589
Ich!

I didn't QT any of my fish and now I'm biting the bullet.

Two days ago I totally removed all the live rock from my 105 g and caught all my fish. (Many hours of lesson teaching work)

Next, I disassembled a 42 Hex. that was set up with FW. I cleaned it and set it back up with no substrate and a Magnum to filter it. I placed some of the gravel from my established "affected tank" and some filter material from a "hopefully unaffected" innverte tank inside the carbon filter(I removed the carbon). I realize that may not provide enough bacteria, so I plan on feeding my fish sparingly while I wait for my main tank to clear up(40 days?).

I plan on monitoring the water quality very closely to make sure that it doesn't become polluted. I will do water changes to alleviate any problems in deterioating water quality.

I am treating the 42 g. with copper (Sea Chem). The directions on the bottle state to treat each ten gallons with 1 ml of the solution. My LFS suggested that I could increase this quantity by 1.5 times instead of the recommended dosage for the first day. The recommended dosage is supposed to bring the levels up to .25 ppm the first day and then to repeat the same dosage the very next day which will bring the level to .5 ppm.

I also dipped my fish for 8 minutes in FW before transferring them to the QT tank.

Did I screw up by adding substrate to my filter from the affected tank? I assumed that the copper treatment would kill any that made the transition to the QT tank. Also, I left several hermits, 3 cleaner shrimp, and several snails in the affected tank. My understanding is that they aren't host to the protozoans. Is this a wrong or right assumption?

By the way, this seemed to start with the addition of a Regal Tang(Hippo Tang). It didn't have any obvious signs when I put it in the tank, but the next day it was covered with spots. Should I get rid of this host. It seems from my research that they are a potential problem fish when it comes to ick.

One last question, would it be beneficial to lower my salinity in addition to treating with copper? If so, should I do it slowly or quickly? (days versus hours??)