how do you treat Ich in your display tank?

[cammy]

I have emptied my tank of all livestock and am raising the temp to 86. Is there any thing else I can do to clear the tank of Ich? Do I really have to leave the tank fallow for a month or is there some way to speed this up? My powder blue tang is in a 20L and that just seems too small for him.

[tropicalfishguy]

Do you have any inverts/corals in your display. I have a FOWLR that came down with ich, I treated with cupramine and have eradicated the problem. Most say you can't use copper with LR or CC, but seachem claims that it isn't absorbed and with frequen testing I found this to be true. Also it can be removed from the water with carbon or cuprisorb, but you can't use with corals or shrimps, etc

[happyface888]

tropicalfish does the copramine medicine does it kill off the copods and worms in the sand and starfishes? My tank is infested and I dont want to tear it down and catch them. If I use copramine in a tank with rocks and sand will it leave residue behind?thanks

[cammy]

tropicalfishguy thanks for the reply. I do have some soft corals and snails and shrimp but i have removed them all from the display tank. There is only LR and sand in there now. So if I treated the display tank with cupramine and then ran the carbon and/or cuprisorb I could return the corals and inverts to the tank later? After treating the tank do you know how long to wait before returning the fish to the tank?

[kevin2000]

I don't follow the logic of removing fish fish from the ST .. placing them into Qt and then dosing cupramine in the St?

[cammy]

I have put my fish in a quarentine seperate from the inverts/corals and I am transfering the fish every three days to a different tank. This way before new parasites can hatch you have moved your fish and it prevents reinfection and you don't have to use hypo or chemicals on your fish. It seems to be working well so far. So in theory my fish should be ich free after 2 more transfers but my ST tank will still have Ich that can hatch and reinfest my fish. Will cupramine kill the Ich eggs? Will it kill the coralline algea? Will I have to reecycle my tank if I use it. Can I filter it out after I use it? Has anyone used cupramine in this way?

[kevin2000]

IMO opinion placing cupramine into the ST isn't a wise thing to do ... will kill off most of the inverts in the live rock/sand and create a potential for a big ammonia issue. I suspect the marketing dept of Seachem has been very liberal with there "use cupramine in the ST " claims .. would never consider doing that in any of my tanks.

The transfer method is effective against ich .. however it has significant drawback .. moving fish from tank to tank creates stress and if your show tank has ich then all that stress really hasn't accomplished anything since your ST still has ich. Your better off leaving the fish in one tank and using hypo .. much less stressful on the fish and frankly easier to administer.

Copper is noted for killing ich in the free swimming stage .. probably would kill of some of the tomonts but many would argue that a good copper treatment should last 3 weeks so I don't think putting cupramine in the ST makes sense ... just my O2.

[cammy]

AHHHH! Thanks that is what I needed to know. I think since I am 1/2 way through I will finish the transfer method and then just leave the display fallow for 4-6 weeks.

[tropicalfishguy]

Yes it will probably kill off any inverts in the live sand. I didn't have this problem as I have a trigger and there is nothing living in my sand. But I did notice I have a few slugs from off the live rock and they lived through the treatement, not sure if any died, but if there was, it wasn't in a large enough quantity to effect the water qualifty

[cammy]

I am thinking of breaking doen the ST. Taking out the live rock and sand and cooking them for a month or two. scrubbing down the tank and putting in some new bough for my LFS cured LR and some biospira filtering the heck out of it and putting my fish back in. I really am sick of my fish being in these small QT tanks. My 3rd transfer is today 4th one would be Wed. then three days after that I could put my fish in the ST if I sterilized as above. I lknow I will lose my cycle I am hoping the cured LR and biospira will give me a new quick cycle. What do you think?

[Triggerfish]

regardless of how you treat the fish, i recommend to monitor them for an additional 4 weeks after to ensure the treatment used was effective.