I have Ich & now might need to

[chicap29]

My 90 gal reef tank is set up the way I like it BUT now I might have have to take it all apart!!

I bought a couple fish last week and they both looked fine but now all my fish have ich! I have added a Fox Face and Purple Dotty back, along with my Yellow tang, Coral beauty maroon & common clown. Now a lot of them of ich. So to catch all of them I will probably have to remove everything. And now I have a lot more soft corals(mushrooms, finger leather, pulsing xenia's, leather coral and then I have a green BTA that is very happy on a rock).

So I can't decide if I should just try to catch all the fish and quarantine them slowly or Move all the LR and Corals and have to reset up the tank...

Any Suggestions??

Here is a pic of my tank now.
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/photopo...00/ppuser/9261

[lcstorc]

What good would moving the LR etc do? In order to get rid of the ICH in the tank, the tank needs to be without fish for 6 weeks. Meanwhile your fish need to be treated with either Hyposalinity or copper. You will have a better chance to control the situation if the fish are in quarantine bering treated. Get a fish trap to catch them and you may not need to tear the tank apart to get the fish.

[Frankie]

Because he can't catch them with the rock in there Lynn. If you need to tear it down to get them out and into quarantine then do it. Anyone who stays in this hobby for the duration will be rescaping there tanks numerous times for one reason or another. If you care for the fish, moving some rock out and then back in won't matter so much if you risk loosing the animals.

[sasquatch]

ageed! try the trap, Woodstock has a great one, failing that start digging, the temptation of early release is always pushing your luck, I would far rather loose a fish in treatment than risk the whole tank. Good luck and keep us posted. Steve

[chicap29]

Ok, I will look up the fish trap and let you know what happens. thanks!

[chicap29]

Happy New Year to All!!!

Well we did have to move the LR again to get the fish out but everything went well. We treated with Copper in a 55gal QTank. We treated for 3 weeks and lost 3 fish All looked good so we stopped treatment & they have been in the QTank since.

Here's the Problem, It's been a full month & we were going to put the fish back into the main tank when we looked at our Sargent Major fish and his fins look like he has ich again. So we stopped. All the other fish look good and are all eating well. When I look at the Sargent it looks like it could just be the fins are tore up but they have white splotches on him.

Should we retreat? Or just get rid of that fish?

Any Suggestions?

[Paul B]

You really should not put the fish back yet. It has been four weeks and needs to be at least 6 weeks at a temp of about 82 degrees. If you treated all the fish for that period of time they can't still have ich unless you let the dosage fall below the correct level in which case you will have to treat them again. You must check copper levels every day.
Good luck.
Paul

[Woodstock]

The main tank should be left fallow for a minimum of 8 weeks. The ragged fins could be a sign of poor water quality.

Did you use Cupramine for the copper treatment? It is the most stable and safest for your fish. you must follow the directions EXACTLY as Cupramine says. Once the copper is at 0.5ppm and STAYS there (use salifet or API) then start the 14 day treatment period.... do NOT reduce the amount of time. If the copper ever falls below the 0.5 ppm, then the 14 days starts all over. Make sure you test for ammonia, nitrItes, copper and nitrates twice a day to ensure all are perfect. Always be prepared to do daily water chages of 50% if necessary to keep the water perfect.