Emergency hospital tank big enough?

[Shilpan Patel]

hey guys recently quarantined a foxface. 2 weeks of copper, and then 4 weeks observation. It’s been in the main tank for 2 weeks now and I’ve noticed a single white dot on it. Probably ich. Possibly worms?? I’m gonna wait a few days to see if it spreads and decide if it’s ich or worms. If it is ich and I need to fallow and move all my fish to the quarantine tank, I have some questions for your guys about size:

I have a 4 inch sailfin tang, bullet goby, 2 clowns, a chromis and the foxface.

I have a 40 gallon breeder with a canister filter with seachem matrix. Is that gonna be ok for 76 days? Do you guys have any suggestions for maintaining a biolfilter?

This happened to once before (when I used to not quarantine). I moved 8 fish all at once into the quarantine tank and obviously I got a huge ammonia spike and they all died overnight. I want to avoid that this time so what can I do to?

Thanks for your help, in the meantime while the hospital tank gets ready, I’m gonna research if this is flukes or ich,

 

[Old Fritz]

hey guys recently quarantined a foxface. 2 weeks of copper, and then 4 weeks observation. It’s been in the main tank for 2 weeks now and I’ve noticed a single white dot on it. Probably ich. Possibly worms?? I’m gonna wait a few days to see if it spreads and decide if it’s ich or worms. If it is ich and I need to fallow and move all my fish to the quarantine tank, I have some questions for your guys about size:

I have a 4 inch sailfin tang, bullet goby, 2 clowns, a chromis and the foxface.

I have a 40 gallon breeder with a canister filter with seachem matrix. Is that gonna be ok for 76 days? Do you guys have any suggestions for maintaining a biolfilter?

This happened to once before (when I used to not quarantine). I moved 8 fish all at once into the quarantine tank and obviously I got a huge ammonia spike and they all died overnight. I want to avoid that this time so what can I do to?

Thanks for your help, in the meantime while the hospital tank gets ready, I’m gonna research if this is flukes or ich,

Do you have pictures? Also please do not wait for it to spread, that is the last thing you want to do, The earlier you treat it the better chance of survival. you could start by doing a freshwater dip. If you haven't done one before there are useful videos online. Be sure do do it in a dark bucket to see if you can spot any flukes that dropped into the tank. If its ich there are many reefsafe treatments you can use instead of moving everything and using copper, if you're worried about a mass die off from switching tanks.

Anyways the 40 breeder will be fine depending on the size of the other fish, but it sounds alright to me especially since its temporary housing. I'm going to be honest I personally don't remove my fish for ich treatment because I just use something that is reefsafe. Copper works really well but it can be really rough on some fish. Ich and flukes are pretty easy to treat if caught early, they just require a bit of patience.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

I’ll post some pictures in a few hours when I get home
I was thinking maybe move the foxface first since it’s the only one with this random spot, and then move the others one fish every week? That way the bio filter has time to adjust?

 

[Old Fritz]

That should work fine. Make sure you have hiding spots for your little guys to hide

 

[Smite]

2 weeks of copper may have been too short of a treatment for ich unless you transferred to a completely separate and sterile qt for the observation period. That may be your problem right there.

If you decide to treat outside of a reef safe treatment, you'll need to pull all your fish. Your matrix in a canister filter will not work either. Just like live rock it will absorb the copper, lowering the level in the water column to the point of not killing the parasite.

I had a similar issue battling velvet in my 100g a few years ago. I swapped everything to a 40g breeder and added some bottled bacteria with fresh sponge filters. It was a PITA battling ammonia with massive water changes while trying to keep a therapeutic level of copper in the system. For the most part I pulled it off but now I always keep the sponge from a sponge filter in my sump. Its an instant cycle for new fish or tank emergencies. Just something consider going forward.


I had a pair of rhomboid wrasse, fire fish, yellow tang, leopard wrasse, melenarus, Midas blenny, pair of clownfish, red velvet fairy wrasse and others I'm sure forgetting in that 40g. As far as bioload you'll be fine, if you run into aggression you can always cut light diffusers/egg crate into dividers. Homedepot carries them.

When medicating I aways run an airstone as well. Not sure if its completely necessary but I've had much more success in QT since doing so.

Best of luck!

 

[Smite]

I’ll post some pictures in a few hours when I get home
I was thinking maybe move the foxface first since it’s the only one with this random spot, and then move the others one fish every week? That way the bio filter has time to adjust?

Were all your other fish completely QT'd with copper?

 

[Old Fritz]

Were all your other fish completely QT'd with copper?

I would recommend it as I like to assume that once one fish has a disease all of them have it. It's better to practice preventative medicine. Only time I didn't run copper in a tank was for a porcupine puffer and that was because my store was out of cupramine and any other type of copper medication is really hard on them

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Hello! All the other fish were quarantined with copper the foxface I only did 2 weeks because I did observation after. I think this was my mistake. The other fish got 4 weeks of copper

Thanks for your story smite that’s reassuring that it can be done. I’ve had those copper issues before but my matrix is saturated hahaha so it doesn’t absorb much copper. I’ve gotten good practice at maintaining the therapeutic concentration now.

 

[Maritimer]

Silly question, but how long has the spot been there?

Sometimes fish, especially ones with thicker mucous coats like foxface, will get a grain of sand stuck to them. If you see a white spot that drops away after a few hours, that may well be all it is. (If it stays in place for a couple of days, then break out the QT!)

~Bruce

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Thank you! This morning the foxface had many (5-6) different spots along its fins so it looks properly like ich now.

I’ve started moving fish to the hospital tank. The large sailfin tang is in. Do you have any suggestions on how quickly I can/should move the others over before I start treatment? I have 2 sponges in my sump. I moved one sponge with the sailfin tang. The hospital tank was actually already “cycled” because the foxface was in it a week ago and I left the tank running but the sponge is in case any bacteria died.

I’ve been down this road before 2 years ago whe I didn’t quarantine. I added 8 fish to the hospital tank and the ammonia spiked and they all died so I really am worried about this a lot this time. It was silly because the ich wouldn’t have killed them (in the short term) but I did by rushing things.

 

[JumboShrimp]

On more than one occasion I have had to (i.e., forced necessity) quarantine multiple fish at once, in a tank less than an ideal size. One my QT I have placed measured “gallon”-level-marks running along the outside, and so doing the necessary frequent water changes was a simple matter of drawing out 4 gallons of medicated water and replacing it with 4 new gallons of medicated water (CopperSafe... 1 teaspoon per 4 gallons; your medication may differ.) As someone mentioned, it can be a pain to change the water so frequently during the 30-day copper period, but it can be done. Just my 2-cents.