Experienced reefers, please help!!!!

[ETORRES477]

Ok ladies and gentlement, here is my dillemma. I recently upgraded to a 150 gallon 72" tank with a 40 gallon 2 chamber berlin sump, that is set up for a mixed reef build. I have a 35 gallon tank (20 gallon sump, it was convenient at the time lol) which I set up with my live rock and live stock until the new tank cycled. The new tank cycled in about 3 weeks with 100 lbs of live sand and 180 lbs of fully established live rock. My parameters were ammonia 0, nirtrite 0, nitrate 5, KH 2.9, ph 8.2. I didnt bother with calcium and mag becuase I have no coral in it yet. Anyway I had a flame angel , 2 fire gobies, and a false clown in there. They were fine for like a month. Then I get an amazing deal on a purple tang(who already had line erosion but I figured hed be fine with a little tlc), 2 scooter blennies, yellow coris wrasse, 2" hippo tankg, 2" yellow tankg and a spotted mandarin. Oh and last but not least, the fish whom I assume brought mayhem with it. a 3" copper band butterfly (I know I know, they are 50/50 in a reef, but I wanted it to decimate any ataptasia). Anyway long story short the copper band developed ich! at first I thought it was lymphocytis, because they are prone to getting it, so I delayed the tank tear down to remove him for further observation. I get home from work today and I find my hippo, purple tang, have white dots on their skin and the copper band is getting them to on the body. I think it is ich now. So my plan is to remove all the fish from the 150 tomorrow and qt them in the 35 with a copper treatment of copper power for 6-8 wks. The only fish I plan on leaving in the 150 are the blennies, spotted mandarin, and coris wrasse. The reason being I dont think the 35 has any copepods and they will die, not so much the wrasse (just difficult because he burrows in the sand). I ran a fowler in the 35 with the intentions of making in to a reef one day so I never EVER treated any illness with copper. The 35 has about 40 lbs of rock I put in to it about 2 months ago to cure a bit more until I put it in the DT, but now I plan on leaving it in there and just burning it because I want the fish to have housing while they get better. I know once you treat with copper you cant ever put back the rock or sand or basically anything else other than the fish. My question is, what do you think of my plan? and do I have to do anything to the fish when they are ready to go back in to the DT after bring treated with copper. I am posting some pics below of the fish, not sure if you will be able to make out the ich spots. Have to look closely on the purple and hippo, you can see it clearly on the copperband tail fin. And I know I should have QT'd the new additions in the first place, but please no snide remarks made in hindsight, only helpful advice on how to move forward.
Thanks guys,
Edric, RN

 

[ETORRES477]

here are pics of the fish

 

[Reef_a_holiks]

Hey Torres since you have no corals or inverts in there ide lower salinity down to about 1.018-1.020, small water changes every four days with siphoning (Ick tends to live and reproduce on sand bed), and feed Dr.Gs anti-parastitic medicated caviar. that stuff did wonders for me. Ide try all this , as this will keep you from doing a whole tear down to remove and quarantine the fish, which will add more stress on them. Doing these steps allowed to me cure ick several times even in my mixed reef tank.

You can also use Kick ich or ruby reef ich medication as they are supposebly reef safe , but i have not tried them myself so i dont want to recommend them.

Goodluck!

 

[Reef_a_holiks]

Also feed those tangs lots of algae!

 

[cmcoker]

agree with hyposalinity in display. If you are not going to leave the dt fallow, then there will still be ich in the display. so either take all fish out of display for 12 weeks and treat in qt , or lower salinity and maybe use some garlic or selcon with your feeding

 

[Lesley]

Hi. Sorry to hear what's happened. We had a similar situation with an ich outbreak after adding a powder blue tang. Very old very experienced reefer contacted us with some advice that worked wonders. Don't stress your fish any more buy moving into qt Don't medicate your tank with anything. Keep your parameters stable and water pristine. Feed good quality food (varied) often and make sure there is no aggression. Do weekly water changes Under these steps most fish will fight it off themselves. The ich will always be In your tank but if stress free and pristine water should not rear it's ugly head again. And if it does he believed once a fish had naturally fought it off was a lot less likely to get again. We followed this to the letter and within 2 weeks we had no signs of it and lost no fish. Powder blue gave it to 2 hippos and a fox face. All healthy & alive now and we have added numerous fish since with out incident. It's been 13 months and no sign of it returning. He honestly believed that the stress if catching. & QT tanks may cause the death of fish that may not if left in the tank with no stress. Good luck.

 

[Reefing Madness]

That doesn't look anything like ICH to me. The Copperband has Lymphs, this will go away, just feed em good. The Purple Tang looks like starts of HLLE, which will never go away. Can't see anything on the Hippo.
I'd not do a thing, but feed em normally.

 

[Hinecken]

Last two posts are spot on. Leave it alone. Feed them well and let nature take it's course.

 

[Pete polyp]

Hey Torres since you have no corals or inverts in there ide lower salinity down to about 1.018-1.020, small water changes every four days with siphoning (Ick tends to live and reproduce on sand bed), and feed Dr.Gs anti-parastitic medicated caviar. that stuff did wonders for me. Ide try all this , as this will keep you from doing a whole tear down to remove and quarantine the fish, which will add more stress on them. Doing these steps allowed to me cure ick several times even in my mixed reef tank.

You can also use Kick ich or ruby reef ich medication as they are supposebly reef safe , but i have not tried them myself so i dont want to recommend them.

Goodluck!

I have read about the ich living in the substrate before. What I'm wondering is what about bare bottom? Will it also live in the rocks?

 

[H2O]

Add a couple cleaner shrimps ASAP they will clean the fish other wise they will rub on the rock get cuts infections also if u run any kind of media in a reactor make sure the return hose goes Tru a thick filter sock sometimes the dust from the carbon or gfo gets into their geels even if u rince it bunch of times good luck feed them good and double check the salnity most of the time people use cheap refractometers and get false reading also ich could mean high nitrates

 

[ETORRES477]

Thanks everybody! I really appreciate all of your advice. I will go with Lesley, and Reefing Madness' advice, along with adding a couple of cleaner shrimp. Oh and I forgot to mention my inverts, I have about 8 Mexican Turbos, 8 Troch Snails, 30 bumble bee snails, 30 red legged hermits, and 3 fire shrimp. Thanks for helping me to avoid my original over reaction, I am just so disapointed in myself for letting this happen to my fish I hope they pull through.

 

[Lesley]

Never heard of high nitrates causing ICH ? Is that true ? Can anyone else confirm that info ? See you learn something every day.......I believe that high nitrates are a symptom of bad water quality in general. I dont think the Nitrates cause the ICH I think poor water quality overall is a stressful situation for the fish in general which then might allow them to show symptoms of ICH. But I have doubts Nitrates actually CAUSE ich ?
Correct me if I am wrong but every fish carries ICH and it only appears under weakness or stressful conditions ?
I have also read a study recently that says HLLE can be caused by using cheap carbon that is made from the waste of brown coal ? But good quality carbon made from black coal that is rinsed does not cause the same problem.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Very high nitrate cause stress. It doesnt cause ICH. High Nitrates will tend to kill off the weak fisrt.

 

[Dalmatia]

Sure looks like ich. Just hypo your DT if all you have is fish. Can see a spots on purple and dori,,, 100% ich. I did it too so don't feel so bad (ich 4 battles in 2yrs). But don't leave any fish untreated!!!!

 

[Dalmatia]

Never heard of high nitrates causing ICH ? Is that true ? Can anyone else confirm that info ? See you learn something every day.......I believe that high nitrates are a symptom of bad water quality in general. I dont think the Nitrates cause the ICH I think poor water quality overall is a stressful situation for the fish in general which then might allow them to show symptoms of ICH. But I have doubts Nitrates actually CAUSE ich ?
Correct me if I am wrong but every fish carries ICH and it only appears under weakness or stressful conditions ?
I have also read a study recently that says HLLE can be caused by using cheap carbon that is made from the waste of brown coal ? But good quality carbon made from black coal that is rinsed does not cause the same problem.

Personally I think ich is a parasite and can't be caused by anything but the parasite it's self!!! Stress will cause it to break out more due to the fish losing some slime coat over the fact (if being stressed). If ich isn't present in your thank the fish can stress out all it wants with out getting ich!
On the other hand, your fish can be very healthy and with ich introduced to the tank all can get it in time (some have a thicker slime coat so will get brushed off)
That's just my thinking

 

[Lesley]

Very high nitrate cause stress. It doesnt cause ICH. High Nitrates will tend to kill off the weak fisrt.

. That's exactly what I think. Hight nitrates = poor water quality = stress = trouble. Lol.

 

[Dalmatia]

I have read about the ich living in the substrate before. What I'm wondering is what about bare bottom? Will it also live in the rocks?

Hey Pete
The parasite has several ‘stages’ in its life cycle. Cyst in aquarium (usually on substrate, decoration, wall, equipment, or rock) ruptures into free-swimming parasites that burrow into fish, grow into a visible white nodule that is ‘pregnant’ with more parasites, that usually falls off the fish to form a cyst that starts the cycle over again.

 

[Dalmatia]

If you want to read it all here's the link. Very good to know
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/23132-marine-ich-myths-facts.html

 

[fishroomlady]

My .02 is that I agree with Lesley and madness. I would feed well and observe.

 

[ETORRES477]

My .02 is that I agree with Lesley and madness. I would feed well and observe.

That is exactly what I did, & did not lose a single fish, a month later I have zero signs of ich, and my livestock is doing great. I switched to an all live diet of black and white worms, I only feed frozen as a supplement to their live diet. Not only has the disease dissapeared (to what extent I do not know), but my fish have never looked better since I got in to the hobby. Big thank you to Paul B for showing me the way to a an optimal marine diet IMO.