Treating Ich Questions

[jlearned]

Forewarning this may get a little long winded. I am new to this hobby and I am learning very quickly how things should and should not be done. A little background first. . .

I started my current tank back in September of this year. I have a 55 Gallon FOWLR aquarium. I have 2 Ocellaris Clown, 1 Dragon Goby, 4 Peppermint Shrimp, and 1 Cleaner Shrimp, plus an assortment of Hermits and Snails (20 each). I also have 60 Lbs of live sand and 50 Lbs of live rock. I use a canister filter that is cleaned every 2 weeks, and hang on tank CPR Protein Skimmer. I have been performing monthly water changes because my water parameters have been stable and unchanged since the completion of cycling (pH 8.4, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate0, kH 8.0, Calcium 400-450, and Phosphates 0, Temp 80F). The last items added to my tank were the peppermint shrimp at the beginning of the month (they were not quarantined).

OK so here is my problem. . . I noticed 2 days ago that one of my Ocellaris Clown fish was shaking while swimming and upon closer inspection I found a little off white colored bump on one of his stripes. He started rubbing up against the LR as well. I am pretty sure that this is ich from my discussions with the LFS. They recommended getting a cleaner shrimp in hopes that it would be able to take care of the parasite problem without resorting to chemicals. However after further research on this site and others I have discovered that the cleaner shrimp is not effective at removing ich. I have read Lee Birch's article concerning ich. But that still left me with a few questions.

1. If I were to remove that affected clown to a QT tank and treat him their, don’t I still need to be worried about other parasites in my main tank?
   
2. Copper treatment of the main tank is out because I am planning on using the LR in a future 100-gallon reef tank, plus I do not like the idea of using chemicals. Could I employ the hyposalinity treatment on the main tank without harming the snails, shrimp and hermits or should I move them to a QT while I treat the main tank and fish?

Thanks for you help in advance.

Jason

 

[returnofsid]

First, you need to be sure this is Ich. A single white colored bump doesn't really sound like Ich. Correct diagnosis is critical in deciding how to treat. Ich will look like someone's sprinkled salt on your fish. It will come and go as the life cycle of Ich is to attach to fish, eat, drop off fish, multiply in sand bed and re-attach to fish etc.
Other problems to read up on, that are common with Clowns are Oodinium, which can be treated in the same fashion as Ich, with Hypo or Copper based medications and Brooklynella, which usually needs Formalin medications.
Hyposalinity treatment in a QT tank is very effective, IF done long enough and the salinity is kept at 1.009. Using a refractometer that's been calibrated is usually needed, as apposed to a hydrometer, which isn't as accurate.
The hypo treatment should be done for 8 weeks OR at least 2 weeks after ALL visible signs of Ich are gone. In the meantime, ALL fish need to be removed from the display tank and that tank needs to remain "fishless" for the same amount of time. Without any fish in the tank, the Ich will die off.

That's the ONLY way to insure that the tank is free of Ich.

Along with many articles on Lee's forum that will be very helpful in diagnosis and treatment, here's another to read up on.
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/ichparasiticdiseases/a/aabrooklynella.htm

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Hyposalinity treatment in a QT tank is very effective, IF done long enough and the salinity is kept at 1.009. Using a refractometer that's been calibrated is usually needed, as apposed to a hydrometer, which isn't as accurate.
The hypo treatment should be done for 8 weeks OR at least 2 weeks after ALL visible signs of Ich are gone. In the meantime, ALL fish need to be removed from the display tank and that tank needs to remain "fishless" for the same amount of time. Without any fish in the tank, the Ich will die off.

That's the ONLY way to insure that the tank is free of Ich.

Great advice - same thing I was going to say. Only thing additional I can add is a link to a GREAT writeup on hypo...

http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/hyposalinity.html