Hello Christine.  I was recommended to contact you by Linda C, i am a new member here but have been in the aquarium hobby for 5+ years.  My question is about ich and your thoughts on it.  Back in February i brought a Powder Blue tang and foolishly did not QT him, he came down with a minor case of ich and was on and off for months.  The ich was never that bad and only my sailfin got spots every now and again.  Around 1 month ago something must have happened that i did not notice and he must have gotten really stressed out and had the worst outbreak i have seen in my tank, i thought nothing of it until other fish got it, including my breeding pair of clowns.  The clowns got to the point where i did not feel comfortable leaving them in so i pulled them and started they Hyposalinity process.

The Powder Blue eventually died (didnt think he would), and left in the Display is a Sailfin, Anthias, Cardianl, and Yellow Watchman Goby.  All the fish look decent and as of yesterday no one had any spots.  Since the outbreak i have increased my feeding, skimming, water changes (several smaller water changes) and added a 36watt UV.  My question is should i take everyone out and Quarantine and let the display go fallow, or should i wait and see if the ich comes back then do it.   I should mention that my taking everyone out would require moving a lot of rock and most likely breaking many of my SPS corals.  Tank is a 120 gallon.  I feel like chasing them around will just add too much unecessary stress that might not be necessary.

I am also going away in 4 weeks for 9 days and my buddy who is not a fish guy watches and feeds my tanks.  I feel like having him keep QT tanks in check is too much to ask (water changes, keeping salinity for hypo constant, etc.).

below is a pic from a couple months ago.

Hi Jeff, and welcome. Sorry to hear about your fish losses. Well, this is the age-old question with marine ich--to treat or not to treat?

So here are your options: right now your system has ich, and while the fish may not show signs of it, in all likelihood they are all carrying a low parasite load. This isn't that uncommon actually--if you think about it, it is better for the parasite to keep its victims alive (creating an endless food supply) than to kill them off. Your last outbreak was February, which indicates that there is a balance going on--the fish are able to keep the parasites at bay, largely due to your husbandry techniques--keeping them healthy and their immune systems fit through heavy feeding and good water quality. So, you could leave the system as it is. Alternately, you could capture all the fish and set them up in hyposaline quarantine systems for 6-8 weeks, but as you said your won't be home to monitor them for the duration. So for now, I'd let sleeping ciliates lie :) and keep the system going as is.

Now, once you return if you want to rid your system of the parasite, it isn't as impossible as it might seem--just a lot of work and preparation. As you mentioned you will need to have QT systems for the fish, but these can be simple and inexpensive. Your problem is getting the fish out of the tank--and yes, stressing the fish in this way is going to leave them open for new fulminant infection. What's I'd recommend is instead of chasing the fishes with nets is one of two things. some people have luck setting fish traps--clear, baited acrylic boxes. You could set one or more in your system now and bait them occasionally so the fish get used to them and aren't afraid, and then use them to ge tthe fish out when needed. Alternately, from your picture it looks like you've got a good amount of space near the front of the tank you could work with, so potentially you could move the corals and clams on the sandbed out of the way, scoop the sand lower here in the front (maybe particularly to one side) and then drain the tank. Yes it's a big deal and a big pain, but a few 55g garbage pails would do the trick. While you are draining you can poke around in the rockwork to encourage the fish to stay to the front, then they'll be trapped by the lack of water into the low lying areas you create in the front, and then it's simple to scoop them up and into QT.

In all likelihood you will not have problems with ich until...something stresses your fish again (new tankmate, sudden other change, etc).

Good luck!

Jeff,

Welcome to MASNA! First let me say you tank looks great. I will let Christine get into the hairy details and probably the better answer. However I wanted to point out there is a speedier method for Hypo. If you want to get it done prior to your trip. 

There is a Three Day Transfer Method and is documented here (http://www.masna.org/ClubResources/...thod.aspx) in case you are interested. 

Good luck

Jeff, if you want help let me know.
 
I have all the fixin's you will need.  I have fish traps,  55 gallon drumS, dual pumps with hosing to run tandem to remove/refill the water in the tank quickly to aid in removing the fish.  Best part is I have someone that helps me with it who almost can read my mind when we are doing this process, my husband Tom.  We have been very successful in removing fish in  VERY large systems for fishies in need.

We have done well in heavily stocked sps tanks as well...not always 'frag free' but just minor fragging. So no promise we can be100% frag free. It's usually due to snagging a net on something..but I don't like using nets so hopefully this won't be an issue.  My personal choice is multiple clear containers that the fish don't 'see' and we guide the fish into them for removal.

I will make multiple trips if needed if things get too stressful for the fish.  Most times we get everybody out in one trip but sometimes fish who are last  in line to be caught are usually get wise on what is happening.  Usually they find a rock to anchors themselves in and won't budge.

I also have multiple extra tanks here if you need to borrow them for QT'ing the fish. If need be, I can take some fish home to help you rehab them if you would like.    I did this for Xian/Matt at the Berlin School in the past when the tank had some health isues.

If Christine thinks this can wait until after you are back from your vacation that would be best for me as well.  I have a trip at the end of the month.

lmk and good luck.

Keep us posted

First, thank you for all your responses. Honestly, i change my mind with what i want to do every other hour. As of now everyone looks pretty good, and i am telling myself that IF they remaining fish in the display get to the point that the powder blue or clowns are at then i would remove them. I just dont feel comfortable leaving them in hypo when i am away. If they do get worse i will have no choice, but as of now i think i will just do multiple smaller water changes and keep up on my feeding.

if i do choose to remove them i will def. give you a call Linda, as i know you have a lot of experience with this. I did make a trap to try and catch my YWG but only caught 4 hermits so far. Its funny because he goes almost all the way in and stops (poland spring bottle with top cut off and inverted into bottle). He is the fish that i would have to rip apart to catch, so maybe ill just leave the trap in there so he might get used to it. Anyway, thank you all, i will keep you posted.

Well, i lost my 2 Clowns that were in Hyposalinity, these were the first two fish i owned and were a breeding pair and my favorite fish. Sometimes this hobby is so frustrating. I did a 3 gallon water change matching PH, Salinity, and temperature and they are dead this morning. Fish in the display are doing fine. I really am regretting pulling them now.

RIP

Wow, that sucks--well, more impetus to leave things as they are at least for now...

Posted By Jeff L. on 10-11-2009 06:39 PM
Well, i lost my 2 Clowns that were in Hyposalinity, these were the first two fish i owned and were a breeding pair and my favorite fish. Sometimes this hobby is so frustrating. I did a 3 gallon water change matching PH, Salinity, and temperature and they are dead this morning. Fish in the display are doing fine. I really am regretting pulling them now.

RIP

Jeff,

I'm so sorry to hear of the loss of your clowns.

Your post keeps rattling around my head so I wanted to try to see if we can figure out why they didn't make it.   Clowns are usually something that have been one type of fish that I have seen to do well with hypo.  I'm just trying to figure out what happened.

Can you explain in more detail how you did the set up for this treatment? you mention you matched PH.  (not sure why, but PH isn't something I have thought about when doing this process.  I do for fresh water dips but not hypo)  Did you have to adjust the PH? if so, how did you do it.