Sick fish, what next

Michaelr5 · 07-22-2005, 03:26 PM

Well, I spoke too soon when I said I thought my ich was gone. All of my fish are scratching like mad. This is what I've done so far. I pulled the two pieces of LR that had all of my life on them, my 2 serpent stars and my snails and put them in a separate tank with filter & Circulation. I have started treating the main tank with Coppersafe. Now the question - have I shot myself or will a couple of massive water changes 45 days from now bring the copper down enough? I know most of you will say I should have moved the fish, but they are a lot faster than 2 pieces of rock, and I was running scared!

Mike

Jay · 07-22-2005, 03:52 PM

Do you have a sand bed? The medication will stay in the sand whatever substrate that you have. Here is a link to the wetwebmedia page. They have very good info on what to do. I think everyone gets this at least once then they start using a quaranteen tank with every fish purchase.

Jay

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/parasitf.htm

This link is great

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ichart2mar.htm

fletch · 07-22-2005, 04:05 PM

Well I don't want to be the bearer of bad tidings, But any rock sand crushed coral est. that you have in your tank will absorb the copper and even after you stop treatment and do water changes the copper will slowly leach back out. There is also one other thing, I do believe that the copper will also poison your biological filter causing it to die also. John

Birdlady · 07-22-2005, 04:51 PM

yup, you just nuked anything in your tank...you will no longer be able to keep inverts without changing out the sandbed, any rocks, cleaning all the equipment. And you will likely have to recycle the tank.

And, the copper likely won't cure the ich anyway.

I did a QT tank and just changed water every other day while siphoning off the bottom (where the trophonts are after dropping off the fish).

Sorry....

Bruce · 07-22-2005, 06:07 PM

one old fashioned method of killing ich is keeping the lights off for like a week...after the ich leaves the fish they cant see for poo without light and eventually die because they cant attatch to the fish again...sry to hear about the copper...

Birdlady · 07-22-2005, 09:21 PM

I don't think that is true Bruce....ever see your fish all clear at nite only to be all speckled in the morning?

Bruce · 07-22-2005, 11:02 PM

well...it might have to be like pitch black, also its not sure fire...it just makes it harder for the ichies to get to the fish over a long period of time

Michaelr5 · 07-23-2005, 06:38 AM

Thanks for the input, distressful as it may be.

I will keep you posted on progress. (I guess this gives me time to build Chris Jones' fuge design now!)

Jay, the links are very nice. I have bookmarked them for reference.

Thanks to all

igotworms · 07-23-2005, 08:21 PM

i would go with a closed loop instead of powerheads.

Jay · 07-24-2005, 01:58 AM

Huh?