Stupid Ich or stupid fish? ..stupid owner

So I took my girlfriends Fish Only salt tank of 7 years and upgraded. Added a UV Steralizer, Skimmer, New light hood with T5-40's from Marineland, changed the crushed coral to white Fiji sand, then added 75 lbs of live rock...let it settle for 2 weeks, then added about 8 or 9 different kinds of coral...awesome.
let it settle for 2-3 more weeks...bought a Blue "Dorry" fish...added to the tank...which previously held like 3 fish...a Damsel and an Orange Shoulder Tang, and 6 line wrasse...Bomb, Dorry has ick.
So I bough a cleaner wrasse...six line hated him, so I caught him, and put him in a betta tank in my main tank for 2 days...let him out, and he's exhibited no hostility toward the cleaner...he at one point was catching the cleaner and dragging it across the tank to smash it into the glass...bloody fins and all...relentless.
So I drop my salinity to 1.017, over 2 days, cause I don't want to kill my coral, and a hospital tank won't hold all the fish coral etc. Its been 1 week and half, and six line had ich for all of about 6 hrs, no other fish has had ich, but Dorry...well she gets better then she gets worse, and back and forth...I'm sick of this fish....short of flushing is there anything else I should be doing?
I wash the walls down everyday with a fresh piece of filter media.
I've been doing small water changes.
I replaced my UV steralizer bulb.
I add slime coat stuff.

Please help...this topic is so varied in opinions...

 

all tangs , which "dorry" is , shes a hippo tang , are very susceptible to getting ich from mostly the stress. i didnt see what size tank you have , because the hippo shouldnt really be in anything less than a 90 imo. and do not flush it , take it back to your lfs. flushing is plain wrong , again imo. if you set up a qt tank, you leave the corals in your DT. just the fish go in it. washing the walls will really do nothing about the ich.

 

Tank is a 55, and she's the size of a quarter...I wouldn't really flush her. Washing the walls I've been told will free any ich that's attached making it free floating to get sucked up and steralized...so I've been told.

She eats a ton, isn't breathing heavy, not showing the normal signs of ich except the white spots, and on her sides there are clear slimmy spots..almost looks like egg whites before cooked..or something.

She gets red cyclopses, seaweed soaked in garlic enriched drops, frozen brine shrimp...but can't kick the ich. Also read somehwhere she is the crowned king of ich...

I run water quality tests every day now, and refract the water to verify my 1.017...but if it isn't going to work...I'd assume trade her out and grow my corals...

 

if shes acting fine in regards to swimming and eating , she most likely will be okay. keep feeding her all that good stuff and she will beat it herself. but your hippo will grow too big for the 55. could make it easier on you now to trade it in before you 2 bond.

 

I am not familiar with ich as i havent come across it yet, knock on wood...

But why drop SG to 1.017? Thats pretty low...

What kind of corals did you add? Did you test the water when you made all of those sweeping changes to see if the tank cycled? Depending on your rock it may not have been ready...

I would say that you will be ok based on the behavior of the fish but it might be a good idea to slow it down a bit. Sounds like you are moving fast.

Its easy to do Good luck tho and K+ for coming to 3 reef for help

 

First of all, lowering the specific gravity of your tank to 1.017 will do nothing except stress your coral and inverts. It is not low enough to kill ich. For that, you would have to go to about 1.009 - which I do NOT recommend doing for your DT. Instead, see if you can borrow or buy a 20-30 gallon tank for about 8 weeks. Transfer your fish to that tank and treat with copper medications for 2-3 weeks, and then let your DT remain fallow for another 5 weeks - so fallow for 8 weeks total. You can keep your corals and inverts in the DT during that time - they can not get ich (though they can carry ich to give to your fish - hence the 8 week fallow time to allow any residual parasites in your DT to die off).

If you don't want to do this, then I suggest returning your specific gravity slowly to whatever it used to be (over several days) and simply keeping the fish well-fed. The ich will still be present in your tank, but hopefully under control as long as your fishes' immune systems are strong. However, if you notice the ich worsening or fish beginning to die or stop eating, I suggest option 1.

 

Thanks for giving me another piece of knowledge! I have that one filed under ich ...haha

 

More...

1.017 came from a very well known resource to probably everyone on this website, who grows corals. I don't want to drag anyone through the weeds....I have a small tank I could setup for HT, but if she is going to just keep getting it, I don't want it.

If we think its not going to work, I can slowly return the levels back to 1.023

 

I have an old saltwater aquarium book, written around 2002, and in it they describe lowering the SG to 1.015 to help fight parasites. However, I think you'll find that most (if not all) of the more current resources say that only hyposalinity of 1.009 or less will definitively eradicate the parasite. And at that level all of your inverts and corals will be killed as well. You see, here's the thing - marine ich (or crypt) is an invert. And so most things that will kill it will also kill other inverts. Hence the concept of a quarantine tank, where one can rid the fish of parasites without affecting the other inverts.

But if you are still in doubt about salinity levels to kill parasites, please check out other threads on this site as well as on reef central.

Regarding the small tank that you would use to keep the fish for hospital/quarantine - it has to be large enough to comfortably keep your fish for 8 weeks. If you only keep them there for 2-3 weeks you will rid them of the ich, but then they will just catch it again from your DT when you re-introduce them. For this to work properly you need to let your DT remain fallow of fish for at least 8 weeks. If not, best thing to do is to just leave the fish in the DT, slowly return salinity to normal (which you should do regardless) and keep up good nutrition.

 

I just want to add that, cleaner wrasse hardly ever do good in captivity. About the ich, have you tried reef safe ich remedies, like kick-ich?