Medicating SW fish

[Vallely4]

Im noticing odd behaviour I think, I know ive witnessed it with clowns being normal behaviour. But my chalk basslet I noticed last night maybe twice, and todaya few times, rubbing hisbody accross the subtrate/rock
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/ichparasiticdiseases/a/aaich_oodinium.htm

This is what I've just researched and I'm convinced this is what he's got. I need to treat somehow, I only have a smallQT right now But it has to be done
Should I be adding a medication to QT or just add him intoto freshwater in the QTtank?
How does this work, shoud I add him to freshwater, and add some salt to make it Hyposalinity as that article mentions, or just add him to hyposalinity '1.013'
(Also it mentions you could use this in combination with medication >which medication should I look for?)
Quick!

Help much appreciated!!!  Thanks

[KLKelly]

I was reading up on fish diseases this week - wetwebmedia, google image search etc.  http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm 

Again this site could be crazy useless.  I see Anthony Calfo's name appear in the responses many times.

I have no idea about treatment or qt.  If you are sure its velvet and not the brooklynella it looks like its a tough one to deal with.

[Achilles]

We have NEVER used a fresh water dip....I find it stresses the fish out so much.  QT him, yes, and you can use a copper base med like they suggest.  Is the fish eating?  When my fish have ich, I mix their food with garlic.  

Good luck with it, I have a fish in my main tank who has had ich now for three months....all the rest are fine, but it wont let up on the poor guy, and there is no way for me to catch it, so, I cross my fingers and hope he can ride this out.

[xenon]

Ich is the most common fish disease that we will all encounter eventually. The life cycle of ich is 6-8weeks and your display tank must be without any fish to completely eradicate it.

I never treat ich with copper because it's just too hard on fish and some tangs will die from it.

Hyposalinity is natural and 100% effective if done right.

You need a large qt tank big enough for all your fish. Then make sure you have a calibrated refractometer with pinpoint solution. Place all your fish in QT and drop the salinity from 1.026 to 1.009 over a period of 24hrs. You need to keep them in hypo for 6-8weeks and the clock starts when you hit 1.009.

Once the QT period is over you can only increase the salinity .001-.002 every 24hrs. Fish can handle a fast drop in salinity but they cannot handle a fast increase.

Good luck!

[Vallely4]

Well I think what I read, its suppose to be a short 15-20min freshwater dip. Then QT in a seperate tank with hyposalinity
I haven't got any med's yet either, and all LFS's are closed today (I believe im looking for 'copper' medication or Formalin)
I not positive he's got 'Amyloodinium ocellatum', I can only narrow down one symptom >rubbing on sand/rock
Ive only noticed him do this 3-4 times, I havent noticed any spots, discolouration, breathing awkward, or cloudy eyes...
But I hear that if its confirmed a fish has Velvet, it may last only 12hours
So i'm really not sure if I should act fast.. or wait it out-and maybe he's just foolin around?
(because this could be the cause of most all my other fish loss's, although I never witnessed any other fish rub against anything in my tank) Most of the disease on my suspect list below treat with Formalin, So maybe first i'll try that in my QT

According to this chart, he could have one of a few disease, 1,4,7 or 10 on their list
http://fins.actwin.com/mirror/disease-sw.html
Here's also one good link I was just reading... http://www.petuniversity.com/fish/saltwater-fish/keeping-your-fish-healthy/health-care--diseases.htm

I'm really not sure as to what to do, right now I haven't seem him do this since I turned the light on this morning. And no other aparent symptoms.
I don't know if I should wait to see if he does it again, or immediately be trying to remove him from my Display and into a short FW dip, then into QT which I have SW mixing now at 1.015.
Hardy fish can withstand much lower SG right...
This wouldn't overly harm him anyways will it?

PS.thanks alot xenon!  Just read that as Im posting this. Im still unsure yet if he has any parasite though, I don't see the symptoms and he hasn't rubbed since this morning?

[AdamN]

I agree FW dip will only stress them out more, hyposalinity in QT is the way to go. I only ever had ich in my tank once but I used this method and have not seen it since.

[groan]

what do people with large tanks do? i cant see someone netting out 30 fish, and having to tear apart aquascaping to get some out...
i guess you could throw in 15 cleaner shrim and hope for the best! hehe

[Faerin]

what do people with large tanks do? i cant see someone netting out 30 fish, and having to tear apart aquascaping to get some out...
i guess you could throw in 15 cleaner shrim and hope for the best! hehe

This is precisely why QTing new inhabitants is so important. Keeping diseases and parasites out of your tank is far easier than ridding the tank of them after the fact.

[groan]

i dont mean to take over the thread here, but it's all related, i think.
So in setting up a QT tank, it's on seperate water supply, has its own rock and power heads and just keep it running?
top ups, water changes etc? or do you just set up when needed?

[KLKelly]

I was thinking of posting the same thing.  Surely its not as easy as setting up a fw qt tank with cycled media to seed.  How do you keep it going when fish aren't in it? (Totally stupid newbie question I know).  Do you guys also QT corals?

[Vallely4]

not a big problem, i'd like to see where this thread evolves, I need the helpful info too.

I belieeeve you should have it running at all times...? (Prob. unless there's an extended period of time when you don't plan on purchasing anything for a while >Which how often is that likely to happen in your reef tank? )
You are suppose to QT all coral and every living thing besides snails/hermits, I believe.
Rock im not sure is a good thing to have in there, becase its porous and holds on to copper and medications and such (So I've read)

[AdamN]

what do people with large tanks do? i cant see someone netting out 30 fish, and having to tear apart aquascaping to get some out...
i guess you could throw in 15 cleaner shrim and hope for the best! hehe

That is exactly what I did, it was a task let me tell ya, but I got huge containers, filled them with water, took out ALL my rock, caught my fish, put them in QT, put all my rock back in and let my tank sit fishless for 7 weeks.
Now, my tank is only 75 gallons and had only been running for under a year when this happened. If my tank had been over 100g and running for years, I would have let the fish fight it off on thier own with the help of garlic suppliments and crossed my fingers.

[AdamN]

I was thinking of posting the same thing.  Surely its not as easy as setting up a fw qt tank with cycled media to seed.  How do you keep it going when fish aren't in it? (Totally stupid newbie question I know).  Do you guys also QT corals?

I had set up my QT for the one time purpose, it does not need LR or anything so you dont have to leave them run. Just a few peices of PVC pipe for the fish to hide in, a heater, and a small filter. Thats it. I set it up at 1.025, let it sit for a few days, then put the fish in. After that I gradually lowered my salinity to 1.009, actually I think it hit 1.007 at one point. I left it there for 5 weeks, then gradually brought it back up. All fish with the exception of the one that brought the ich into the tank in the first place are now living great and have not had any signs of ich since. Ich was introduced to my tank with the addition of a Tang.

[KLKelly]

Cool - but how did you deal with the ammonia that the fish produce over 30 days or 7 weeks of QT?  Big water changes every day?

[AdamN]

there was no measurable ammonia produced over that time period. I just did a few regular water changes of maybe close to 5 gallons each. The tank was a 20g.

[KLKelly]

Thanks Adam : )

[AdamN]

Oh yeah, one more thing, I ran carbon in the HOB filter I had on the QT tank.