i messed up again

[txstateunivreefer]

ok so being the excited reef keeper i am i got excited and didnt QT my hippo tang..... BIG mistake... after kicking myself several times i removed it from the tank covered in pin head sized white dots im suspecting ich from the pics in my books. new marine aquarium etc. now i have him in a bucket with cupramine a powerhead injecting air and a heater. so after reading further they reproduce by dropping egg sacs on the sandbed so question is. without removing inverts and coral is there such a thing as a reef safe ich treatment that wont murder everyone in the tank??

[erikharrison]

yes a UV sterilizer. The only other "safe" option is to lower salinity, which if you do that you must raise the salinity back at some point (2-3 weeks) and that has to be done SLOWLY. I use the 3x turbo twist, and when my striped burrfish had ICH, I did a f/w dip, for 5 minutes, accompanied with the sterilizer. The sterilizer will not kill ICH thats on the fish. Also make sure that temps between the dip water and tank water match accordingly. F/w dips are not a permanent solution, but will provide immeadiate, but temporary alleviation to the affected fish.

[txstateunivreefer]

well i was told not to put UV on a reef tank because it destroyed food for your coral or something like that does it hurt pod pop.? tank has a clam various sofites and moni cap

[txstateunivreefer]

well i suppose ill put a UV on this afternoon plumb it in somewhere. any mfg reccomendations? as for the HT can i leave it in the cupramine for a couple of days take it off let the copper leave its system w/ h20 changes and then put it back into the display?

[Bill S]

Short answer? No. I have a bottle of some stuff I never used that's supposed to be reef safe. But, I wouldn't trust it. Best thing I can tell you is to get a cleaner shrimp. My Hippo, now about 5 or 6 years old, still gets Ich every time he/she is stressed. It's now only every few months or so. Good luck, and welcome to Hippo ownership!

[erikharrison]

do you have another tank which has never had copper in it before? I suggest setting up some tankwater in there and putting your Hippo in it and doing several small w/c before you reintroduce that sweet lil hipper. My 3x turbo twist has three twists to further delay water moving back into the tank. I read a Bob Fenner statement in which he said that UV will kill copepods, but it depends on their duration in the UV. I would imagine you could put a powerful lil pump on it to facilitate the water moving fast.

[txstateunivreefer]

bstreep: already got the skunk cleaner

erick thats what im gonna do is give him a few days in copper free h20 changing the h20 daily to make sure hes clean then move him back as for the faster pump on the UV i thought using a slow pump was best to increase exposure. since i have a fuge and a wet dry i will go ahead and run a UV with a slow pump to see what i can get from that. as for prevention i will do that and start feeding more garlic / foods

[erikharrison]

the only thing about a slower pump is you may sacrafice some pods. I only use mine when I have an ICH outbreak. I have two fish (yellow spotted boxfish, and a striped burrfish) both of which are scaleless and highly succeptible to ICH. Any way you look at it UV is THE way to go.

[txstateunivreefer]

cool will do thanks for the advise help everyone... off to the lfs this afternoon!

[captexas]

When I got a hippo tang a few years back, it got ich real bad at first and then would get it every once in awhile when I re-aquascaped the tank. Hippo tags are very succeptable to it when they are scared or put into new surroundings so don't panic too much. All I every used to treat mine was Kent Garlic Xtreme. It worked well.

[txstateunivreefer]

thanks any ideas on food for the fella i tried brown nori but he wont touch that or the omega one pellets i didnt see him feast on spril. enriched brine either should i try HEB head lettuce? thats all my yellow would eat when i had him

[captexas]

Compared to other tangs, hippos are more meat eaters. I actually couldn't get mine to ever eat nori until I got a chocolate tang that ate it like crazy and the hippo then followed suit. Mine pretty much ate any kind of frozen food I used.

[txstateunivreefer]

well any reccomendations for a uv ster. im thinking total volume is around 140 gallons

[Thunderkat]

Garlic soaked mysis, check to make sure all your parmaters are stable, don't stress your fish, and remember to QT next time.