Yet another Ich question

[MarkS]

Hello I just recently discovered MAAST and once i can locate when/where the next meeting will be held, I can't wait to become a ful fledged member. Great to see such a helpful aquarium community in the SA area. So on with my "Emergency"...

My daughter has a very small 12G tank with a small clown, blue damsel, and a pseudochromis. No corals or live rock "thankfully!!" and pink fiji aragonite as a substrate. Of course like any small child she could not wait to just set up her tank and get it going instead of going the quarantine route and now I guess we are paying the price. The pseudo is now showing "physical symtoms" of Ich.

I just finished reading the Ich article posted ealier in this forum.

I guess I'm look more for opinions of should we vacuum out all the substrate and water and try to convert this tank to a hospital tank and dose it with the copper treatments recommended in the article? We were recommended the "all natural" Ich-Attackr manufactured by Kordon by a local aquarium store in the area. However, after reading the Ich article I have my doubts that this wil only prolong the fish's suffering and waste time.

Or being such a small tank should I just trash the tank move the fish to a new tank for "hospitalization" and then start over with a new tank going the QT route this time to avoid this in the future?

Thanks for any help or opinions.

[Big_Pun]

first off that tank is a lil cramped(for the fish you have), first thing i see is you have some agressive fish also. have you noticed any chasing nipping at eachother, stress can cause ich. also what is you salinity, ph and amonia at.

[Scutterborn]

First off, welcome to MAAST!!

Secondly, your question.
No live rock? What are you doing for filtration? Please tell us more about your system.

Thirdly, your livestock list would indicate a heavy bioload. While clown and damselfish can be cohabitants, as they mature they will fight. Clowns are also a species of damselfish.

I'm not trying to discourage you by any means. We love to help out folks.


- Ben -

[allan]

Hey dude,

Welcome to MAAST. Good to have a new guy on the forum. :)

Let me clarify what Chris mentioned. Stress doesn't cause ich, the stress reduces the fish's ability to fight it. One of the reasons we feed heavy and introduce garlic to stimulate the feeding response is because a well fed fish can fight off the parasite much easier than a fish that is overly stressed.

Your tank would be toast if you introduce copper in it, and ever hope to house coral.

I would let it ride, keep feeding the fish and maintain a happy little aquarium. But if you are indeed going to upgrade, well that's another story all together. As Chris mentioned earlier, that damsel is a pretty dominant creature... and in a little tank he's going to want to establish dominance which will further stress the other inhabitants. Just for the fact that you've three fish in a 12 gallon will be a bit of a stressful environment in itself.

What kind of clown?

[allan]

To echo Ben in another fashion...

Dude, post up a picture of your tank! :) We love pictures here. ;)

[Louis-210]

Hey dude,

Welcome to MAAST. Good to have a new guy on the forum. :)

Let me clarify what Chris mentioned. Stress doesn't cause ich, the stress reduces the fish's ability to fight it. One of the reasons we feed heavy and introduce garlic to stimulate the feeding response is because a well fed fish can fight off the parasite much easier than a fish that is overly stressed.

Your tank would be toast if you introduce copper in it, and ever hope to house coral.

I would let it ride, keep feeding the fish and maintain a happy little aquarium. But if you are indeed going to upgrade, well that's another story all together. As Chris mentioned earlier, that damsel is a pretty dominant creature... and in a little tank he's going to want to establish dominance which will further stress the other inhabitants. Just for the fact that you've three fish in a 12 gallon will be a bit of a stressful environment in itself.

What kind of clown?

whats up, welcome to Maast +1 ^on this, the biggest thing i have learned is just take your time dont rush anything :)

[MarkS]

Ben I appreciate your feedback and vetting of my info regrettable I read the FAQ of the Emergency group after I submitted so I should have included the items you suggested:

The tank is a Marineland 12 G salt tank kit, comes with a rectangular tank, generic full spectrum light, biowheel and charcoal filter pad. I have always frowned against kits as you usually end up replacing the provided supplies anyway. However this was a "special sale item" so I gave in. I replaced the T8 generic bulb with a Corallife 50/50 bulb.

I also added a Hydor Koralia Evolution 75 powerhead to increase circulation.

Salinitiy of the tank has been around 1.020 - 1.022
Nitrates have slowly risen the past week to approx 10 pmm.
Nitrite is 0 ppm
pH 7.8
NH - do not remember this off the top of my head may have to post later.

I noticed there was some tension between the clown and pseudo when we first introduced them into the tank. However, the damsel and clown usually hang out on one side of the tank in their hiding spots and swim with no nipping. The pseudo hangs out on the other side of the tank. During feeding I have not noticed any agressiveness toward each other. If they make it through the Ich then I will take you up on the suggestion and split them up into other tanks.

I have seen the compatibility charts regrettably after purchase, which is why I have kept a close eye out for aggresiveness. Is there a rule of thumb or guide for determining the bioload or is it a matter of the amount of filtration/live rock going on in the aquarium? Once again we bought this for our 4 y/o daughter so I did not want to turn this into a full fledged reef system with refugium/sump. So any ideas for preserving a small system for her would be great. Unfortunately for my daughter we are also using this as a learning experience before moving onto a full fledged large reef tank .

[Scutterborn]

Thanks Allan. I'm running the crane and that post took over 10 minutes to type out.


- Ben -

[Scutterborn]

You don't need to go full blown. I've got 3 tanks running and only 1 is running a sump.
I'd pick up an established piece of live rock at one of our sponsors stores and let it ride! Maybe around 10 pounds. Your parameters sound pretty good. Especially since there is no live rock.
You mentioned the clown and damsel hide on their side. What do they hide in?


- Ben -

[allan]

lol

The damsels will develop into a territorial little fiend... but that in itself is a learning environment for your child as well. With the light that you have you can probably support some of the softies if you wanted to give her an introductory peek into reef madness.


See if you can get her to realize where the problem is by giving her the reading material to figure it out. Not sure if you can find some child friendly literature though. I don't remember what reading level she should be at at four. But I do remember the "see john run" and "see alice walk" reading material that my mom gave me. I can tell you from experience that THAT wasn't fun. :)

[Big_Pun]

You don't need to go full blown. I've got 3 tanks running and only 1 is running a sump.
I'd pick up an established piece of live rock at one of our sponsors stores and let it ride! Maybe around 10 pounds. Your parameters sound pretty good. Especially since there is no live rock.
You mentioned the clown and damsel hide on their side. What do they hide in?


- Ben -

i agree, if your going full blown might as well just slowly setup a whole new bigger system. i was wondering the same thing why so they stay on seperate sides of the tank, yes some gobys make there tunnels and stick to it but clowns and damsels usually move around a tank. my comment on stressto clarify..... fish will shed there slime coats which makes them more prone to ich since they burrow in the skin easier. most reef safe meds just make the fish build up slim coats. just keep them fed watch for agression and take it slow

[Scutterborn]

Here you go!

6lbs of live rock.
http://www.maast.org/showpost.php?p=880040

Your fish will stress less if they have a place to be outta sight.

If your in shertz, he's only 10 minutes away!


- Ben -

[reefreak]

It did make a nice center piece in my 10g its also loaded with pods

[MarkS]

Thanks a lot for the replies. I will definitely take all the advice you have provided but to close out this thread, I just want to make sure I understand the steps and my approach to treat the Ich so I can move my general questions to a more appropriate topic group.

1. For the Ich treatment - should I use another treatment or continue to use the Ich-Atackr?

2. As I have read and as the group has pointed out the stress brings on the Ich. So for treatment should I continue to keep them together or go ahead and split all 3 up and treat individually, or would this introduce more stress at this point.

3. As Ben suggested: "I'd pick up an established piece of live rock at one of our sponsors stores and let it ride! Maybe around 10 pounds" should I place the live rock during or post-Ich treatment?

Thanks for all your help guys. I'm sure you will be hearing from me again soon in other topics. It's a steep learning curve and it's been so long since i had my FO tank in college but I know the reward and beauty with all the hard work is worth it to share this hobby with my family. Can't wait to start getting back into the hobby and into "reef madness" but as Louis suggested going to take this thing slow to avoid these problems moving forward and learn from all of you.

Thanks again,
Mark