What size hospital tank do you think?

[Ronjunior]

I've been plagued by the ich gods again putting my guard down for a year. I'm leaning toward taking out all my fish and put into hypo salinity, leaving the display fallow, but I'm afraid if I use the tank I have, it will be too small. This happened a year ago and put fish in a 10 gallon tank and ended up perishing all but 1. (never knew for sure if was secondary infection, ich, overloading, or?)

This go around, survivors are 3 inch sailfin tang, lemon peel dwarf angel, 4 chromis, 1 2" scooter blenny, 1 maroon clowns, F 3 1/2" and M less than 2", small yellow tail damsel, and a cardinal.
I plan on leaving my 3 starfish, crabs and snails in the display for the 6 week period.

I'm heading to Walmart to see what a cheap 30 gallon would run, do you think this is pushing it with the load? I have about 20-25ish pounds of live rock from a friends tank in the garage.. was from a long term display, but had some die off with low temp in transp., but doesn't stink too bad now. I'm also debating if I leave this bare bottom with LR and take water from the display, will I end up with an ammonia/nitrite spike in a new QT tank. Anyone have much 1st hand experience with emergency QT and have fish live through it? I would like to get to QT ASAP, but don't want to chance killing all my reefmates again. (lost 6 in the past week already leaving them in the display )

[Hop]

A 30 minimum, a 40 breeder or a 55 would be even better... Just provide enough PVC for hiding in the 30

[crvz]

30 may be on the smaller side... I've had bad experience with hospitals/qt's, mostly in that I've overstressed fish by trying to cram too many into a small setup. Just make sure they've got plenty of space to hide, as Hop points out.

[Loverotties]

I agree with them and it's going to need to cycle if you use that new rock and it will never be able to be used any where else if you treat the QT tank with something like copper.And it will kill the newly cycled tank also.

[motorslave]

Get a 55 since you have a tang. They get stressed when they dont have space and thats no way to fix an ich problem IMO.

[Ronjunior]

Originally Posted by Loverotties

I agree with them and it's going to need to cycle if you use that new rock and it will never be able to be used any where else if you treat the QT tank with something like copper.And it will kill the newly cycled tank also.

I'm thinking maybe I'll take some rock out of my display instead and hopefully won't get a cycle with using infested tank water. It's ramping up again and may lose the sailfin the way he looks. I think he's trying to blow the crap off him, he's swimming into a maxijet about 1 inch away. I don't have any plans to ever use copper. How does low salinity effect the rock and bacteria/critters and such? The other question I have is, how long do the fish need to be in low salinity to ensure die off of ich? I know it's 6 weeks for the display tank.

[Geoff]

i feel that hospital tanks are not worth it. they create more stress for the fish than actually helping to cure them. in most cases the fish that is cured will get ich again when it is introduced back into the display. that is unless the display has been fishless for a couple of months.

tangs get ich. that is what they do best. the older the tank the less likely they will get it, but even then they will prolly get it. i found it just best to let them fight it off on their own.

G~

[DarthOcellaris]

Originally Posted by Geoff

tangs get ich. that is what they do best.
G~

and poop, don't forget the pooping

[Ronjunior]

Originally Posted by Geoff

i feel that hospital tanks are not worth it. they create more stress for the fish than actually helping to cure them. in most cases the fish that is cured will get ich again when it is introduced back into the display. that is unless the display has been fishless for a couple of months.

tangs get ich. that is what they do best. the older the tank the less likely they will get it, but even then they will prolly get it. i found it just best to let them fight it off on their own.

G~

It's a tough call, I'm dam****ed if I do, dam****ed if I don't. At least it's been that way so far with QT'ing or skipping it. At this point by letting them fight on their own, I've lost my Powder Brown tang, bi-colored blenny, bi-colored pseudochromis, mandarin, sand sifting goby, and 2 firefish. I plan on keeping my display fallow for at least 6 weeks as to rid the ich. In the future, I'll only buy fish 6 weeks apart and leave them in the second tank/QT/new secondary display with hypo and make sure they're not infected before adding to the main tank. If I go through this again, I'll likely give up, it's ruining my mood.

Reading the articles on Advanced Aquarist is confusing about keeping live rock in low salinity conditions. From page 3, "Do not expose elasmobranches, invertebrates, live rock, or live sand to treatment with hypo salinity. This method is safe for the bacteria that perform biological filtration, at least if the salinity is not dropped too rapidly." PAGE 5 "Treatments that utilize copper-based medications or manipulating the salinity are detrimental to invertebrates, micro flora and micro fauna."
If I don't put live rock in, there won't be anything to keep up with the nitrate cycle. I hear people using a sponge, but I assume that will take awhile to seed and would need to be large for supporting a 38-50 gallon tank?

[Hop]

You should have put a sponge in the sump when you first noted signs of ich... It will develop the bacteria within a few days to a week while you get the q-tank set up. I keep one going in the sump at all times in case something happens and I need to get the q-tank set up in a snap. I've never been successful fighting ich in the tank... To the tune of about 2K in fish lost by one careless addition about 4 or 5 years ago, and believe that the hypo of the q-tank relieves that stress.

[tellycoleman]

believe me i know exactly what your talking about
I lost half my fish to ich/black ich about 2 weeks ago and i was debating over using a hospital or treating in the tank.

I dont think i will ever treat in the tank again.
hoping and waiting for the fish to fight it off delayed my treatment so when i finally got a hospital tank up the fish were to far gone.

i didnt have any success with useing "quick cure" or other formalin/green treatments. It didnt faze the ich I had. Right now im treating with cooper but i wish i would have gone hyposalinity. I have to be careful and not cross contaminate the display. with hypo you can at least feed the excess food to your display.

Well the copper did help and the black ich of death is gone from my 3 surviving fish

sometimes the hardest decision is to act.

I agree with using water in you display to start your tank but i dont know about using it after that. I think you could reintroduce pathogens into your hospital.

Look on craig list and see if someone close is selling a used aquarium cheap.

[Geoff]

the longer the tank has been setup before adding tangs, the better the chances that the tangs will not get ich.

my powder brown had ich about 6 months ago. now it does not. i did not do anything to the tank. then there is the problem that once the fish is in the tank, getting it out could be impossible. there is very little chance of me getting anything out of my tank once it is in there, well maybe a clam.

G~

[Ronjunior]

Found out some more frustrating news yesterday. Bought a 35 gallon tank from a local fellow club member who raises fish. Was discussing my situation with the odd rapid mortality with ich and wondered if I caught something else in the mess like what happened 1 year ago this month from a certain LFS purchase. I got ich and Brooklynella and wiped out most everything fish wise. Well, come to find out, this same particular LFS that I've been blaming for my recent tank outbreak has been hit with Brooklynella in his tanks once again, and lost hundreds of baby tank raised clowns and who knows what else. The time I bought my fish in question that made my tank dwindle is awfully close to his timeframe to lay blame. I'm so ticked off, I don't want to face him. Don't know what to say, other than I'm never buying anything alive from his tanks again. I lost more now with my cardinal, a chromis is missing, and have a stinking yellow tail damsel that has outsmarted my 1/2 tank net job......only after I covered all the escape routes. Need him to QT to drop salinity. He refuses to swim to the other side of the gate where a fish hook awaits his angry eyes. Hospital tank is dropping now so will have to drip the bugger longer if he makes it out alive. I'm stumped and flabbergasted in Damascus. I have myself to blame for not QTing and finally getting hit again by disaster. I only have 1 lemonpeel, 1 pencil urchin and a crab that survived 3 disasters, 2 disease and the was no flow from the sump for about 3-4 days while I was away. After over 300 bucks on fish, it's making me think to stick with corals and train guppies and goldfish to survive in saltwater. Maybe a kitten would like to swim every once in awhile? To beat it all, I only bought the fish this time from that LFS due to winning a $50 gift certificates from an event at his store. I'm rambling at 3:30am, therefore I need to go to bed.