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Very nice looking tank - I was wondering if you have any powerheads or returns near the bottom of your tank? How do you keep the sand clean? I have a 76gallon with a return at the top left, and a rotating powerhead top right, and alot of debris settles to the sand and live rock. Your looks very clean, so I was wondering if you have anything creating more water movement at the bottom?

I use Instant Ocean reef crystals, as long as the temp is ok I use within 5 mins - never had any issues.

I have a quick question - do the par38,s just screw into a standard house light socket? Anyone know the intesity and color of the par 38s? I'm thinking about adding 2 of them as more focused spotlights to my tank. I have an Oceanic 76 gallon 1/2 circle - the lights would be at least 26 inches above the sand as the dimensions are 45" 25" 23" Brian

I found this on WetWebMedia site - maybe your lucky and your fish only has micro bubbles sticking to him - see below: Ich v. Air bubbles 8/13/05 I recently treated my orbit batfish for ich. His eyes were cloudy, breathing heavily and in bad shape. After successful copper sulfate treatment for two weeks I returned him to his 90 gallon home 5 weeks later. The main tank remained fallow for 5 weeks before his return. Everything appeared ok for a few days. Suddenly I started noticing what I thought were white spots on his tail again. After a few days they appeared to be all over his body. When I turned the lights on late at night they appeared all over. I was extremely upset and debating whether to do a second copper treatment or to try with garlic soaked food and just leave him with the cleaner shrimp since too much copper can be dangerous <You are right to be concerned here> Suddenly I had a thought that perhaps it was not ich. He wasn't scratching and his eyes were still clear. Appetite fine. Looking carefully in the water I noticed lots of tiny air bubbles from my protein skimmer. Looking in my 4 other reef tanks I did not see any similar spots on the fish. <Bats, Spadefishes are slimier than many other groups of fishes... and with the copper treatment, this specimen would be even slimier... more susceptible to air bubbles sticking on it.> However the protein skimmers in those tanks were in the sump and there were no air bubbles in the tank. I turned off the protein skimmer. Much to my happy surprise the supposed "ich" had all disappeared within 3 hours. Apparently what had happened was that the air bubbles were attaching to the slow moving batfish. With the light reflection off the air bubbles the air bubbles appeared to be ich. Now I am an experienced marine hobbyist with over 10 years in the hobby. I am also a well know Manhattan attorney so am usually pretty careful how I do things. Yet I came very close to committing fish malpractice by treating for ich when all I had was air bubbles. <Heee! Case closed counselor> The point of the story is that it is not so easy to tell simply by white spots if you have ich or not. <Yes> If there are any tiny air bubbles in your tank it would behoove the aquarist to first shut the protein skimmer for a few hours and see if the "ich" is really air bubbles. Slow moving fish appear to be magnets for air bubbles. Sadly I would bet there are thousands of cases of fish being treated for "ich" when all they had were a case of air bubbles. <Agreed... with dire consequences often> It's worth the time to shut your protein skimmer for a few hours to find out. Obviously if your fish are already scratching, not eating, and have cloudy eyes this extra step is not necessary. William J. Unroch, Attorney <Thank you for this. You have saved many organisms, other hobbyists... Bob Fenner> Re: Ich v. Air bubbles What a great thing to say. Coming from you it is very flattering. You have saved thousands more organisms than I every will and your site is wonderful. I think my comment was needed since I had never seen that issue discussed before. When I realized I had air bubbles and not ich on the fish I was shocked that even with all my experience I was almost ready to do copper. <As a keen observer of human nature it seems so likely... and yet you had the further intelligence to see through such a "reflex" reaction> Light plays strange tricks on tiny air bubbles. They look white, they build up on the fish over a few days, and even an experienced aquarist can think it is ick - I did . Hope you mention this in one of your wonderful articles. Thanks again William J. Unroch, Attorney <Will do. Excelsior! Bob Fenner>

See my dillema that I am still going through http://www.wamas.org/forums/topic/38203-ick-outbreak-need-help/page__gopid__329066 All my fish died but 2 - really felt bad. I know you will see many thoughts about this, but if i had to do it over again, I would immediatly have used copper (my outbreak was bad - it was all over the fish). I think the Angel and Clowns would have survived if I started using it when they were still healthy. By the time I had the 2nd round of ICH, they were weakened. If your never going to have inverts in your DT then you could dose it with copper. NEVER being the key word. If your outbreak isn't too bad (only a few white spots), I think I would follow what most of the members say, and try to keep them healthy by feeding well, and doing water changes.

I took your advice - I purchased a HOB Tetra Whisper EX 30 - I removed the carbon to make sure I'm not filtering out the copper. The ammonia is very low, not quite zero, but it should be fine. My yellow tang seems to be recovering - finally. The manadarin seems ok, but not really eating much - if any. I will probably end up keeping them in the QT for 30 more days to make sure that my main tank has been fallow long enought where all traces of ICH will be gone. Does anyone have any ideas to help supplement the mandarin until i get him back into the DT? I put in live brine shrimps, but right now the mandarin doesn't seem interested at all - I know he loves copepods. Not sure if they would last in there for any length of time, since the water has been treated with copper. Thanks for the input.

Bad news - After treating the tank with the API Super Ich it looked like things cleared up. Unfortunately they did not. A second outbreak happened 3 days ago, and my Angel died :( The clowns also looked like they had also got it. I decided copper was my last option - so I'm currently following Coral's advice. I got a 30 gallon rubber made, a heater, a florescent light resting on top, a rotating power head with an air intake - I thought this would be enough. I'm planning on doing a 1 gallon change every other day since there isn't any filter. I caught the fish that were left 2 days ago - 1 yellow tang, 2 clowns, and a mandarin. Got them all from the DT and put in the QT and added the copper. The fish didn't eat the first day, but seemed to be adjusting ok. This am 1 clown was dead :( and my 2nd clown doesn't look so good. I'm guessing that the stress of catching them after they were sick might have done them in. Doing nothing was not an option - I know people here have advocated just feeding them and hoping, but when the fish got Ich, it wasn't just a few spots, it was all over their body and imo this would have gotten them eventually. I think I should have moved them at the very first sign to the QT and skipped the API Super Ich in the DT and use the copper immediately. They would have been healthier when moved and had a better chance than moving them when they were weaker. Not really sure. This part of the hobby sucks - i have a feeling that all fish will be gone soon. Lessons learned: The API Super Ich cure isn't so super - didn't work at all. Treat all fish at first sign of Ich, before they get weak by the parasite. Pristine Aquariums isn't much better than any other shop - need to QT all fish before putting them in my DT Anyway thanks for the advice.

Thanks for the input and advice - I already did the first dose of API on the evening I posted. I didn't want to wait as it appeared that as I was watching the tank the 2 fish were actually getting more white specs on them! The main ingredient in API to kill Ich is malachite green - Since this doesn't contain copper and I don't have too many corals I decided to do it. The corals don't seem to have been affected (yet). It's been 48 hours so I think I will follow through and do 1 more dose, as this is a 2 dose treatment. I can see both sides to keeping the temp normal versus raising it. I think if the fish are not having problems breathing due to the Ich at the time of treatment, then it would be better to raise the temperature a bit as you are trying to hasten the lifecycle of this parasite and it might be better to kill them in 2 treatments than have to do a third treatment. If the fish were having trouble breathing, then I would follow the advice of the board and not stress them out any more with a temp raise. They are also eating nori seaweed for sushi, which I think is a good sign. Next time I go to a WAMAS function I will try to get some homemade fish food from Scott! I'll let the board know how it goes. *I feel I should warn our members that Pristine Aquarium may have some infected fish right now. This whole issue started after I bought a cowfish from them that had a few spots - i noticed this after I added him to my main tank and saw he wasn't doing so well. He was lethargic and had buoyancy issues - I know this is partly my fault as I should have inspected him more carefully and I should have quarantined him. I wasn't thinking of Ich - I was worried he was sick and would poison the tank. I took him out to a quarantine container after the fact, and he died shortly there after. My whole Ich issue started 1 - 2 days later. My suspicion was confirmed when I went back to Pristine to get more RO water and activated carbon. I looked at the same display tank that the cowfish I bought was in, and a new fish there had the white spots on it. I told the guy at the store to look and he agreed it looked like Ich on the fish. Lesson learned - I will quarantine all fish - I just got too trusting of Pristine. If this happens again or any other fish get it, I think I will follow David's advice and get the rubber maid container and put all the fish in for treatment.

My Angel and Tang have been using the cleaner shrimps and cleaner wrasse much more than usual the last few days. I checked them again this evening and they appear to have an outbreak of Ich - they look distressed. They still ate ok tonight - I added some minced garlic to the food with selcom. My problem is I don't have a quarantine tank. I have a bottle of API - Super Ick cure that i'm thinking of using. My tank is 76 gallons and contains: 2 clowns, 1 yellow tang (has ich), 1 koran angel (has ich), 1 cleaner wrasse, 1 mandarin, 2 cleaner shrimps, 1 boxer shrimp. I also have some mushrooms, a green star polyp, some Frog Spawn, and a small ricordia. I'm worried about the corals, shrimp, and crabs if i use API - super ick. I was thinking that I could remove the tang and angel - give them a fresh water dip with methylene blue, and treat the tank with the API and raise the tanks temperature. Anyone think the corals will be affected? The bottle doesn't indicate that it contains copper, but it does say it may not be safe for reef tanks. Thanks in advance - help is appreciated, Brian

Thanks all for the info: consensus says to leave it be. The look doesn't bother me at all, so I will let it be and hope the other heads stay healthy. If it eventually grows back (regenerates) I'll be sure to let the forumn know. Cheers

Hello all - I have a question on what to do with a Candy Cane coral with 1 dead head? The coral has 4 heads total - 3 or them look fine - colored bright green. 1 head apparently died - turned white, and now it has gone to a dark gray. Should I leave it as it is, or try to cut the dead head off from the rest of the coral? Thanks.