mari.harutunian June 22, 2017 Share June 22, 2017 (edited) Hi guys. My friend got a clownfish from petco and it has white ich- white spots. I checked her salinity and it's at 1.023. Nitrate is at 5. She has soft corals and a pederson shrimp. Should I get copper treatment and treat the fish in a hospital tank and leave her pederson shrimp in the tank for four weeks? Or.. Should I try hypo salinity at 1.009 for two weeks at 78-80°? Is there a better treatment? Thanks Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Edited June 22, 2017 by mari.harutunian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM June 22, 2017 Share June 22, 2017 hospital tank for the clown with a good filter and cupramine or coppersafe (and a test kit) and leave the main tank fishless for 11 weeks is the typical advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mari.harutunian June 22, 2017 Author Share June 22, 2017 hospital tank for the clown with a good filter and cupramine or coppersafe (and a test kit) and leave the main tank fishless for 11 weeks is the typical advice. Got it. Filter only and water changes? Or LR too? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM June 22, 2017 Share June 22, 2017 No live rock. It interferes with the copper concentration. The copper suppresses the bacteria population too, so frequent water changes are necessary in the hospital tank to start. When you do a water change you should dose the change water with copper first and get it all mixed in. Also, I think the treatment concentration is .5ppm, iirc, but you might start slowly at half that and work your way up. I used one of these in my treatment tank and it worked fine: http://a.co/4W535Bj but it's one of those things that you kind of have to have running in a sump for a few weeks to get it seeded with bacteria before it helps. You probably also want one of these: http://a.co/auqK9Oe to tell you if the ammonia levels are getting high for a while until the treatment tank is cycled if you're just setting it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mari.harutunian June 22, 2017 Author Share June 22, 2017 No live rock. It interferes with the copper concentration. The copper suppresses the bacteria population too, so frequent water changes are necessary in the hospital tank to start. When you do a water change you should dose the change water with copper first and get it all mixed in. Also, I think the treatment concentration is .5ppm, iirc, but you might start slowly at half that and work your way up. I used one of these in my treatment tank and it worked fine: http://a.co/4W535Bj but it's one of those things that you kind of have to have running in a sump for a few weeks to get it seeded with bacteria before it helps. You probably also want one of these: http://a.co/auqK9Oe to tell you if the ammonia levels are getting high for a while until the treatment tank is cycled if you're just setting it up. Thanks so much! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishNewFish June 23, 2017 Share June 23, 2017 The best treatment I have done so far is with Chloroquine Phosphate (CP), All it needs is a dark aquarium settings since light breaks the CP. It treats a wide variety of fish ailments easier than Copper treatment. It should only be done in hospital tank without any inverts/corals. There is some fish food which has CP laced into it to treat Ick as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dangros June 23, 2017 Share June 23, 2017 I agree w/the CP treatment if you can get your hands on some. I will never buy a Petco fish again. I got a tang which wiped my entire tank out. I went fallow for 9 weeks and finally got rid of whatever it was and now QT everything before going in the main tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mari.harutunian June 23, 2017 Author Share June 23, 2017 I agree w/the CP treatment if you can get your hands on some. I will never buy a Petco fish again. I got a tang which wiped my entire tank out. I went fallow for 9 weeks and finally got rid of whatever it was and now QT everything before going in the main tank. That sounds awful :/ I'm glad I'm done stocking my tank. Thanks for the recommendations! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mari.harutunian June 24, 2017 Author Share June 24, 2017 It died before I could start treatment :( Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dangros July 1, 2017 Share July 1, 2017 How's the rest of the tank? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mari.harutunian July 1, 2017 Author Share July 1, 2017 How's the rest of the tank? The tank was incredibly unusual because she kept having shrimp die on her too but temp, salinity, Nitrate, Nitrite, ammonia, and phosphate were all in check. Plus he tank was covered head to toe in green slime algae and this white squishy growth. Ended up cleaning it out with a near 100% water change. Figured it was the distilled water she used for topoff so I gave her some RODI and gave her the water change water. So far the last shrimp hasn't died. This was her first tank too. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite July 8, 2017 Share July 8, 2017 I will never buy a Petco fish again. The damsel pair I'm donating to raffle came from Petco, and (based on observable details) they have been in perfect health from the time of purchase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dangros July 8, 2017 Share July 8, 2017 treesprite, hopefully you'll never see an issue but I saw enough in my follow up visit (which I did in order to inform them of what happened) to think their livestock was not worth the risk. Hopefully things have changed but now that my tank is well and my fish are healthy, I won't risk being burned there again. In 20 years with 6 different tanks that was my worst experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite July 8, 2017 Share July 8, 2017 treesprite, hopefully you'll never see an issue but I saw enough in my follow up visit (which I did in order to inform them of what happened) to think their livestock was not worth the risk. Hopefully things have changed but now that my tank is well and my fish are healthy, I won't risk being burned there again. In 20 years with 6 different tanks that was my worst experience. Not all the stores are the same. But in any store that sells fish, the prospective buyer needs to look not just at the fish desired, but at the rest of the fish and at the conditions of their environment, and sometimes even ask the clerk questions about water chemistry in the store tanks, shipment date, feeding regime, and other relevant things. I don't buy fish from Petco normally, but I had a separate tank to put the damsels in where anything wrong with them wouldn't affect my other livestock, and getting them out if needed for treatment, wouldn't be a big ordeal. The important thing is that all fish, with very rare exception, should be quarantined in a tank that is in isolation from everything else, and reefing tools should not go directly from that tank into other tanks since they might have parasites or whatever stuck on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k July 8, 2017 Share July 8, 2017 petsmarts and other stores get their fish from mostly the same sources in LA, Florida, and NY. Assume all fish from every store are diseased and that they need to be QT's and medicated before introduction to your tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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