took water sample to lfs after seeing white spots overnight on fish they said water was "perfect". stopped skimmer and hob w/ carbon per instructions treated on Friday night. Saturday night noticed sail fin Tang swimming down-sideways crabs hanging on him i moved him to 5 gal bucket w/air bubbler last night,thought he would die but this morning he is still but vertical! Umm now what? never had qt tank does it need flow filter how often change water?
You are going to need to change your water in a 5 gal bucket at least once per day. It doesn't have any bio filtration so toxins are going to build up quickly. A stressed fish is even less able to withstand that then a healthy one. For future reference there are several in depth threads about qt tanks here. You never, never want to treat anything in your main tank if it can be avoided. I'd get a bare 20 gallon tank and put some sand etc from your main tank in a hob filter in this case. You should also probably get a sponge filter and a couple of spare filters . Keep a sponge hidden somewhere in your main tank until it's needed so that it will be ready on a moments notice. Put every new fish/coral you purchase in Q.T. prior to introduction in to your main set up! You'll also want to provide some flower pots or pvc pipes for your new introductions and sick fish to hide in. For more info do a search on hospital or q.t. tanks.
Now for the very bad news you very likely have exposed all the fish in your tank to ich. If that's the case you can't have any fish in the tank for about 3 weeks or so to attempt to break the life cycle of the parasite.
Please keep us posted and best of luck
Ich is fairly easy to beat but, it's no fun and it does require considerable dedication to deal with. In a case like your where you have no set up ready it's going to be even more difficult. You might consider asking your lfs if they have some used filter media you can have or ask a s.w. friend.
