Well, wouldn't you know it... A lot of people say we'll all face marine ich at point, and my time has come.
After the loss of our female angel a few months ago to unknown reasons (she lost her appetite and stopped eating, but showed no visible signs of any ailment and we couldn't sucessfully get her eating again), we decided to acquire another female for our male angel. It turns out that he was not so pleased with her (who knew harem society breeders were so picky), and after a 24 hour period of them being together, I had to remove her because he had become too aggressive towards her, corralling her into the corners of the tank without allowing her to move away and chewing on her fins.
I put her into QT and she continued to eat very well for almost a week. Yesterday, she was uninterested in food and upon further inspection, she has become infected with marine ich. Thus far, I've yet to see any signs of it in the fish remaining in the display tank (keeping my fingers crossed). I began hyposalinity treatment last night, and have a few questions that I've been unable to find good answers to just searching on my own:
1) Is a 20% reduction in specific gravity each day an appropriate rate for initiating hyposalinity?
2) How long should hyposalinity be maintained? I've read 4 weeks and 6 weeks -- which is it?
3) There's no established filter on the QT, just some live rock... Should I still attempt to feed on a normal schedule (once daily) during the hyposalinity? Is a reduced schedule better while I get a small canister filter up and running to better establish a biofilter?
4) Is it a good idea to dose the QT tank with antibiotics as a preventitive measure against secondary bacterial infections?
5) There's a skimmer on the QT -- at what specific gravity will it become useless?
6) There's a few pieces of live rock in the QT -- should they be removed? If so, do I need to dry out or fw soak it to kill off any ich that might be associated with it? It's was dry base rock 6 months ago and was in the sump of the display tank, so I wouldn't be losing any nice coralline or killing off live rock that's been established for years and years.
7) At what rate should the specific gravity be raised back to normal -- 20% like it was brought down?
Thanks in advance!
After the loss of our female angel a few months ago to unknown reasons (she lost her appetite and stopped eating, but showed no visible signs of any ailment and we couldn't sucessfully get her eating again), we decided to acquire another female for our male angel. It turns out that he was not so pleased with her (who knew harem society breeders were so picky), and after a 24 hour period of them being together, I had to remove her because he had become too aggressive towards her, corralling her into the corners of the tank without allowing her to move away and chewing on her fins.
I put her into QT and she continued to eat very well for almost a week. Yesterday, she was uninterested in food and upon further inspection, she has become infected with marine ich. Thus far, I've yet to see any signs of it in the fish remaining in the display tank (keeping my fingers crossed). I began hyposalinity treatment last night, and have a few questions that I've been unable to find good answers to just searching on my own:
1) Is a 20% reduction in specific gravity each day an appropriate rate for initiating hyposalinity?
2) How long should hyposalinity be maintained? I've read 4 weeks and 6 weeks -- which is it?
3) There's no established filter on the QT, just some live rock... Should I still attempt to feed on a normal schedule (once daily) during the hyposalinity? Is a reduced schedule better while I get a small canister filter up and running to better establish a biofilter?
4) Is it a good idea to dose the QT tank with antibiotics as a preventitive measure against secondary bacterial infections?
5) There's a skimmer on the QT -- at what specific gravity will it become useless?
6) There's a few pieces of live rock in the QT -- should they be removed? If so, do I need to dry out or fw soak it to kill off any ich that might be associated with it? It's was dry base rock 6 months ago and was in the sump of the display tank, so I wouldn't be losing any nice coralline or killing off live rock that's been established for years and years.
7) At what rate should the specific gravity be raised back to normal -- 20% like it was brought down?
Thanks in advance!