The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

[Blueface]

Originally Posted by shilala

Thank you, my friend. Consider it done.
She is an awesome eater. Loves brown algae and pellets. She's a big fat pig. I just fed her as I was typing, and she's eating everything she can get her lips on.
I was watching her today and she's not even itching. Usually they go nuts when they get ich.
I don't think it's going to be hard to manage. My salinity is already very low for the little coral I do have. I have lots of sponges growing, too, she just can't get to them. I hid them on purpose till they can grow out from the cracks in the rock.

Then based on this, go ahead and just crank up your temperature. That stuff will soon cycle out of there.
Trick is to make sure you keep the temperature high for weeks post when you see the last signs of cyst.
They can stay embedded in your sand for three to four weeks and start all over again.
By keeping the temperature up about a month, that should cover you from a new outburst.
When you buy new fish.........................QUARANTINE!!!!, for about a month usually, in copper, after a freshwater dip with formalyn.

[shilala]

My salt is up around .025 right now, Carlos. I'll have to swap out a couple buckets of water in the morning.
She's really not in bad shape at all. I should probably not screw with it real fast. I'll bring the temperature up slowly and lower the salinity slowly. I need some water changes anyways, so I'll start making RO water in earnest.

[Wolfgang]

the hypo salinity should do the trick. Cranking temperature in the tank isnt shown to help mush with marine ich. Freshwater raising the temp works winders though.

[Wolfgang]

You should be aiming between .013 and .017. for true hypo treatment.

[Blueface]

Originally Posted by shilala

My salt is up around .025 right now, Carlos. I'll have to swap out a couple buckets of water in the morning.
She's really not in bad shape at all. I should probably not screw with it real fast. I'll bring the temperature up slowly and lower the salinity slowly. I need some water changes anyways, so I'll start making RO water in earnest.

.025 is too high for what you have.
Fear not about slow transition. I have taken them down in one water change. Does not hurt them. In fact, I have often times taken a fish out of one environment, into the other, without any acclimation. My son's shop did it all the time also.

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

the hypo salinity should do the trick. Cranking temperature in the tank isnt shown to help mush with marine ich. Freshwater raising the temp works winders though.

Everything I have read indicates both salt water and fresh water ich are affected by temperature. Lower extends life cycle while higher temperature speeds it up. I have never done temperature alone or salinity alone so can't really tell if one is better than the other. However, note that most outbreaks occur when heaters go bad and temperature drops rapidly. The other outbreaks occur when introducing infected fish. Conversely, high temperature must have an effect also.

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

You should be aiming between .013 and .017. for true hypo treatment.

An oceanic institute published a study with a large Angel where he was kept at .012 for well over two years with no issues. While .013 to .017 may do it, the lower you go, the faster the fresh water mixture penetrates and blows up the cysts. My tank runs at around .016 to .017 year round. Note I have seen many outbreaks on folks around .017 so I won't therefore trust that as a safe level for no ich. Saltwater ich cannot survive in fresh water but it is due to their single cell composition blowing up. The sooner you can get those critters off their bodies, the better the survival rate and better chance of not contracting bacterial infections. Sometimes the latter sets in and kills them before the ich suffocates them.

[Wolfgang]

I agree Carlos. It becomes tougher when there are corals in the tank. They are not too fond of the lowered SG.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

[shilala]

Thanks to both of you guys.
Being as the heat ain't gonna hurt a thing, I'm going to close up the lids and let the tank warm naturally. It'll be like soup in no time. I do need to go get a decent thermometer though.
I'm going to start bringing down the salinity tomorrow. I can only pull it down ten gallons at a time because my RO unit is so slow.
I'm going to drop a bit, so far as salinity goes, but I'm not going to drop it too low. I've been dropping slowly over the last year, coming down from 1.025 to 1.020. (I typo'd that last message, Carlos.)
I'd like to hang around .018 or .019.
Since I've lowered my salinity, my coralline has flourished as well as my critters, bugs, corals, and fish. This outbreak was caused by temperature spikes. I need to cut off the heat run behind the tank. That'll be a pain, so it'll wait till summer.
Thanks again, guys!!!

[Blueface]

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

I agree Carlos. It becomes tougher when there are corals in the tank. They are not too fond of the lowered SG.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

No doubt.
I noted he had no corals in that picture and threw that idea out as such.
With corals, ich is a whole new world.
I frankly am not too fond of taking a reef with nice corals down too low on salinity.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Blueface

No doubt.
I noted he had no corals in that picture and threw that idea out as such.
With corals, ich is a whole new world.
I frankly am not too fond of taking a reef with nice corals down too low on salinity.

I have a big field of red ones, Carlos. Good thing I didn't change water yet? I also have some small other corals in different places, as well as sponges, snails, and every other thing you can imagine.
Tons of feathers, and my live rock is stellar, and full of clams and sh!t.

[shilala]

I read the article. Hyposalinity is out, for sure. It'll kill everything I have.

[Wolfgang]

Its a difficult situation Scott. I dealt with this early on in my reef tank. What worked for me. was lowering sal to .017 and leaving it there for many months without adding anythoing at all in that period.

Imagine how pitiful a 90 gallon tank looks with only a tiny maroon clown in it.

If you lose any corals I will gladly send you replacements. (post outbreak)

Before I buy a fish now I ask the store to hold it for a month in their QT system. It costs a little more but no ich since.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

Its a difficult situation Scott. I dealt with this early on in my reef tank. What worked for me. was lowering sal to .017 and leaving it there for many months without adding anythoing at all in that period.

Imagine how pitiful a 90 gallon tank looks with only a tiny maroon clown in it.

If you lose any corals I will gladly send you replacements. (post outbreak)

Before I buy a fish now I ask the store to hold it for a month in their QT system. It costs a little more but no ich since.

Thank You, Mark. I'll get this under control in no time. I have medicine and it isn't bad. I'll lower the salinity a tiny bit and start doing water changes. I already brought buckets in, I'll make and replace 20 or 30 gallons tomorrow, depending on what I'll have to do with my medicine.
I'll talk with you about corals later. I'd love to get some more going, but I kill everything. The red stuff is the only thing I've been succesful with so far, and it's growing like wildfire.
My new base rock is getting very purple, too. So I can grow coralline algae really good. My water is decent, but I'd like it even better.

I've had success fighting ich with garlic, the dry granulated kind. I would just feed it to them like the food. They would eat some and the rest disappeared in the tank. I now have cleaner shrimp in both tanks. I think they keep the ich suppressed.

[Wolfgang]

Some of my Nuclear green Pallys. Just got done fragging. Made five frags of 3-6 polyps each and you cant tell where they came from. Anyone interested in some? PM me.

[Wolfgang]

I was bored tonight so I rescaped my tank.

[Wolfgang]

Water has calmed down and here it is with my clown in front.

[sikk50]

Before my mom killed off my tank when I left for school it use to be my favorite to reaquascape. Every water change and cleanning I'd do it. I think the reason I liked it so much was bc of how pissed of it would make my fish. It really just messed up their day and they'd be incredibly active exploring the new caves.

[Wolfgang]

It also created new territories and kept the peace so to speak. I will probally have to rescape it when i add my next clown or use the jail technique

[shilala]

Guys, I got my ich problem under control. Adjusted my salinity just a tiny bit lower, stabilized the temp, and slowed down feeding dramatically.
My thinking was that with an absense of bottom food, all my critters would eat the bottom bugs and stop the cycle.
So far, so good.
Hang on to some frags for me, Marc. I'd like to try a couple more and see if I can avoid killing them.
The tank looks AWESOME!!! I had to redo the right side of mine cause it caved from someone tunneling. I made it a bit less fragile this time.

[Wolfgang]

Superglue works wonders for stabilizing rocks. I use this kind.



Ill save you some Scott.