hospital tank questions

[scrapeground]

I'm currently using a biocube 29 gal for a hospital tank to treat for ick. This is my first time doing this and I have a few questions. My questions are as follows:

1) I'm using Quick Cure as the medicine, can I remove the bio balls and replace them with live rock? The package says not to use it with live rock but I want to simply use it as live filtration. I will also have filter media in there. Not the factory one.

2) Can I also add the Oceanic Biocube protein skimmer made for both the 14 and 29? It came with it and have it laying around. I figure it cant hurt. I just don't want it to reduce the effectiveness of the Quick Cure.

Thanks ahead for your answers. I've been prowling this forum for a long while and you all have answered alot of my questions. You guys a great.

 

[wontonflip]

Welcome to the site!

Usually a hospital tank is bare, except for some pvc for the fish to hide in. The cure that works best is copper or hyposalinity. Other treatments might put ich at bay, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will kill the ich.

If you put live rock in the hospital tank, it will die off anyway, and you can never put that rock back in the main tank again, otherwise the copper in the rocks will contaminate your tank and kill off inverts.

You'll have to do daily water changes so your ammonia won't go up.

Are your sick fish eating? If they are, they can fight the ich on your own. To be honest, your tank will ALWAYS have ich unless you plan on qt'ing ALL the fish and leave the tank fallow for at least 6-8 weeks to let the remaining ich parasites to die off. So you can cure your fish of ich in qt, but as soon as you put them back, they'll get it again. If they're eating, you're better off leaving them alone if they are eating.

 

[scrapeground]

I actually have a few pieces of freshwater rock in there that I've created hiding places with. Seems to work and the water parameters are in check. By that I mean they are 0 for ammonia, 0 for nitrite, and bellow 20 for nitrate. I do regular water changes of about 30-50% every week. I test the water every other day to make sure things are in line. As far as the fish, They eat very well. I feed them every other day to keep the nitrates down. I plan to go through the 6-8 week time period required for the ich to die off in the main tank. My questions were mainly directed towards improving the living conditions while they had to go through this. The fish are as follows:

One 2" yellow tang
One 2" sleeper gold head goby
One 2.5" lawnmower blennie
One 1.5" maroon clownfish

I know that's a bit cramped but they're all getting along. Plus it's only for a few more weeks till the main tank has gone through the full 8 week program with UV. The water quality as far as floating stuff could use a bit of cleaning up. I was just wondering if I could use the skimmer or not.

 

[wontonflip]

Sounds like you've got a good plan!

Honestly, there's nothing much you CAN do....just make sure there are plenty of hiding places. Hopefully there's not a lot of activity where you put the qt in, to lessen the stress. Just continue to monitor everything, and hope for the best!

I doubt the skimmer will work well because of the medication. And hopefully the meds you're using will kill off ich. As I mentioned, from experience, people have better luck with hyposalinity or copper to kill ich. I'd hate for you to go through all this, put them back in the main tank, and have another outbreak. But the copper is a touch medication, and many fish don't survive.

Read littlefish's awesome write up

https://www.livingreefs.com/oh-no-have-ich-do-do-t30950.html

 

[Smitty]

Welcome to the site...wonton has you covered. If you're gonna set the hospital tank up and leave it running even after the fish are done with quarantine, then you could use some rock a filtration, and possibly the skimmer...if not, then it's probably not worth it.

 

[scrapeground]

Ultimately, my plans were to keep this tank as a quarantine tank. So, if anything that goes in the 29 gal biocube (rock, skimmer, ect..) stays in there. I'm just trying to improve the living conditions in there by making the water filtering a bit better. What comes factory is not that good. I will add some rock, remove bio balls, add skimmer and see what happens. I will also continue with mu usual water changes and feeding schedule.