Copper or Hypo for Moorish Idol with Ich?

Funlad3

Funlad3

Well-known member
What's up everyone? I have a Moorish Idol and Coral Beauty in my QT, and sure enough, I spotted Ich (pun not intended) on the Idol on Sunday night. There was only a single spot (it has already left the fish), but it obviously needs to be treated. I know that both copper and hypo work equally well on treating ich, but with such a notoriously delicate fish, I want to minimize any possible stress. It is my understanding that a copper treatment takes two weeks, while a hypo treatment takes four. For that reason, I'm leaning towards the copper treatment. There's less time for me to mess something up, and there is also less fear of a pH crash. Right now, the Moorish Idol is devouring Rod's when I put it in the tank, but I'm still a bit nervous about it possibly ceasing to feed. Anyways, I was just curious what you all think I should do to treat the fish. Thanks everyone!

- Ben
 
are you sure..its ick ?? one spot can be anything .. even light reflections would look like that sometimes ..
 
I'd just keep him happily fed. Hypo is much easier to maintain as you just keep the tank topped off once you reach the correct salinity, and do partial water changes with matching salinity. Then gradually bring the salinity back up to reef specs with small daily water changes with little batches of higher salinity water. Copper can be difficult to keep up with on a busy schedule and needing daily attention to be sure you are treating correctly.
 
tinman said:
are you sure..its ick ?? one spot can be anything .. even light reflections would look like that sometimes ..
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It was definitely ich.


Thanks Nino, glad to hear that. If I hear anything negative about copper, hypo it is!

Anyone else have any ideas? I know a few of you here have Idols. :)
 
Fish Beard, I'm sure I could manage hypo, I'm just nervous about the pH getting out of whack. Less salinity means less stability, and that doesn't bode well with my luck. :)
 
I wouldn't worry too much about pH. The fish can handle it, you just don't want violent swings. It will stay stable, just may not stay as high as normal.
 
Low to mid 7's will be fine during hypo with fish only. If you are worried, mix kalk in your topoff water between water changes.
 
Just use some kind of reef salt, not regular saltwater salt becaus they have more buffering stuff in them. I never had problems with pH when I upgraded tanks and hypo the whole tank while I'm adding whatever fish I wanted. The moorish was happy. Gus also is a big fan of hypo and did the same for his moorish idol. You can even run your skimmer and have tons of live rock to keep tank stable and clean. I even hypo all my live rocks. Thanks to hypo, and coral dip, I can now say that I have a pest free tank :)
 
Okay, so I had had the salinity down about half way to hypo (1.017), as I haven't had time this week to bring it down all of the way. Sure enough, the Moorish Idol and Coral Beauty are now COVERED in spots. This afternoon at even 2:00, both were spot free. Thereafter, the Moorish Idol started to slowly loose color. At 9:30, once I finished the online non-essay portion of my summer school class, both fish have tons of spots. Anyways, I've been working since then to steadily bring down the salinity of the water. I still have to replace 13 gallons of water I've already taken out, but the Moorish Idol and Coral Beauty are both swimming around in their indirectly lit tank. The salinity is at 1.010, and after adding 5 more gallons of RO, it will be at 1.0085ish by my math, right where I want it to be.

Let this be a lesson to all of you who are smart enough to QT their new fish: if you know that one or more of your fish are sick, don't hesitate to treat them because they aren't symptomatic! Help them before they're in a critical stage! Do them, and you, that simple favor! ;)
 
Almost all of the spots are gone on both fish, so the hypo is working. I'm going to wait another day or so before I start the one month in hypo clock; I want to make sure that all of the spots are gone. :D
 
Are these new fishes or are u hypoing your entire stock. If u took all your fish from your reef tank, you should keep your reef fishless for a minimum of 8 weeks. I kept all my fish in hypo for months while I kept adding new fishes without fear of ich. Fish will be fine in hypo for months
 
New additions; watch out for stock from the Living Sea. I learned my lesson the hard way about QTing all new fish a year and a half ago.
 
Angels and moorish, which are pretty much related to Tangs, will often develop ich. I'm pretty sure living sea tanks are medicated, so u won't see the ich until you change the water to unmedicated reef water
 
ColaAddict said:
Angels and moorish, which are pretty much related to Tangs, will often develop ich. I'm pretty sure living sea tanks are medicated, so u won't see the ich until you change the water to unmedicated reef water
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Sometimes they run copper. Usually they don't. The owner explained how infallible his QT process was. I didn't buy it. Basically, all of the SW fish in the dark room are on one system, that's over 50 tanks. He has all of the drain water run through a giant UV sterilizer before getting returned,so by his theory, no parasites can live. That doesn't take into account that the parasites will almost always fall to the bottom of tank, or that whenever he gets in a new shipment, he contaminates his entire stock. Really, not at all a good system. MCF had the only QT system I trusted, and I even QTed fish from them.
 
the thing is the UV only kills what's in the water system. ich also lives in the gills and on the skin of the fish, which the UV can't kill.
I remember the first tank I ever got, I got an already stocked tank with healthy fishes, then I bought a flame angel from living sea that developed ich and killed every fish in my tank. that was when I was still a newby.
 
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