ich- treating a reclusive goby

M

mgterry

My clown goby has ich (and I think I've spotted a few spots on my perc, too). I'm all set up to treat him in a seperate tank, but I don't have a clue how to get him in there. He hides in the rockwork all day and only darts up to grab some food at feeding time, and he's QUICK.

I'm planning to treat with hyposalinity. At this point I'm thinking I may have to move all my inverts and corals (I don't have many at this point) to the QT tank and treat my main tank. But that's going to involve a pretty major tear down.

Any great fish catching techniques you can suggest? Any revolutionary ich treatments? I know he's only a $6 fish, but I'm kind of attached to him.
 
I know this isn't an answer, but keep in mind that it only being a $6 fish isn't the point. If it is ich, your display tank now has it and always will unless you get all the fish out and leave it fishless for at least 6 weeks (preferably 8 weeks). Even if they fight through it, any new additions that are the least bit stressed out will likely contract it.

My advise, get your fish out however possible and let your display run through the natural life cycle of the parasite. The reason I say that is because it's exactly what I'm about to do to mine. I'm going to attempt to use a trap. If that doesn't work, it's teardown time :cry:

Good luck! There is no reef safe cure out there yet.
 
A way that might help get the fish trapped is it get the easy fish out and into QT. Like Matt and Bret said, you need to hypo all the fish and let the display tank stay fish free for 6~8 weeks (usually corals,etc need the lights of the display and the fish can do with just a NO light or a lamp).

I would then not feed the goby for a few days so that he is hungry, then you can place some food in a trap and trap him. I really easy trap is the cut a 2 liter soda botton in 2/3 and 1/3(the top). Cut the top off a bit (so the fish can swim thru) then stick the top third inside the botton 2/3 inserted. This will create a tunnel for the fish to swim in and a little opening for him to swim out. Once he is in, you can tansfer him to the QT tank. Now Hypo treatment can start.

The process is long and not fun but well worth it. The key is that any new fish entering the system have to go thru a 6~8 week hypo treatment as well. Or else you are back to square one.
 
I certainly don't plan to get any new fish for this tank until this is all cleared up. It is sort of in a holding pattern at the moment anyway, while we get the new 75g set up.

I think when my husband gets home tonight we will take the liverock and corals until we can catch the two fish. I hate to tear up the aquascaping, but it isn't going to stay in that tank much longer anyway. I will need to wait until after the 6-8 week fish-free period before transferring my sand and rock to the new tank so that I don't contaminate it, right? What about the corals?
 
Sounds like you are getting a new tank.

With that in mind, you might want to add some garlic to the current food for the fish and basically keep the ich at bay. This assumes the fish is not looking bad with the ich and will survive. If so, then you might set up the new tank, get new sand, transfer the corals to the new tank and leave the fish in the current tanks and start the process them. This will minimize stressing the fish and corals twice. But it all depends on how you think the fish are doing now.
 
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