180g DT with 5 tangs that actually all get along and sometimes school together. What a blessing.
7in full adult Blue Hippo picked up quite a bit of ICH after the final 5th addition of a convict tang from LiveAquaria that showed up reeeeeeally beat up. This convict infected my Hippo and then it started to spread to all the other tangs. First signs were flashing against the bottom.....then progress ed a few days later, 4 of the 5 were pretty much ICH covered.
So my mind was racing. Didn't want to breakdown 250lbs of aquascaping and go the whole QT for what.... 74 days or smthg of fallow? Puke ;Drool ... Id rather be forced by my Doctor to be Vegan
So I got to thinking that my corals are pretty much zoas/palys ... like 90% of the tank. would I be willing to lose the other 10% if I took drastic measure WITHIN the DT???
Zoas/palys are pretty tough guys. I remember reading they can thrive at the mouths of rivers dumping into the ocean. I remember old-timers from the 70s and 80s say a lot of zoas were shipped with only wet newspaper covering the LR
So the unforgivable sin is two days ago I immediately shock dropped my DT's SG from 1.024 to a now stable 1.015
I've also have an aerator sucking air from the outside pumping bubbles into my sump. Ive always have had this outside air supplying air to an aerator and my skimmer.
So the 2nd thing i did is i pointed my aerator directly at my return plumbing so the water that being returned into the DT is like a massive amt of micro bubbles.
3rd action was to put filter socks on the overflow pipes into the sump AND put a UV-C 254nm Sterilization submersible glass light tube right next to these two filter socks.
Btwn the 1.015, the aeration and the UV-C light.... the tangs are doing 1000% better. They are back to eating like pigs.
They still have a lil ICH showing but a reduction of at least 75%. The hope is most of the ICH that has dropped off the tangs is being caught by my filter socks and the UV-C light is cooking the ICH so it diesnt regenerate....
So the "unforgivable " part involves the corals trying to live in 1.015 SG.
Surprising all the zoas/palys don't look any different after 2 days of 1.015. I have a couple of Duncans that don't look too happy. I might pull them and put in a small 10g frag tank at 1.024
So the longview is to keep the DT as long as i can at 1.015. All the while WATCHING my coral. If a coral'ed rock starts to look bad... outta of DT and into the Coral QT at normal 1.024 SG.
Preventative steps for the tangs moving forward....
* feeding entire sheets of nori soaked in Garlic Guard then air dried overnight making the nori inundated with garlic (tip: get a small spray bottle and fill it with garlic guard. Take your dry roasted nori sheet and spray bottle the garlic guard making the sheet evenly wet. Let dry overnight)
* Im also having African Cleaner Wrasse delivered tmrw.
Plan is to eventually get the DT back to 1.024 but only after the tangs have healed. I'll take the course of at least 2 weeks to raise SG from 1.015 to 1.024
I'll keep posting some updates.
7in full adult Blue Hippo picked up quite a bit of ICH after the final 5th addition of a convict tang from LiveAquaria that showed up reeeeeeally beat up. This convict infected my Hippo and then it started to spread to all the other tangs. First signs were flashing against the bottom.....then progress ed a few days later, 4 of the 5 were pretty much ICH covered.
So my mind was racing. Didn't want to breakdown 250lbs of aquascaping and go the whole QT for what.... 74 days or smthg of fallow? Puke ;Drool ... Id rather be forced by my Doctor to be Vegan
So I got to thinking that my corals are pretty much zoas/palys ... like 90% of the tank. would I be willing to lose the other 10% if I took drastic measure WITHIN the DT???
Zoas/palys are pretty tough guys. I remember reading they can thrive at the mouths of rivers dumping into the ocean. I remember old-timers from the 70s and 80s say a lot of zoas were shipped with only wet newspaper covering the LR
So the unforgivable sin is two days ago I immediately shock dropped my DT's SG from 1.024 to a now stable 1.015
I've also have an aerator sucking air from the outside pumping bubbles into my sump. Ive always have had this outside air supplying air to an aerator and my skimmer.
So the 2nd thing i did is i pointed my aerator directly at my return plumbing so the water that being returned into the DT is like a massive amt of micro bubbles.
3rd action was to put filter socks on the overflow pipes into the sump AND put a UV-C 254nm Sterilization submersible glass light tube right next to these two filter socks.
Btwn the 1.015, the aeration and the UV-C light.... the tangs are doing 1000% better. They are back to eating like pigs.
They still have a lil ICH showing but a reduction of at least 75%. The hope is most of the ICH that has dropped off the tangs is being caught by my filter socks and the UV-C light is cooking the ICH so it diesnt regenerate....
So the "unforgivable " part involves the corals trying to live in 1.015 SG.
Surprising all the zoas/palys don't look any different after 2 days of 1.015. I have a couple of Duncans that don't look too happy. I might pull them and put in a small 10g frag tank at 1.024
So the longview is to keep the DT as long as i can at 1.015. All the while WATCHING my coral. If a coral'ed rock starts to look bad... outta of DT and into the Coral QT at normal 1.024 SG.
Preventative steps for the tangs moving forward....
* feeding entire sheets of nori soaked in Garlic Guard then air dried overnight making the nori inundated with garlic (tip: get a small spray bottle and fill it with garlic guard. Take your dry roasted nori sheet and spray bottle the garlic guard making the sheet evenly wet. Let dry overnight)
* Im also having African Cleaner Wrasse delivered tmrw.
Plan is to eventually get the DT back to 1.024 but only after the tangs have healed. I'll take the course of at least 2 weeks to raise SG from 1.015 to 1.024
I'll keep posting some updates.
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