Madcow Fish

[Happan]

I have a 55g salt tank that is not a reef tank. In it I have a Red Lion, Small Yellow Tang, Orange Speckled Goby, couple Turbo Snails and a Cowfish. All the parameters are doing well and showing no signs of anything on the fish except the cowfish.

 

I'm pretty sure its Ick. I was wondering if taking the snails out of the tank and transfering them to my 12g nano, then treating the tank with copper would be a good idea.I wasn't sure if by transfering them would be a bad idea. I don't have an extra tank to set up for a hospital tank, although I have heard of people using a Rubber Maid tub along with a a heater and an air stone for a hospital tank.

 

I hope one of you guys and gals can help me with this problem. I really don't want my other fish to get ick and I'm looking for some info. I can tell it's ick due to the little white dots covering his fins and body.

 

Thanks all in advance, and am looking forward to whatever help you all can give.

 

Hap

[hardaur]

I've always avoided at all costs, but my understanding is that once you treat an aquarium with copper, you can never truly get rid of it. My advice (and I'm sure you'll see this repeated), get a quarantine tank and put the cow in it while you treat him. I personally would never be comfortable putting an invert back into a copper treated tank. There's also other non-copper options, freshwater dips, etc. But I've been pretty lucky, so not an expert on the various treatments.

 

Hope this helps a tiny bit,

 

H

[Cellenzweig]

Don't treat copper into your display tank. It will diffuse into the rock and silicone, and leech back out later on.

[Six]

I'm fairly certain cowfish wont tolerate copper treatments very well.

 

Those fish are extremely hard to keep and finiky.

 

I would QT and just maintain good water quality and proper diet. It's probably sick from malnutrition and thus has a suseptable immune system. Try feeding it fresh clam meat, mussle, squid, shrimp/krill, with vitamin supplementation. Also, make sure your water quality is prestine.

 

Cowfish are hard and hard to get to feed. When you buy them they have been starved for quite a while to reduce shipping stress. You'll have to really baby the fish to get it back to health.

 

Like I said, avoid treating with copper, but be holistic and make sure the fish has a chance to fight the disease before popping pills/meds in any water.

 

Good Luck.