Puppyfish with Ich?

Okay, I noticed my dogface puffer two days ago scratching on rocks. I observed last night to see him doing to weird action again. I called a friend of mine and asked him if Ichgone was safe to use, but he told me to ask around because the dogface puffer is soooo sensitive to treatments. I asked him about copper treatments and he said not in my tank because of my inverts. My hospital/quarantine tank is a 5 gallon tank. I think it would be torture to stick him in there but I will if I have to to make him all betters. Any ideas on treatments to help my dogface? Ive heard that if his immune system is high, the disease will not affect him but remain dormant until I add new fish. Is this true? I don't plan to add any new fish, some people on other forums thought me cruel for the fish I had in my tank. Please help if you can. I love my little dogface. The other three fish show no signs of ich, they are swimming fine, not rubbing or anything. ???

 

Hi, try melafix. It's an antibacterial fish remedy suitable for use with inverts. Make sure you read the label for the correct dosage!
good luck, I hope he's ok x

 

How big is the tank you're keeping the puffer in?

 

as of right now, he is in a 29 gallon tank, I don't get to upgrade until my birthday in late june

 

I have heard to try hyposalinity on my tank. I am a little scared to use it because wouldnt it harm my bacteria and wouldnt I need to take all of my live rock out? I am willing to do anything but give them up. I'm just asking around if hyposalinity would be a bad idea? if it is a good idea, how low does my salinity need to be? right now it is at 1.0212 specific gravity, which is the normal for my tank

also I had a friend of mine who works with fish tell me that melafix cures everything, but it hasnt fixed his ich problem on his dogface....has anyone tried it on theirs before?

I would be willing to use hyposalinity, even take my inverts (some beach hermits and one feather duster with two beach anemones and some aptasia anemones) and my live rock and temporarily stick them in my 5 gallon hospital tank if that is the best way to kill the ich, I just don't want to lose my fish.

Please any help would be greatly appreciated...I don't want to lose any of my fish.

 

I've read that hyposalinity can work, but it can be risky and you need to do it slowly, lowering the salinity (1.018 at lowest) over a period of several days while slowly increasing the tank temperature and providing plenty of surface agitation to increase oxygen levels.

I'd do this though:
You can buy a makeshift quarantine tank to put the fish in. Those 30 gallon plastic storage boxes from the home improvement stores (and most dept. stores) are really inexpensive. Much cheaper than a 30 gallon tank anyway. Then you could move the fish in there for a month or so and treat them for ich there.

That'll give you time to treat the ich and save up for a much larger tank (like 100 gallon plus) for that puffer. The dogface puffer's adult size is 12-13 inches and they need territory, well filtered systems and frequent water changes.