When i got home from work today I noticed my Blue tang, My sailfin and my un identified blenny are all suffering from ich.

 

What is a good way to get rid of it and keep it gone for good?

Garlic has been fed tonight.

 

I will see if I can break away for some cleaner shrimp... will it eat my peppermint shrimp?  I have tried 4 different cleaners that all die the first day! I really wanted Jacque to take uip residence but he doesn't seem to like me LOL.

 

I was just reading that Ich can travel on inverts! And you can't really treat them.  I certainly have upped my invert load recently. 

 

same here.

Too many of my fish are showing signs this morning  to quarantine quickly ... I will try to pull some out later today.  But I don't know if this a great idea since I don't have an established quarantine tank in place.  Do you think I could just use water from the existing display to fill a 10 g fast? That ick is in there isn't that counter productive?

 

Thinking back I probably didnt acclimate those shrimp slow enough. I can do better next time.

 

I am ordering a uv sterilizer today.

 

How about increasing heat? Should I do that as well?

 

Running a HOB on your tank is always a good option as when your want to quaratine livestock but dont have the proper bio filtration just move HOB onto the quaritine tank also water you got a fully established tank. Make sure you get of all of your fishes into quaratine even one left inside could be a potential carrier. Dont forget that if you dont see any white spots anymore it does mean you got rid of the problem. Hopefully there is not many casualties

Thanks! That feels proactive.

melody

 

I tend to go along with the idea that making sure your livestock is - and stays - healthy is the best "treatment" for Ich (and pretty much anything else that comes along).

 

 - Stable tank parameters and conditions at desireable levels.

 

 - Enough space (adequate tank size) for the type and amount of fish you want to keep, so you avoid stressing fish out due to fighting or overcrowding.

 

 - Feed well with a variety of foods. Note: less than 4 food types is NOT (IMO) a "variety".

 

 - Personally I like to use UV. If nothing else, it improves water clarity, which helps PAR penetration and benefits your corals. I also believe it can help reduce the amount of Ich protozoa in your water.

 

 

Like the others have said, you WILL reintroduce the Ich parasite into your tank at one time or another. As long as your fish are healthy, it is not a problem.

 

I have even had the  past misfortune of bringing home a new fish that I didn;t realize wasn't as healthy as it should have been. Within a day or 2 the new fish would have full-blown Ich, end up fully covered, and even die from it; yet the other fish in the tank were unaffected.

 

Because the other fish were healthy and their immune systems could fight off the intial parasites before they became established and weakened the host fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

+1 to that. Less stress=less Ich

 

I did pull out my unidentified blenny because he was in the return and looking very stressed.  I let him swim in formalin, malachite green for an hour before putting him in a QT. He is looking pretty stressed but he looked just that way in the return.

 

I absolutely agree with the healthy tank = healthy fish idea.

 

Out of curiosity... when my fish recover from this outbreak are they immune from the next one?  Will the parasite die out because there are no clear hosts?  If the new fish didn't show any signs of ich could they have carried it in? (I never add LFS water to my tank).

 

I really appreciate the conversations. Thanks!!! 

 

 

Shayne wrote: Interesting... This is completely different than what I see on RC. Someone will post that they're having trouble with their tank, or that they have ich, and there is an immediate dog-pile of people chastising them for not using a QT tank. I don't think I've seen one person on there with the mindset you guys espouse. With that said, I think the "healthy tank" mindset makes more sense. The more I've learned about ich, and other diseases/parasites, the more I've begun to feel that even quarantine doesn't really work in the long run. It seems to me that it's pretty much impossible to effectively us a QT if your tank has anything other than fish in it.

 

 

I almost hesitate to bring this up... but... I haven't used a QT tank in 20 years

 

Not that I think a QT tank is a "bad" idea in itself; it is just that most QT tank setups (IMO) do more harm than good - mainly because they are too small and barren; which (IMO) actually stresses the new fish out even more.

 

If I was going to QT a tang, for example, - any tang 2" or larger,  I would want to use at least a 55g tank for the QT to avoid the fish feeling cramped. Now, I don't want to have to dedicate a whole (even bare-bones) 55g setup to do that - and very few other hobbyists would go that large just to QT a single (or a couple of) new fish, either.

 

Most people would probably be QT'ing in a tank as small as a 20g or even a 10g. Much too small (again, IMO) for the comfort and security of the fish; and that small a water volume is more prone to larger parameter swings due to insufficient biofiltration or even things like evaporation. I just feel that the potential for the "average" (read : "small") QT system to actually increase the risk of a new specimen getting worse is too great.

 

Now, not using a standard QT means I am extra, extra careful when it comes to picking out new fish. If the fish doesn't look 100% physically perfect with no extrnal signs of illness, or it is not eating, swimming with vigor, and interacting with any other tankmates in the LFS tank, etc - then it doesn't get brought home. Period.

 

I hesitiate to pass this info on to newbies because sometimes human nature leads us to only take to parts of advice, and not the whole deal as a package. And some people might take this as me telling them they "don't need a QT tank" and they can just throw ANY specimen right straight into the display... so then they go out and buy a fish of obviously questionable health (not eating at the store, looks a little haggard, but, hey, it was the only one of that type of fish available, and they want one! - so they bought it anyway... and (because they only listened to part of the advice) then maybe they haven't been as vilgilant with the whole "healthy tank" concept in their display tank, either. Maybe water parameters still flucuate excessively, or maybe they have too many fish in too small a tank. Maybe they are trying to put a 5" Hippo Tang into a 55g tank (!) that already has a 3" Yellow Tang (!!) and a 4" Sailfin Tang in it (!!!)... so they just dump this marginal fish into a less than optimal enviroment, it gets sick, it dies... and worse, since the display tank was a less than "healthy" tank to begin with, the disease now spreads, and they start to lose a bunch of fish...

 

And then they come back on here, and are upset because "some guy here told me don't use a QT tank - and I listened to him - and now all my fish are dead..."

 

 

So don't listen to me

 

 

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As far as the RC thing goes...

 

I think ReefCentral can be a great source for information.

 

But...

 

I'll just say it.

 

I think we are better.

 

Why?

 

Local people, local conditions, experience with the local stores, etc.

 

And... more people here are willing to post up their own experiences and / or opinions based on actually having done something a certain way, or actually having used a certain product or piece of equipment - rather than just repeating some info they have read about or heard about second-hand on what is "best", without ever having really tried or tested out what they are talking about. And IMO that "repeating" stuff happens alot on RC; especially when people are eager to look like they know alot / know what they are talking about, by jumping all over someone who is doing something different than what they have been repeating as the "best" way to do something...

 

 

 

As for the RC thing, I completely agree. People here (for the most part) are much more level headed, and when we have people like Mark here there really isn't a need to go looking somewhere where heresay is what people run their tanks on. Here you also have the benefit of avoiding the ban hammer. I managed to get banned from RC w/o ever posting a single thing!

 

For what it's worth, I use WMAS as my primary info forum. I just go to RC when I'm bored. Sometimes this forum gets a little slow.

 

With all due respect to the seasoned veterans...  An ozone generator hooked up to my skimmer is the only thing that ever worked for me.  I bought a $400 80-watt UV, and let it run for a month with no results.  I tried the garlic, with a little result but no complete cure.

 

I hooked up the Ozone, and in 24 hours things looked better.  After 72 hours almost completely cured.  I bought the ozone generator two years ago, and I've never QT'ed and never had a problem with Ich since.

 

Just my two cents.  I respect and admire everyone on the board, and have learned tons from all.  This is just what worked for me. 

 

Mike

 

 

i have a desjardinii, purple tang, blue eyed kole, and orange shoulder... 2 pairs of clowns, a 6 line wrasse, fairy wrasse, and a coral beauty.

 

when i added the tangs, i noticed a bit of an ich flare-up. it seems to ebb and flow, i'm keeping the temp at about 82 and feeding regularly (every day with GO).

 

i'm giving seaweed sheets with garlic, some pellet (with garlic as well) and then mixing some marine snow, phtyo, and either brine/mysis etc. on a daily basis.

 

everyone is eating. everyone is active. my blue eyed kole tang seems to be losing weight though.

 

am i doing everything i can? i have a sterilizer, skimmer, and so on. i've been really on top of everythin in this aquarium lately....

 

ideas?

 

thanks!

 

Mark is a "natural" guy... me, I'm more a "gadget" guy.

 

Just a different perspective

 

The only thing I would add to "correct" your statements re: using ozone is...

 

I'd also use UV in conjunction with the ozone. (And I do...)

 

A big part of why I don't feel the need to use a QT system - and have not had the lack of a QT ever come back to bite me in the 'nether regions'...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For everyone's reference NEVER do this! The white spots you see on the fish are NOT the Ich! The Ich is UNDER the fish's skin. The white spots are spots of raised irritation caused by the parasite, so if you were in fact really pulling the spots off of the fish you were pulling it's skin off. It's extremely lucky it didn't die from that treatment.