Aquarium Ick!! Need Help or Suggestion!

[Wolverine57]

My paired Black Misbars & small lawn mover blenny all dead this morning.

Pisses me off, when I just bought these Black Misbars at $75 for the pair only a week ago! When I first got them, they seem not to be active and notice that they were not eating frozen or flakes. My water temp 79-82 degrees. My Blenny, 2 harlequin shrimps & cleaner shrimp were in the tank before the clowns were introduce.

Lastnight, after coming back from watching the fight, I notice both clowns had white spots. I had a feeling this was bad news! ****! This morning, I go to the tank and notice one dead clown and the the other clown plus the blenny fighting to hold on.....minutes they died as well.

I checked my parimeter, nitrate, Salinity& calicum almost perfect.
0 nitrate tested with API ( Aquarium Pharmaceuticals)
Alkalinity: 7.00 ? 8.50 dKH tested with salifert
Calicum 410 tested with salifert

Skimmer: I use is a Tunze DOC 9002, which I already had.

Note: Before I had introduce these new Black Misbars, last week into the tank. I had empty the aquapod to have it drilled. I kept all the water and added about 5% new mixed water, but it was the same temp and Salinity level. Added new sand! Did not have sand before.

Question: Did I put these new clowns in the tank too soon! Should I have waited a week or 2. All my corals are doing fine!

Appreciate anyone, input!

Thank you! So...piss!

 

[Killerdrgn]

Did you QT the clowns? sounds like you didn't.

 

[georgelc86]

Check out this article on ReefKeeping.com

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

This should help you with your issue, if anything it will help you prevent it because it gives a great insight on the nature of marine ich. It really dispelled alot of theories and mthys about the disease. Also its a three part article I think. Goodluck, I know the feeling, it hit my tank after I got a fish from Petco... how dumb! Anyway, I stopped it from killing my Yellow tang by freshwater dipping it for a minute and then keeping it in my water change bucket for a few days. I did half a water change, changed out my filter pads and reintroduced the tang back into the tank. Keep in mind I have a skunk cleaner shrimp and a blue streak cleaner wrasse which I think helped the process as well. Goodluck.

 

[marrone]

First water dips don't do anything for ich. Cleaner wrasse and shrimp usually cause more irritation to the fish and don't get rid of the ich, as Cleaner wrasse can come down with ich too. If it's ich you need to treat it with either copper or hyposaltlinity. Garlic in the food help the build up the fish immunity system, as does a couple of foods which you can add, which may help it fight the ich off. Another way is to keep the fish in a separate tank and every day move the fish to a new tank, was fresh salt water. The spores that fall off wouldn't have had a chance to break and reattach to the fish, starting the cycle over again. This isn't a fool proof method and can take quite some time, as the ich go through a 7 - 14 days cycle, so you could be doing this for over 2 weeks.

 

[latino277]

damn dude... that sux sorry to hear that.

 

[marrone]

Did you ever have ich in the tank before? It's possible it could have spread to the new fish and caused an out break. Also did you get any of the water from where you brought the fish into your tank? It's possible there were some ich spores that you may have introduced into your tank.

Finally you shouldn't buy any fish that don't look right, and is eating too. It's usually not a good sign and it's usually means something is wrong. It's better to wait and see if they fish is ok before buying it, even if it's a rare fish.

 

[Wolverine57]

Did you ever have ich in the tank before? It's possible it could have spread to the new fish and caused an out break. Also did you get any of the water from where you brought the fish into your tank? It's possible there were some ich spores that you may have introduced into your tank.

Finally you shouldn't buy any fish that don't look right, and is eating too. It's usually not a good sign and it's usually means something is wrong. It's better to wait and see if they fish is ok before buying it, even if it's a rare fish.

Never had ich or ick before.

 

[REEF MANIA]

Sorry to hear about your loss John.

 

[Wolverine57]

Yep! Should have kept my maroon's!

 

[BaNDiTo_RoX]

Wow that really sux and I know how you feel years ago I try this hobby had really nice clowns and other fish then I went to the lfs and brought a $10 baby shark 2 days later it look like it snow inside the tank and lost all about $300+ in fish.

Now I started again but taking baby steps I use Garlic Boost Plus once every other day and just purchase one of these after I read someone with ick problem Vortex XL Diatom Filter.

The Garlic Boost is from Marc Weiss

 

[Wolverine57]

Wow that really sux and I know how you feel years ago I try this hobby had really nice clowns and other fish then I went to the lfs and brought a $10 baby shark 2 days later it look like it snow inside the tank and lost all about $300+ in fish.

Now I started again but taking baby steps I use Garlic Boost Plus once every other day and just purchase one of these after I read someone with ick problem Vortex XL Diatom Filter.

The Garlic Boost is from Marc Weiss

Thanks for your information. Will look into this garlic boost!

 

[KathyC]

From your description of the clown pair, it sounds like they were sick when you purchased them and they should have been put into a QT(anyway).
Did you get the blenny at the same time? from the same place? or did you have him prior to last week?
Were these the only 3 fish in the tank?

After you added the new sand, did you check for ammonia in the event that experienced a mini-cycle?

Either way, while ich can kill fairly quickly, it is often not visually noticed as 'spots' until it is seen on the outside of the fish, by then it has already damaged the gills. A fish that is lethargic, not eating, or eating less than usual and is breathing heavily frequently has ich.

Do you realize that you should add no fish to that tank for approx. 6 weeks to be sure that the tank is clear of remaining ich parasites?

 

[Psycho graphic]

Wow that really sux and I know how you feel years ago I try this hobby had really nice clowns and other fish then I went to the lfs and brought a $10 baby shark 2 days later it look like it snow inside the tank and lost all about $300+ in fish.

Now I started again but taking baby steps I use Garlic Boost Plus once every other day and just purchase one of these after I read someone with ick problem Vortex XL Diatom Filter.

The Garlic Boost is from Marc Weiss

I have read recently that only fresh garlic will do anything to boost the imune system, bottled garlic will only help entice a fish to eat. I forget what the element is in garlic that actually does help the imune system, but from my reading it has to be used shortly after pressing the garlic.

 

[Wolverine57]

From your description of the clown pair, it sounds like they were sick when you purchased them and they should have been put into a QT(anyway).
Did you get the blenny at the same time? from the same place? or did you have him prior to last week?
Were these the only 3 fish in the tank?

After you added the new sand, did you check for ammonia in the event that experienced a mini-cycle?

Either way, while ich can kill fairly quickly, it is often not visually noticed as 'spots' until it is seen on the outside of the fish, by then it has already damaged the gills. A fish that is lethargic, not eating, or eating less than usual and is breathing heavily frequently has ich.

Do you realize that you should add no fish to that tank for approx. 6 weeks to be sure that the tank is clear of remaining ich parasites?

Hey Kathy, blenny I already had! purchase weeks ago from another vendor. Yes, these were the only fish! the pr of clowns and the blenny. The sand was dry new sand! and I had check my parimeters before putting the clowns in the tank.

 

[KathyC]

Are you going to leave the tank fish free for the next 5 weeks?
Do you have a place to QT any replacement fish you might buy?

 

[georgelc86]

Mmarron, thanks for mentioning the hyposalinity method. I completely forgot to mention that while my tang was in the holding bucket the salinity was 1.010.


Please keep in mind, I never said that my method works or that it was fool proof, they were merely the steps that I personally took to attempt to remove the parasite. Nor is there any 100% proof positive information from multiple reliable sources that the addition of garlic is effective in disease removal, boosting immunity or increasing appetite for that matter. When we think about it how much garlic is in fact in the reefs? And every fish is not the same. My cleaner wrasse was at no point infected and was never removed from the tank during the infection, nor was my Blue-Green Chromis. I actually think my skunk scarlett was infected but it was fine. From my readings, I have never come across anything about shrimp contracting the disease. All of us, young old, green horn or seasoned vet, has at some point or another made an uneducated move regarding our tanks. The best we can do is take our best approach based on our research and experience. But unfortunatly, alot of our reseach at many times conflicts and that's why we have forums like Manhattan Reefs to give us all an opportunity to dicuss with our peers.

 

[BroRage]

I got the same fish.. the next morning when I woke up it had ick.. i was about to flip.. but decided to just fresh water dipped it first..so it got rid of the ick but fish looked stressed.. its fine for now.. hopefully it does not come back

 

[georgelc86]

Johan, how long did you dip for and did you notice a significant difference after the dip.

 

[marrone]

I got the same fish.. the next morning when I woke up it had ick.. i was about to flip.. but decided to just fresh water dipped it first..so it got rid of the ick but fish looked stressed.. its fine for now.. hopefully it does not come back

A fresh water dip isn't going to get rid of the ich. If the fish has ich it's still in the body or gills and is working it way through the fish. Also if you placed the fish into you main tank some ich spores may have dropped off into your main tank.


It seems that a couple of people got the same clown and they all seem to have ich. Everyone that brought clown recently show make sure they QT them before the same thing happens.

 

[Wolverine57]

A fresh water dip isn't going to get rid of the ich. If the fish has ich it's still in the body or gills and is working it way through the fish. Also if you placed the fish into you main tank some ich spores may have dropped off into your main tank.


It seems that a couple of people got the same clown and they all seem to have ich. Everyone that brought clown recently show make sure they QT them before the same thing happens.

Did these same clowns that people bought! Did they come from ORA?