advice on ich, what would you do in my situation?

[krak256]

my tank currently has ich and i believe most if not all my fish are infected: powder brown tang, hippo tang, pygmy angel, 2 clownfish, and a coris wrasse.

i believe the ich has moved onto the later cycle, where it's infected the fishes' gills. my fish are breathing more rapidly, but they're all eating vigorously.

im contemplating setting up a QT and either doing hypo or copper. im hesitant to do this tho because every fish i've QTed before, died in QT. i'm also worried that ripping my display down and chasing the fish, will cause excessive stress + whatever stress they get from going in QT.

what should i do? should i just wait it out? if i do set up a QT, i only have 29g available to use. my PBT is only 4 inches and the hippo is 1.5 inches, so it may be an ok size.

 

[topmav1]

I set up a QT for my kole tang and i think it stressed him out more than the parasite. He died on day 4. Not saying b/c of the QT...just saying...He was really scared in the QT and moving him from his environment was very stressful. He looked physically well but one morning was dead. I'm not going to remove any of my fish again...
But thats just me.

 

[krak256]

topmav, thats exactly what happened to one of my clownfish and a midas blenny. i actually read over your post in the other thread, so i wanted to see if other ppl had the same issue

 

[basiab]

Its a gamble either way. A few months ago I had a neon goby with ich. My other 6 fish were ok. After a week the neon was the only one who had it so I decided to not move anyone out. The neon went through many cycles over a few weeks but finally got clean and no others had visable signs. It means that there is ich in my tank but the fish that are in it have built up immunity. Chances are if I add a fish it will get sick. But for now it worked out well.

 

[h2o]

I would live them in the main tank do a water change feed them food soaked in garlic get a cleaner shrimp and a cleaner wrasse and they will be fine as long as your water quality is good !!! , also water temperature has to be stable from what i see is that when the first hot summer days come and the temp jumps up thats when u start seeing lots of treads ''MY fish got ich'' will see after todays first really hot day this year so there will be some more of those treads this week . Good luck

 

[jjersey85]

cleaner shrimp and wrasses don't eat ich but the neon gobies do. i've got one neon who, until he got ich himself, was constantly busy cleaning my rabbit fish and gold head sleeper that had ich. if you don't wanna qt the fish for a long period cause your afraid it'll stress them too much, try doing multiple formalin dips over the course of a week, once every 24 hours or so, doesn't seem to stress them out too much cause they're only out of their tanks for about 40 min or so. i have been feeding all my fish a garlic flake and been adding vitamins to the take every day, along with 10% water changes every other day which has seemed to keep it from spreading to any of the other fish. i also have lots of rock work so daily treatments of formalin help prevent any spread to the other fish as well.

 

[dj ze]

u can use hikary ich-x its totally reef safe i have used it in the past but its nothing close to copper treatment.you should quarantine and use copper safe i never had a problem with it you also have to make sure your quarantine is big enough for all the fish

 

[deepblue68]

i would hypo your main display tank.if you have corals move them into qt tank.

 

[dannyl]

when my fish had it I just let it pass its course, just made sure they remain well fed and made frequent water changes but as mention before try to maintain same water condition. ( I thought cleaner shrimps, did help on removing itch) I always seen my cleaner shrimp pick at it when a fish had it.

 

[THEDLO]

what worked for me and i recommend for u since the outbreak is soo advanced is to catch all ur fish and fresh water dip them for at least 3-5 min....7 MAX! i had the same problem with some of my fish (hippo, and foxface) and this fixed the problem TEMPORARILY. the ich will still free float in the water column, and QTing and fresh water dipping treats the symptoms not the problem. so u will need to get an ozonizer or a uv sterilizer coupled with cleaner shrimp (these guys helped A LOT)

also if u get the uz sterilizer turn up the heat to about 80 cause itll speed up the life cycle of the ich and it will fall of the fishes faster, then it will make its way to the sterilizer where itll get eradicated.

 

[UnknownWaters]

kent marine RX-P

 

[marrone]

what worked for me and i recommend for u since the outbreak is soo advanced is to catch all ur fish and fresh water dip them for at least 3-5 min....7 MAX! i had the same problem with some of my fish (hippo, and foxface) and this fixed the problem TEMPORARILY. the ich will still free float in the water column, and QTing and fresh water dipping treats the symptoms not the problem. so u will need to get an ozonizer or a uv sterilizer coupled with cleaner shrimp (these guys helped A LOT)

also if u get the uz sterilizer turn up the heat to about 80 cause itll speed up the life cycle of the ich and it will fall of the fishes faster, then it will make its way to the sterilizer where itll get eradicated.

Fresh water dips don't do anything to get rid of ich and has very little to no effect on the white spots on the fish body. Not to mention the ich that is inside the fish's body or gills. Cleaner Shrimp also don't remove ich and usually cause more stress to a fish as they will pick off scales.

 

[THEDLO]

Fresh water dips don't do anything to get rid of ich and has very little to no effect on the white spots on the fish body. Not to mention the ich that is inside the fish's body or gills. Cleaner Shrimp also don't remove ich and usually cause more stress to a fish as they will pick off scales.

of course it does, that why dipping fish before introducing them to a new system is recommended, it also will help with the gills too because the fresh water passes over the gills. salt water parasites cannot survive in fresh water, so they will fall of the fish and die. like i said this will not cure the fish only help relive over all stress, and what do u think cleaner shrimps do? clean! what, u may ask? any and everything found on the surface of the fish, including....(drum roll please!) ich! they do not cause stress...else fishes would not let them selves be cleaned.

*cough cough* "The Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp acts like the medic of any saltwater aquarium. In fact, this active cleaner will set up shop on live rock or coral outcroppings and wait for fish to come and be cleaned of; ectoparasites or dead tissue. Many fish value its services so highly that they even allow the Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp to clean inside of their mouths without harming the shrimp."

sigh* and im off the soap box now.
​

 

[marrone]

of course it does, that why dipping fish before introducing them to a new system is recommended, it also will help with the gills too because the fresh water passes over the gills. salt water parasites cannot survive in fresh water, so they will fall of the fish and die. like i said this will not cure the fish only help relive over all stress, and what do u think cleaner shrimps do? clean! what, u may ask? any and everything found on the surface of the fish, including....(drum roll please!) ich! they do not cause stress...else fishes would not let them selves be cleaned.​

Actually it doesn't and it's not recommend to dip fish in fresh water before placing them into your tank. You'll find that ich can live in fresh water for quite a long time before dying, sometimes up to 24 hours. A fresh water dip or bath wouldn't remove the ich spores that are on the fish body, inside the fish body or gills. A fresh water bath or dip may remove things like gill flukes and worms but it doesn't have an impact on ich.

I think you need to read up on the effectiveness of cleaner shrimp, you'll find that they do clean parasites but have little to no effect on fish infective with ich. You'll also find that they usually cause more stress to fish in closed systems, as they pick off scales of the fish, then the good they do.

You find the best way to deal with ich is to QT all of your fish before hand, and treat them, if necessary, before placing them into your main tank.

*cough cough* "The Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp acts like the medic of any saltwater aquarium. In fact, this active cleaner will set up shop on live rock or coral outcroppings and wait for fish to come and be cleaned of; ectoparasites or dead tissue. Many fish value its services so highly that they even allow the Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp to clean inside of their mouths without harming the shrimp."

sigh* and im off the soap box now.

Not sure why you're coughing, maybe because you can do a search on the web but don't really understand what you posted.

 

[THEDLO]

and the rocky's down for the count! lol

Actually it doesn't and it's not recommend to dip fish in fresh water before placing them into your tank. You'll find that ich can live in fresh water for quite a long time before dying, sometimes up to 24 hours. A fresh water dip or bath wouldn't remove the ich spores that are on the fish body, inside the fish body or gills. A fresh water bath or dip may remove things like gill flukes and worms but it doesn't have an impact on ich.

I think you need to read up on the effectiveness of cleaner shrimp, you'll find that they do clean parasites but have little to no effect on fish infective with ich. You'll also find that they usually cause more stress to fish in closed systems, as they pick off scales of the fish, then the good they do.

You find the best way to deal with ich is to QT all of your fish before hand, and treat them, if necessary, before placing them into your main tank.



Not sure why you're coughing, maybe because you can do a search on the web but don't really understand what you posted.

Everything i posted was based on experiences ive had and methods ive tried (there may be few but they are still experiences) the dip and the shrimp. i did however google for that little shrimp bio. so im not some random guy telling someone what i heard my brothers-girlfriends-best friends-cousins-uncle did, i tried these methods and they worked for me. :splitspin

fresh water dip maybe just superstition to some but it worked none the less. short story; my regal tang got ich bad so much so the it was hard to tell whether she was white with blue spots or blue with white spots (some exaggeration for effect) i did a dip and by the next morning they were all gone. my regal tang sought for the attention of both my shrimps (one skunk one fire shrimp) that they started to get tired of here (slightly amusing as well as concerning) maybe in some cases they do cause more stress i dont know, they did help keep my fish alive for longer. i probably would have lost my regal tang with out the shrimp coupled with the FW dips.
maybe they didn't die in the fresh water dip and that time they only got weakened and fell off during the night, whatever in my original post i said that the best way to deal with ich while causing the least amount of stress was to get an UV sterilizer which will solve the whole issue.

i also tried the qt set up and i found that it seemed to stress the fish out so mush so that it wouldn't eat, and that was with shallow substrate and some dead rock for refuge.

i don't know, not all tanks and fish are the same so what worked for me may not work for u or anyone else, its what makes this hobby SO exciting! im sure you would agree.

 

[marrone]

Just because you had "experiences" doesn't mean they're right. What usually happens is something else is the reason that fish is cured, not what you're doing, though you think it is.

As for UV sterilizer, they don't solve the whole situation. They may help with future out breaks but usually don't with new or current infections.

As for QT, you should read up on them, there are a lot of posts here on how to set them up and run them. They work and more important there is a reason for them.

 

[basiab]

"i did a dip and by the next morning they were all gone. "

Does not mean a thing. As the parasite goes through cycles they drop off the fish and it may look as if they are cured. But all that is really happening is the ich is off to another part of the cycle which will end up with 10 times as much (maybe even more) parasites on the next time around.
As far as any products people say work. Well, if it really did then everone would use it and you wouldn't have all these threads relating to ich problems. What most likely happened is the fish built up their immunity and whatever product you used you attributed it to that. My last battle resolved itself. But it doesn't always work out that way.

 

[THEDLO]

Just because you had "experiences" doesn't mean they're right. What usually happens is something else is the reason that fish is cured, not what you're doing, though you think it is.

As for UV sterilizer, they don't solve the whole situation. They may help with future out breaks but usually don't with new or current infections.

As for QT, you should read up on them, there are a lot of posts here on how to set them up and run them. They work and more important there is a reason for them.

omg, guy if you are going to bash me do it right, read my posts thoroughly cause you're missing points. i said that it all may have been superstition and that it may not have done anything at all. as for the qt yea i prob missed a few things so that's probably why it didn't go so well. also in my first post i explain what exactly the uv will help with, and that the parasites have to be off the fish for it to be effective.

 

[THEDLO]

"i did a dip and by the next morning they were all gone. "

Does not mean a thing. As the parasite goes through cycles they drop off the fish and it may look as if they are cured. But all that is really happening is the ich is off to another part of the cycle which will end up with 10 times as much (maybe even more) parasites on the next time around.
As far as any products people say work. Well, if it really did then everone would use it and you wouldn't have all these threads relating to ich problems. What most likely happened is the fish built up their immunity and whatever product you used you attributed it to that. My last battle resolved itself. But it doesn't always work out that way.

read my posts, i cover that fact as well as the possibilities that it may not have done anything at all and it went away naturally.

 

[KathyC]

For any member having an Ich issue and looking for accurate information, please read the posts by Marrone as those are accurate information regarding this parasite.

One other note - a UV can ONLY kill the Ich parasites that pass the light inside of the chamber. Considering that when Ich is not attached to the fish host, the most likely place you will find it is on your substrate, so the likelyhood of a UV 'curing' a tank of Ich is somewhere between infinitesimally small and non-existent.

We will soon be creating a MR Guide to Ich and it's treatments and it will be posted as a Sticky for future reference for all.

Thx