ich help

[FastUno]

I have not seen ich in my main tank at all & have never quarantined any fish. I've been reading on the importance of quarantine & have decided to do so with my last purchase about 3 months ago. It turned out that the 2 fish that I bought must have had ich & before I could even get my hands on copper they vanished. It was over the 2nd day & as a result I have been very cautious of buying any more fish...that is until...

I happen to be in Fishtown & noticed this gorgeous Clown Tang. I have heard that clown tangs are hit or miss when it comes to survival rates, but I thought that I could do it. Luckily I have gotten it to eat already, but the ich has started.

In this one particular tank I have very little flow & it seems to me that the less flow you have in a tank, the more likely & intense the ich attack will be. Have you guys found this to be the case? Has anyone gotten ich in a very high flow tank?

Furthermore, I am told that this species would be susceptible to copper treatment, so then what are my options?

Does anyone else have this type of tang, what do you feed yours?

TIA

 

[DevIouS]

Damn, I hate ich.

Tangs like / need high flow.
Hypo will be the best bet.
Hit her with alot of food with diced / soaked garlic.
There's alot of different opinions on the "fresh water dip," & said to be a close to death option.

My PBT (which has the same rate as a clown) eats everything from brine, krill, sheets, flakes & emerald green.

Those tangs are real delicate, & the water has to be perfect.
They need to have alot of room or they'll get stressed.

Don't know about ich & high flow...

Be careful with whatever you put in that tank for about 1 month.

Good luck, man.
It's a pain in the @ss...

[ June 01, 2005, 03:20 AM: Message edited by: DaRealDvs1 ]

 

[jhale]

dealing with ich sucks. these are your choices;

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

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.htm

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/treatments.html

 

[GQ22]

try a cleaner shrimp too if you dont already have one. when i first got my hippo/regal tang it had really bad ich, but everyday it was getting cleaned by the shrimp till there was none. It then gradually adapted to my water and all was fine.

 

[spykes]

uhm, tangs are ich magnets yes, but clown tangs are suppose to be ich prone, they usually dont get ich, what you should do is a nice saturated feeding and see how the fish likes it, if he feels better and eats more, then your off to a good ich battle. alot of people recommend hyposalinity, but you dont happen to have a QT do yah? lower the salinity slowly till 1.010 where fish can survive and breath well, and ich cannot.

 

[marrone]

Don't lower the level in you main tank as it will kill all you inverts and live rock. You also need to bring the level down to 1.009 or even a little lower 1.007-1.008 as the level could faux some. Bring it down slowly, your fish can survie at this level without a problem.

If you going to do hyposalinity follow the instructions, Jhale listed the site above, from ATJ.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

 

[Melt]

garlic garlic garlic.........that works for me everytime

 

[beyondnp]

I agree with Melt... I give my fish garlic extract at least once a week... having had an ich outbreak for at least 15 months.

 

[Tim]

Garlic works great! Be very carful with adding this tang. The one I have is very nasty,has killed a few of my last introduced fish.Good luck....

 

[FastUno]

I have read some of those articles & to tell you the truth I am not happy with any suggested method. With my first ich outbreak I had started the hyposalinity in my 26g experimental tank, but the next day everything was just gone. I was going to do a combo of copper & hypo, but didn't get very far.

Do you think that tangs can handle hypo? I heard hypo will only work if kept that way for over 1 month, to allow the cycle of the ich to follow through.

Why do we not see ich outbreaks in the fish store? At least not as often as we see them in our home tanks. Why when I bought this tang, the very next day he was covered with ich? The very day after that he was clear. Again, the day after that more ich. That is when I decided to place him in an even smaller tank (man the tang police would hang me for this, but I am doing it to keep the fish alive). I have placed extreme flow in a very small tank with new batch of water. The next day the ich is gone. I plan on providing garlic & doing complete water changes every 2 days. Hopefully getting rid of the ich that is suspended in the water?

For food, I have tried lettuce, seaweed select red marine algae, green algae (the frozen block kind) & he does not seem to hold an interest.

As a last resort I tried mysis & squid & the tang gobbles it up real quick.

 

[marrone]

You shouldn't do Hypo & copper together, one or the other. Tangs can handle hypo, as most fish can, but you need to bring down the salt level slowly over a # of days and then bring it down to 1.007-1.009 for it to work.

Ich goes through cycles as it's inbedded in the fish so you don't see it until it works it way out and then you see it on the fish body. In stores you mayn't see it but you can see fish that have it as they'll start to scratch, stay in front of power heads or flash to try and get rid of the ich.

When you treat you need to count when the last cyst falls off the fish before you know that the ich may die. It can take anywhere from 4 weeks to 2 months sometime to kill off ich. In some case it's extreme and it will wipe out your tank.

ATJ web site explains alot of the cycles, cures and signs of ich and other parasites. It's also important to determine what you actually have as hypo doesn't work on everything.