Getting rid of ick in reef tank
- Thread starter da2145r
- Start date
- Location
- The Big City
6 weeks should be enough to kill off any Ich that maybe in the tank.
- Location
- LONG ISLAND
72 days.
It's 72 days. It works. I just finished it.
It's 72 days. It works. I just finished it.
- Location
- The Big City
Hippos show signs of what looks like Ich but no other fish in the tank gets Ich, so you really need to wonder if the Hippo really has Ich or something else that shows symptom that are similar to those of Ich.
The thing is on top of leaving your tank fallow you need to treat any fish that may had Ich before you place them back into your tank, and QT any new fish before placing it into your MT, otherwise you're just wasting your time.
The thing is on top of leaving your tank fallow you need to treat any fish that may had Ich before you place them back into your tank, and QT any new fish before placing it into your MT, otherwise you're just wasting your time.
Yea I have a 20 long that I will be using as a qt tank planning to treat with copper the fish I currently have are two bangai cardinals, 2 Anthias, trigger, purple tang and a cleaner wrasse I will be treating the smaller fish in my jbj aio and the two bigger fish in 20 long. How do you guys cure ich in ur qt
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I had taken all the fish from my tank, treated them all for ich with cupramine then kept them in QT for the remaining time of the 8 week tank treatment. After I returned the fish, the hippo showed signs within a day or 2, then a few other fish also showed signs of ich within a week. After an initial little outbreak after what I thought was an ich eradication then the fish improved and only rarely do i now see a spot here and there. I still think the best way to keep control of ich is by keeping fish healthy and well fed.
After seeing the ich return to my tank, after a little more research I found that sometimes ich can stay dormant for much much longer, and the usual 2 month empty tank only really kills off 99% of the ich.
If you leave tank fallow for only 6 weeks, you just wasted 6 weeks and all the other work involved
Tank transfer method or copper. Hyposalinity is becoming less effective against more resistant strains. There's also strains with long cycles so would say leave the tank fallow for at least 10 weeks or longer. It's also a good idea to leave the fish in qt for a month after treatment for observation.
Would say copper is easier. Would also say cupramine is the best copper.
Make sure you get the right type of test kit for the type of copper you use
- Location
- Long island
Ich
Ok i have a unique situation i had an ich outbreak about 2 1/2 months ago in my DT tank. Cant use copper because of Shark so i treated with Quinine sulfate. It worked but had to stop after 9 days because my shark began to have a bad reaction to it. Removed the shark and after feeding fish food soaked with garlic and vitamin c for about a week. I wound up putting most of fish in QT tank with copper except Asfur angel and vimlangi tang. Its been about 6 weeks since then and the Asfur and tang have shown no signs of Ich. The angels, purple tang and hawkfish that are in QT tank are ready to go back in DT. How long do i wait? My tank has not been fallow. Appreciate your help. Tom
Ok i have a unique situation i had an ich outbreak about 2 1/2 months ago in my DT tank. Cant use copper because of Shark so i treated with Quinine sulfate. It worked but had to stop after 9 days because my shark began to have a bad reaction to it. Removed the shark and after feeding fish food soaked with garlic and vitamin c for about a week. I wound up putting most of fish in QT tank with copper except Asfur angel and vimlangi tang. Its been about 6 weeks since then and the Asfur and tang have shown no signs of Ich. The angels, purple tang and hawkfish that are in QT tank are ready to go back in DT. How long do i wait? My tank has not been fallow. Appreciate your help. Tom
- Location
- LONG ISLAND
Copper
Copper is tricky. U have to ensure u are treating at the minimal effective level. I believe it's .3 or .03. Can't remember. But most treat at around.5 which is recommended. Different fish handle it differently. Tom if your tabk wasn't fallow there's no time period to wait. There's still ich present. Just because your fish don't show signs of ich and u treat with vitamins and garlic it just suppresses the symptoms. Ich is like herpes. It's always there and when there is stress there's an outbreak. Just because u can't see it doesn't mean it's not negatively affecting your fish. It's can be on their gills. When I had an outbreak I went crazy and looked into all the available ways to treat it and there's lots of miracle potions out there but as far as I know copper and tank transfer are the only real ways to kill it. Hyposalinity supposedly works but it's tricky and u have to be very accurate about how low u go. bc if it's too low you'll kill the fish. Not low enough and the ich survives. Laying the tank fallow is time consuming and boring but in a reef tank it's the only way to ensure you're rid of all the ich. Everything I read and I was on every site says 72 days is long enough to ensure it's gone. I used cupramine and a good test kit. Make sure u get a kit that doesn't test chelated copper.
Copper is tricky. U have to ensure u are treating at the minimal effective level. I believe it's .3 or .03. Can't remember. But most treat at around.5 which is recommended. Different fish handle it differently. Tom if your tabk wasn't fallow there's no time period to wait. There's still ich present. Just because your fish don't show signs of ich and u treat with vitamins and garlic it just suppresses the symptoms. Ich is like herpes. It's always there and when there is stress there's an outbreak. Just because u can't see it doesn't mean it's not negatively affecting your fish. It's can be on their gills. When I had an outbreak I went crazy and looked into all the available ways to treat it and there's lots of miracle potions out there but as far as I know copper and tank transfer are the only real ways to kill it. Hyposalinity supposedly works but it's tricky and u have to be very accurate about how low u go. bc if it's too low you'll kill the fish. Not low enough and the ich survives. Laying the tank fallow is time consuming and boring but in a reef tank it's the only way to ensure you're rid of all the ich. Everything I read and I was on every site says 72 days is long enough to ensure it's gone. I used cupramine and a good test kit. Make sure u get a kit that doesn't test chelated copper.
Think it's worth mentioning a couple of things when talking about how to treat ich
First is whether or not it should even be treated.
Talk to someone who has had there tank wiped out or nearly wiped out and that answer is a stern yes.
Talk to people with decades in the hobby who never even qt and never had ich and the answer is no.
Then there's the fact that ich will die off on its own due to inbreeding. Introduce no new sources of ich to the tank and in about 12-14 months the ich will no longer be able to reproduce
First is whether or not it should even be treated.
Talk to someone who has had there tank wiped out or nearly wiped out and that answer is a stern yes.
Talk to people with decades in the hobby who never even qt and never had ich and the answer is no.
Then there's the fact that ich will die off on its own due to inbreeding. Introduce no new sources of ich to the tank and in about 12-14 months the ich will no longer be able to reproduce
+1
Some fish can survive with ich in stress free enviroment, some cannot. But from my experience ich is easily taking care of with cupramine in a qt tank.
good luck!
- Location
- Mamaroneck, NY
This is just my experience so please don't take it for fact but I've had really good luck treating ich and possibly velvet with hydrogen peroxide.. I had Fairy Wrasse develop what I think was velvet but may have been something else along with ich and die very quickly in my tank. It was a new addition that I didn't quarantine. Soon after it died I noticed ich on my 2-3 inch hippo tang and what looked like the start of velvet on my 4 inch swallowtail angel.. I don't have a hospital tank and I really didn't want to set one up and after reading a lot of posts about treating with peroxide I decided to give it a shot.. I started dosing 1ml per 10 gallons of tank water daily at no specific time in the day and did this for a month straight with no issues on my coral or inverts and all my fish are still alive and looking good. I have no sps in this tank but I have softies, lps, zoas, gorgonian, bubble tip anemones, a tiny snowflake eel, various snails, an orange serpent star, and a macro algae reactor with a lot of chaeto, nobody had any issues and it didn't affect the chaeto at all.. Also I had some little patches of cyano that cleared up as an added bonus.. Durning this time I kept up with the weekly water changes and ran carbon and rowaphos as usual. I didn't change anything else.
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