i think ich
- Thread starter flipit13
- Start date
- Location
- Melville, NY
where to begin...
It is very possible that moving the rocks around mixed up some of the detritus enough to lower your water quality a bit, thus causing your perc to stress and therefore show signs of ich infection. Is he breathing heavy and eating well? Also, do you see him flashing against the rock work (like scratching himself by swimming quickly along rocks)? These are all signs of ich infection.
There are many opinions as to how to fight ick. The only surefire way to erradicate ich from the entire tank is to remove all the fish from the display into a quarantine tank and treat them with either hyposalinity (lower salt level) or copper. They will have to stay out of the diplay for about 6 weeks or so to allow the rest of the ich that is in the display to complete its lifecycle and die off (it needs fish to live). Unfortunately the stress of moving the fish and treating them with copper (which is toxic to fish also) can sometimes lead to casualties, especially if the infected fish is already very stressed. Also, be aware that there are some supposed "reef safe" ich medications out there, but most have little proven results and can still wreck havoc on your tank. Most reefers here on MR will advise against such medications as well as ever medicating the display tank. (I've tried Kick Ich, and although I had no ill effects, it did nothing for solving my ich problem.)
On the other hand, if only one fish is showing signs of ich, and he is still breathing ok and eating well, you may want to just let the ich take its course and let the fish's immune system fight it off by itself. You can suppliment garlic with your feedings to help boost its immunity, but just be aware that adding garlic will not kill ich, just help your fish fight it off naturally. It will still remain in the tank.
I am sure some other reefers will chime in with there ideas and opinions on the topic. In retrospect, I had the same problem with my royal gramma a while back, where he was the only fish to keep getting infected. I chose the latter method and he's been fine since. On another note, there have been many threads posted about ich. If you do a forum search, you will find a lot of information given by fellow reefers.
Hope this helps. Good luck
It is very possible that moving the rocks around mixed up some of the detritus enough to lower your water quality a bit, thus causing your perc to stress and therefore show signs of ich infection. Is he breathing heavy and eating well? Also, do you see him flashing against the rock work (like scratching himself by swimming quickly along rocks)? These are all signs of ich infection.
There are many opinions as to how to fight ick. The only surefire way to erradicate ich from the entire tank is to remove all the fish from the display into a quarantine tank and treat them with either hyposalinity (lower salt level) or copper. They will have to stay out of the diplay for about 6 weeks or so to allow the rest of the ich that is in the display to complete its lifecycle and die off (it needs fish to live). Unfortunately the stress of moving the fish and treating them with copper (which is toxic to fish also) can sometimes lead to casualties, especially if the infected fish is already very stressed. Also, be aware that there are some supposed "reef safe" ich medications out there, but most have little proven results and can still wreck havoc on your tank. Most reefers here on MR will advise against such medications as well as ever medicating the display tank. (I've tried Kick Ich, and although I had no ill effects, it did nothing for solving my ich problem.)
On the other hand, if only one fish is showing signs of ich, and he is still breathing ok and eating well, you may want to just let the ich take its course and let the fish's immune system fight it off by itself. You can suppliment garlic with your feedings to help boost its immunity, but just be aware that adding garlic will not kill ich, just help your fish fight it off naturally. It will still remain in the tank.
I am sure some other reefers will chime in with there ideas and opinions on the topic. In retrospect, I had the same problem with my royal gramma a while back, where he was the only fish to keep getting infected. I chose the latter method and he's been fine since. On another note, there have been many threads posted about ich. If you do a forum search, you will find a lot of information given by fellow reefers.
Hope this helps. Good luck
Last edited:
- Location
- Ridgewood, Queens
I had 2 fish that had it real bad when I first started my tank. I used medications and nothing happened but it didnt kill the ick either. So someone recommended i use garlic extract to boost the fishes immunities and let him fight it off himself. So i picked up that and 2 cleaner shrimp and between the shrimp picking em off and the extract it seemed to work havent had ick in 2 years.
thanks guys
he is hungry as ever and it was crazy cause there have been no signs before. i know i stressed them out and am kinda bother that i hurt them. like i said i will watch them close tonight and also pick up some garlic treatment. i kinda knew something was gonna happen been to easy so far
thanks
again
rick
he is hungry as ever and it was crazy cause there have been no signs before. i know i stressed them out and am kinda bother that i hurt them. like i said i will watch them close tonight and also pick up some garlic treatment. i kinda knew something was gonna happen been to easy so far
thanks
again
rick
- Location
- Throggs Neck, BX
Questions,
How old is the tank.
Do you have a QT tank.
Did you make any new live stock additions in the past week.
I think its strange that ich just appeared out of the blue.
How old is the tank.
Do you have a QT tank.
Did you make any new live stock additions in the past week.
I think its strange that ich just appeared out of the blue.
- Location
- Throggs Neck, BX
If its only the clown remove the clown asap, do you have a QT tank. I am interested to see where this goes. Ich can be in the crysalists stage and attach to a coral frag. Thats where I am thinking.
ok alittle update came home and found my yellow watchman and perc playing as usual. there are only a few very tiny dots on the rear fin of the perc(me-mo). and seems like he still has tons of energyand has yet to go by any rock yet. i didnt see anything by his gills this morning only on its fins. could the cleaner shrimp been working on it dont know. all i know is i am picking up some garlic capsules and mixing it in its food and going to watch very closely.
i will keep everyone posted on the results and and will also be watching where they bed now to see if it is the last peice of coral i bought(frogspawn)
i have learned my lesson stop toying with the aquascape. hard lesson to learn but very important
thanks everyone
rick
i will keep everyone posted on the results and and will also be watching where they bed now to see if it is the last peice of coral i bought(frogspawn)
i have learned my lesson stop toying with the aquascape. hard lesson to learn but very important
thanks everyone
rick
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Ideally you want to purchase Kent Garlic Extreme (it's a liquid) and you should soak the food in it before feeding.
I don't think you need to refrain from changing your aquascape around as that should only bother the fish in the respect of adding some stress. If you must do it, move slowly. Healthy fish should not attract ich simply by a few changes in your aquascape, nor do I believe you would 'unearth' it in your tank as it needs to be attached to a live host to live for more than a short period of time. (just in case this thought occurred to you)
Also, more than likely you would not visually see anything near it's gills if it had ich, the parasite is usually not visible to us in the gills unless a necropsy is done. You might notice the gills more flaired than usual and rapid breathing.
Best of luck to you and please keep us updated!
I don't think you need to refrain from changing your aquascape around as that should only bother the fish in the respect of adding some stress. If you must do it, move slowly. Healthy fish should not attract ich simply by a few changes in your aquascape, nor do I believe you would 'unearth' it in your tank as it needs to be attached to a live host to live for more than a short period of time. (just in case this thought occurred to you)
Also, more than likely you would not visually see anything near it's gills if it had ich, the parasite is usually not visible to us in the gills unless a necropsy is done. You might notice the gills more flaired than usual and rapid breathing.
Best of luck to you and please keep us updated!
- Location
- Throggs Neck, BX
I highly highly highly doubt it was from aquacascaping. If the source of ich was aquascaping then all of us would have outbreaks every week.
Pedro Nuno Ferreira
Liquid Breathing
- Location
- Portugal - Vila Nova de Gaia
Hi flipit13
In addition to the garlic extreme from Kent marine well suggested by KathyC you can also use Ocean Nutrition Formula Two frozen food as it has lots of garlic and is usually eagerly taken by the fish
To maximize the effectiveness of the garlic extreme liquid action, you should select a kind of food that absorbs it well after you soaked it, so some pellet food could be a good choice for that as you can soak it with the garlic extreme liquid, let it absorb it for a while, then feed it to the fish that will ingest it enriched with the garlic extreme. Otherwise you could loose a significant part of the liquid to the water column.
Another possibility to have the fish eating medicines or vitamins is the use of banana as a significant number of fish do eat banana even though it is not a natural food for them, never the less it is a good way to have them eat something that could be not accepted isolated, meaning, you can conceal food/vitamins/medicines inside the soft pulp of the banana.
here you can see a video of one of my Zanclus eating banana
Best of luck
Cheers
Pedro Nuno ;-)
In addition to the garlic extreme from Kent marine well suggested by KathyC you can also use Ocean Nutrition Formula Two frozen food as it has lots of garlic and is usually eagerly taken by the fish
To maximize the effectiveness of the garlic extreme liquid action, you should select a kind of food that absorbs it well after you soaked it, so some pellet food could be a good choice for that as you can soak it with the garlic extreme liquid, let it absorb it for a while, then feed it to the fish that will ingest it enriched with the garlic extreme. Otherwise you could loose a significant part of the liquid to the water column.
Another possibility to have the fish eating medicines or vitamins is the use of banana as a significant number of fish do eat banana even though it is not a natural food for them, never the less it is a good way to have them eat something that could be not accepted isolated, meaning, you can conceal food/vitamins/medicines inside the soft pulp of the banana.
here you can see a video of one of my Zanclus eating banana
Best of luck
Cheers
Pedro Nuno ;-)
another update as of todays situation.
thank you guys/gals for all the input. i wasnt sure if i stressed the fish out that is why i said all i did previous to the out break. well i had a card with credit on it for pet goods near me and figured i would go and see what they had that contained garlic. since any other meds would damage and or kill my reef. and what i found was what kathy said to get was extreme garlic i mixed it with the mysis shrimp let it sit for awhile in the bottle to soak and fed the perc well i must say he has no signs of loose of appetite lol. i also haven't seen him out of breath flying arounfd the tank with the goby. one thing i have notice is he is not in his or hers normal sleeping area top right hand of the tank he is on the left side. i did all my tests once again and all is fine. i guess now it is just a waiting game.
its kinda funny the watchman is basically just watching it to see whats going on. kinda funny to see but also alittle depressing
well i guess only time will tell and as we speak he is on the normal side
thanks for all the surport and tips
as like before i will keep everyone posted to the progress. hopefully all will be ok
regards
rick
thank you guys/gals for all the input. i wasnt sure if i stressed the fish out that is why i said all i did previous to the out break. well i had a card with credit on it for pet goods near me and figured i would go and see what they had that contained garlic. since any other meds would damage and or kill my reef. and what i found was what kathy said to get was extreme garlic i mixed it with the mysis shrimp let it sit for awhile in the bottle to soak and fed the perc well i must say he has no signs of loose of appetite lol. i also haven't seen him out of breath flying arounfd the tank with the goby. one thing i have notice is he is not in his or hers normal sleeping area top right hand of the tank he is on the left side. i did all my tests once again and all is fine. i guess now it is just a waiting game.
its kinda funny the watchman is basically just watching it to see whats going on. kinda funny to see but also alittle depressing
well i guess only time will tell and as we speak he is on the normal side
thanks for all the surport and tips
as like before i will keep everyone posted to the progress. hopefully all will be ok
regards
rick
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- Location
- Throggs Neck, BX
Hey Rick, for the future, a quarentine tank is a very very good cheap investment. A $30 investment will save you hundreds maybe thousands depending on what live stock you have. Best of luck with the clown.
thanks george
i am going to look into a qt tank. i have had the clown for 2 weeks and no signs and i am on this tank like you have no clue lol. feed sametime everyday, dose sametime, test on a regular basis, water changes every week on saturday at 6 i am alittle anal about it. that is why i am concerned plus my wife bought me the first 2 fish for the tank and that makes it even more important to keep it alive and healthy. and my 3 daughters would be devistaed that me-mo died .
i am going to look into a qt tank. i have had the clown for 2 weeks and no signs and i am on this tank like you have no clue lol. feed sametime everyday, dose sametime, test on a regular basis, water changes every week on saturday at 6 i am alittle anal about it. that is why i am concerned plus my wife bought me the first 2 fish for the tank and that makes it even more important to keep it alive and healthy. and my 3 daughters would be devistaed that me-mo died .
- Location
- Melville, NY
Im not saying that the source of ich came from aquascaping, but depending on the amount of aquascaping and what rocks are moved can sometimes kick up detritus in the sand and off the rockwork and increase your phosphates and nitrates slightly for a shortened period of time. This may (and I stress the word MAY) have caused the clown some stress, perhaps just enough to lower its immunity to allow the ich to take hold, especaially since it is new in Rick's tank.
On another note, I agree with Kathy and Pedro about the garlic extreme. Its a very good and easy product to use. A few drops in a cupfull of frozen food mixed with tank or RO water and let it soak in for a while and then feed it to the happy tank mates
And the formula two is good also. I feed formula two flakes in the AM and frozen mysis and frozen cyclopeeze soaked in garlic extreme in the PM.
Last edited:
- Location
- Melville, NY
Keep us updated.
well all i have to do is thank MR for all the surport and tips for saving my perc ME-MO thank you everyone. he actually looks 100 times better than when i my wife bought it. again i thank everyone that helped me save my fish. now they are doing there super laps and really look good. thanks for all your responces and i guess its garlic for everyone lol.
thanks tons
rick
thanks tons
rick
- Location
- Throggs Neck, BX
Your welcome Rick.
Great video....I didn't know banana's were good food for fish what does it provide for the fish?
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