210 reef with Ich that will not go away

[nadking]

I have a 210 mixed reef with a variety of corals, anemones, etc. I have a desjardin tang, squampinis anthias, 2 clowns, 4 chromis, ward sleeper goby, spotted mandarin, coral beauty, flame hawk, and a blue flasher wrasse. I have no QT tank, and have been battling the ich bug for atleast 3-4 months. It started when I added 2 blue tangs to the system. They came down heavily with ich, and spread it to most of my other fish, I lost both of the blue tangs, and a kole tang. The fish I have now seem to be fairly immune to the parasite, the only fish that show any signs are the flasher wrasse and the spotted mandarin, both with a dot or two on their fins. All fish are eating well, and are not scratching or anything, they seem to be happy. The problem I am now facing is mostly a battle with myself. I really like fish and would love to add some more tangs, wrasse, anthias, maybe a regal angel to the setup. I am fearful of them getting the ich, and losing them and the fish that I do already have. My question is this, should I treat the tank with some medicine kick ich, no-ich etc, take out my carbon, shut off my skimmer, basically stop filtering my water and hope the corals can cope. Should I try feeding garlic, ginger supplements, and further build up immunity? Or should I do nothing, be thankful for the fish I do have, add more corals and hope for the best?

 

[Recty]

I'm not sure how much you know about ich, but you should go to a site like wetwebmedia and do some research.

Basically, kick ich and other "reef safe" remedies are not usually effectual. Ich falls off the fish into the sand and rock and "gestates" for lack of a better word, then hatches and swims back up onto the fish. That gestation part of the cycle can take a couple weeks. Most of those reef safe medications only have you dose for a week. Yes, your fish do look good for a week normally, then within a couple weeks to a month after treating, your fish have ich again. A lot of people also report poor coral health or death while using them... so I wouldnt do it.

Ich is a parasite that has to have a host to survive. If you REALLY want to get your tank clean of it, remove all your fish to quarantine and treat them for ich with something like Cupramine. Leaving your main tank with no fish for 3 months will guarantee the ich is dead as 13 weeks seems to be the longest ich can be in a tank with no hosts. By then, your fish in QT will be cured of ich and your main tank will be ich free, you can put the fish back in with no worries.

However, that means you have to QT every coral and fish that ever goes back into your tank, otherwise you'll just reintroduce ich again at some point... so it's a lot of work.

The other way people go about it is just keep optimum water quality and foods in their display. Most healthy fish can deal with a little ich with no problem, it's just when they get stressed that it comes out.

I have first hand experience with this. I had a tank full of nice healthy fish (so I thought) and then my return pump quit pumping one night. My heaters and a lot of oxygenation happen down in the sump, so the main tank cooled about 8 degrees overnight and lost most oxygen, there was basically only one powerhead working in 210 gallons of water. Long story short, I got it fixed but that afternoon every single fish was covered in ich and dead within 3 days... before the stressful incident, every fish looked completely fine, not even any spots on the fins.

Anyway, it's a risk you run but a lot of people get away with it, I'd say the vast majority of not real serious hobbyists have ich in their tanks and the fish just survive through it.

 

[Recty]

One thing to think of is adding new fish can sometimes be stressful for the established fish and definitely stressful for the new fish, so you'll almost always have some slight or even serious ich problems when you add new fish. I'd try to get it over with as soon as possible and then quit adding new fish Get your stocking finished and then leave it alone and leave everything as stress free as possible.