Blue Hippo with ick

[wnehez]

Hey Everyone. My hippo has ick hes a small guy. He has had it for about a week or two. When I first noticed some small white specks, I started dosing the tank with garlic. I left the protein skimmer on and ran everything else as normal. It appeared to start to go away for a couple days, then, bam, just two days ago he really started itching and white spots were back. I kept the garlic dosing going but this time, it doesnt seem to be helping. the flakes I feed have garlic in it. I went to the LFS yesterday and told them about it and they said theres a fairly new product out that is reef safe and is a ick treatment. Its all natural and says its safe for inverts and corals may just shrivel up during treatment and then recovering a couple days after treatment ends. I am very hesitant on using this because I know alot of stuff to treat ick is not reef safe and I dont wanna end up screwing up everything. The name of it is Kordons 100% Natural Ich Treatment. Any input?

 

[mess7777]

Go to the disease forum, read the stickies. There is good information there. Some people will tell you to just keep feeding garlic, add some selcon and everything will be alright. I am not one of those people.

There are very few proven effective treatments. If there was a true reef safe treatment that worked, everyone would use it.

Read the articles, make your own decision on how you want to treat.

 

[NastayNatron]

My small blue hippo had ich about a month and a half ago. I removed him from the tank and put him into a 20g quarantine tank with a biowheel filter(no carbon), a heater, and a powerhead. I treated with Seachem's Cupramine for the directed 14 days at the suggested levels on the bottle and now my blue tang is healthy as ever with no more ich! People also suggest hyposalinity treatment but it requires a lot more monitoring to do correctly. Cupramine was fairly quick and easy. Just watch for ammonia spikes and do water changes accordingly. Thats my opinion. Best of luck!

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1992196

Excellent info.

 

[wnehez]

So I am starting to think that it is not Ick that my Hippo has. They did not start or ather around the gills and/or fins. They are getting worse tho. His whole body is covered in pretty big bumps. Not like bumps under his kin, but looks like its on him. IDK what to do. I will try and get a good picture but does anyone have any ideas on wether its a bacteria or parasite? Anyone have a similar experience?

 

[Crush Coral]

That new product you were refering to is Herbtana by Microbe-Lift. I used it in my QT when I bought a clown from a lfs that includes free ich with every fish purchase.:rollface:
The clown never showed any signs. The Herbrana is supose to boost the fish's imune system, smells like something you would cook with. I will continue to use it till I think it does not work.
Do H2O changes with RO water and make sure all perameters are propper.
Raise tank temp to 80 degrees to speed life cycle of ich, (imho ich does not like that temp, though I know it will not kill the ich.
Add the Herbtana ($15 investment in your fish's life).
Feed a lot of good food (rinsed rodds or PE mysis, algae sheets) but don't polute your tank.

Set up a QT tank for the future. I use a 20 long, back filter and canister filter, light and heater and some live rock. If you want to set it up now for your tang just move some rock from your tank, stir up the sand bed and put the filter pad for the filter in the stirred up area and get bacteria on it, use water from your tank and you are set.

Good luck.

 

[RVANANO]

Blue hippo's are the only fish I have had in the last 3 years that get ich.

 

[jwoyshnar]

Blue hippo's are the only fish I have had in the last 3 years that get ich.

Agree totally. They are Bice but I will never own one again.

 

[Palting]

So I am starting to think that it is not Ick that my Hippo has. They did not start or ather around the gills and/or fins. They are getting worse tho. His whole body is covered in pretty big bumps. Not like bumps under his kin, but looks like its on him. IDK what to do. I will try and get a good picture but does anyone have any ideas on wether its a bacteria or parasite? Anyone have a similar experience?

Ich usually is not "big bumps", more like salt crystals. This may not be Ich. Take a pic and post it, either here or in fish diseases.

 

[wnehez]

sry for the quality.

 

[Crush Coral]

The first pic I would give the nod to ich. Second looks strange. What is your plan of attack?

 

[mwilliams62]

I have never heard of using garlic to cure Ich. Not sure if this would work for your fish or not but I have always used Pimafix and Melafix when i have had to treat my fish for ich, cuts or scrapes that they may get going in and out of the rock work.

 

[richie1m]

Do you have a wrasse? They seem to get rid of all the parasites off them

 

[Dee12Dee12]

That new product you were refering to is Herbtana by Microbe-Lift. I used it in my QT when I bought a clown from a lfs that includes free ich with every fish purchase.:rollface:
The clown never showed any signs. The Herbrana is supose to boost the fish's imune system, smells like something you would cook with. I will continue to use it till I think it does not work.
Do H2O changes with RO water and make sure all perameters are propper.
Raise tank temp to 80 degrees to speed life cycle of ich, (imho ich does not like that temp, though I know it will not kill the ich.
Add the Herbtana ($15 investment in your fish's life).
Feed a lot of good food (rinsed rodds or PE mysis, algae sheets) but don't polute your tank.

Set up a QT tank for the future. I use a 20 long, back filter and canister filter, light and heater and some live rock. If you want to set it up now for your tang just move some rock from your tank, stir up the sand bed and put the filter pad for the filter in the stirred up area and get bacteria on it, use water from your tank and you are set.

Good luck.

+1 for Herbtana...although my skimmer has been out of wack since using it, but has been getting better with every water change

 

[rocride]

i have used that kordon's stuff and i did notice positive results from it in regards to the ich i found it fouled the water,it turned out to be reef safe but i just didn't get a good feeling from it...i wouldn't bother with it again

what i did find that worked well in the past is soaking the garlic in pellet food like new life spectrum,also soaking selcon or elos extra vitimans(preferred)in there too and feeding it slowly as if to target feed (2-3 x a day),add an airstone and bump the heat up to 28c and don't freak the fish out!! ....he's stressed out and immune system is not strong enough to fight off the ich,keep your hands/flashlights out of the tank.

currently what has been working long term is an consistant enviroment,no moving rocks around changing of temperature,light sched. or basically doing anything that causes the fish to freak out....or keep it to a minimum at least

i have two large hippos and one of them is very sensitive to anything 'new' and will get the odd spot of ich from time to time but fights it off comepletely on his own after a cpl days

this is just in my experience and while i have been lucky in the past with more severe outbreaks (no clue what i was doing) since then i have been successful with the keepin it simple.I hope you can find the knowledge to know how severe you need to react,there's some heartbreaking stories out there about ich and marine velvet.So good luck!

 

[567234ta]

i been dealing with the same thing in my tank, i have been very reluctant to remove my blue tang because the last time i tried that it killed the tang. I have some skunk shrimp that clean the ich off him and he seems to be much better. At one point he had 20 spots at least on one side of him, now he has none for the last few days. I know i have to remove the fish from the tank, treat them and let it sit for 8 weeks with no fish to get rid of it, but im waiting for the tang to get bigger and very stable before i put him thru any trauma.

 

[wnehez]

Ok, So I wake up this morning only to see two spots on my naso tangs fin and one by his gill. I am getting very frustrated. I tried the kordons ich treatment before I moved and didnt notice anything positive. Then I moved, which probably caused it to on the naso because of the stress of getting caught and moved. I have this other stuff that I am starting treatment TODAY. It is Kick-Ick. It says its reef safe and the LFS said the had good results with it. I am shutting off my skiimmer(which jus started working properly again after the move and not producing the microbubbles) and dosing the tank. I don't want to do the QT for them because I read too many people say that it just causes more stress on them and I believe that would be true. Since the blue tang is a juvinile, I dont want to kill him. He is still eating along with the naso so I am going to increase the feeding schedule and dose all food in chopped garlic including nori seaweed and flakes. The tank temp is increased to 82-84(84 while lights are on). I understand that u mut let the tank go fallow for a long time in order to get rid of it, but I cant do that. And I think that is a waste of time and money since im sure ich will surely be back eventually. Keep good thoughts for me and help me in praying to the gods that this works. The naso was one of my first fish and he became my buddy along with my russel lion. They r my two fav's. Follow me everywhere I walk and come face to face to say hi. Im hoping if I continue treatment and garlic feeding it will raise their immune system enough to have the treatment kick ich's "rear end". Thanks for the advice ppl... Really don know what I wouldve done if I couldnt get peoples opinions and stories on how they did it to make my own plan of attack. Ill keep everyone updated.