Cleaner shrimp won't clean ich

I put all my inverts back in the display and put all of my fish into 1 little 20-gallon QT tank with about 30# of LR. I have a bad feeling about how well this will work, and I am kind of thinking I should have tried to ride it out in the display with the hope that they'd fight it off - develop immunity or whatever. The flame is harrassing the CB, and she doesn't really have anywhere to escape to now. The trigger seems uncharacteristically stressed... When I first added him to the 180 display, he staked out a cave and then was out exploring in under 2 minutes - since being put into the QT he has not budged from under a rock.

I couldn't do the dual 20-gal/10-gal setup I had planned because one powerhead was moving more water than the other... so one tank's water level was rising & the other dropping. Maybe I will try to find some kind of makeshift 50-gal or so bin to use, or cough up the cash & buy a bigger QT tank. I just don't know.

My husband, who is otherwise hands-off with the fish stuff, caught all 7 fish (using a net in each hand) in about 20 minutes. He is definitely the official fish catcher from now on.
 
It doesn't sound like much fun at your house right now :( I know it seems like a negative, but your fish might do better if some are partitioned off from each other with eggcrate - just a thought.

Sorry you're starting off this way - but one day you'll look back and - never mind ;)
As to the tomini with the birth defect, I am thinking I should have bought him and tried to breed him, creating a whole new sub-species of white-spotted tomini tangs...
Click to expand...
:lol: A sense of humor will get you through this!
 
I guess I am too much of a pessimist to really entertain the possibilities of chemical treatments. And at this point in my tank's life, I just want to stamp this stuff out as definitively as possible before I have a lot more fish.

Everyone seemed better this morning... Fido came out to eat and then went back to his cave. I will try to find some egg crate so that I have it on hand in case things get violent, and just continue watching the angels; I kinda feel like the flame just nips occasionally to keep the CB in its place, and I'm hoping it stays that way and doesn't escalate in the small space.

Neither the flame nor the CB shows a lot of interest in offered foods, preferring to pick at the rocks instead, even though both ate in the store. No one but Fido eats the nori that I have been leaving in there (and I think he would eat a tin can) - I even tried rubberbanding it around a rock. There was a tiny scrap of halimeda left in the QT tank, and I noticed the flame going at that with delight... I found that surprising. I will have to put another piece in and see if he does it again, and if the CB has any interest in it.
 
Be sure you are checking the amonia levels. When doing hyposalinity you will have increased amonia levels and need to do large water changes. That goes on for about 7-8 days. Also watch your Ph levels carefully. This is one reason it is better to put your fish in a smaller tank. You might consider putting a UV sterilizer on your display tank if you don't already have one. I had some cleaner shrimp in my tank who would have nothing to do with my emperator angel. He all but did the Angelina Jolie lap dance for them hour after hour and they just yawned and looked bored. The emperator showed them - after 7 days of this he ate them. He is now named Arnold - the Terminator. Good luck with your ich elimination.
 
When my coral beauty came down with ich, we added two cleaner shrimp (one by itself just hid all of the time, they seem to be more active in numbers), started soaking food in vitamins, and began running a UV sterilizer all of the time at first, now only a few hours at a time. My fish have been ICH free ever since.

Good Luck!!!
 
We treat ick here like it's a death sentence, because it can be. Sometimes, the best treatment for ick is just good food, lowered stress levels, and time. That's how snake oil works. You get people who swear that they cured their fish with stuff, when actually, it was just the natural course of the disease. If you really really want a scientifically proven method of removing the parasite... don't rely on products that have not been scientifically tested. People here touting the meds aren't wrong, they've just been convinced of something based on the outcome of a single, or perhaps multiple, non-scientific events. If they had a control... say an identical tank with an identical fish exposed to the same ick, and that fish died but the one with the meds didn't... that would be on the way to convincing... but it would still have to be repeatable. Just because your fish got better, doesn't mean that what ever you added to your tank was responsable.

There are proven methods. A QT tank should cost you less than the cost of a single fish... just use a food grade container, a heater, and a filter.
 
Sahgsbeard- I agree. without getting too scientific or anything, when most people "cure" ick, it is without any control. They put something in, ick goes away, and it is sworn it is from the "treatemnt". Why? iisn't it possible the fish just naturally kicked it? I have a chevron tang that evryone month or two gets some spots. no other fish show these symptoms, and this fish is as fat and healthy looking as all the rest. So why does this ick infestation kill him (and everything else in the tank)? Natural body defense reactions. They are healthy fish.

Now, I in no way advocate NOT treating sick fish, but lets not discount keeping the fish healthy in the first place.
 
Well, Daisy the coral beauty is very sick, and I don't know why.

Everyone else in the QT is terrific - colorful, active, eating. But on Friday evening, I found that the CB was very pale (her face is usually deep purple, and it had turned lavendar) and struggling to swim, keeping her head toward the surface with her body hanging down. I thought maybe the flame had gotten into her during the day when I was at work. I took a huge clear plastic jar (used to hold pretzels from Costco), drilled holes in it, located it in one corner of the QT tank, and put Daisy in there, so she has her own little room.

Not long after being moved in there, she began lying down on her side. If I did anything to disturb her, she would get up and swim a little and then fall over again. I believe that the only thing keeping her struggling to swim was the flame angel, and once she was safe from any harrassment it was no longer worth the effort. I assumed she was a goner... It seemed crystal clear, inevitable that she was a goner - she was the very picture of a dying fish.

At bedtime I debated removing her from the tank so that if she died overnight, there wouldn't be an ammonia spike that would kill the tank - I decided against it because I didn't have enough equipment to keep another container heated & oxygenated, and despite the apparent futility of her condition I couldn't just leave her to die without heat. (Plus I didn't think there would be an ammonia spike immediately, but I don't really know.)

Much to my astonishment, she was alive, in the same condition, Saturday morning. And then, she was still alive yesterday morning... And again this morning. She is not improving, but she is continuing to live, listing on her side, very weak and very pale.

On Saturday and again yesterday I scooped her out using a coffee cup and did not exactly force-feed her but did hold her in place and put a syringe w/a food mixture to her lips, and I'm pretty sure she ingested some food in this way.

I don't know what I'll find when I get home today. Every time I check I expect her to be dead, and she looks dead until she is disturbed, when she swims weakly for a few moments before lying down/leaning again.

My SG has been 1.009 since Saturday, and as I mentioned everyone else in the tank looks excellent. There has been no sign of ich since Friday. I detected a slight presence of ammonia yesterday and did a few 10% water changes. I have been changing about 20% per day and checking my SG daily. (I marked my water level on the tank so I can be sure to keep it at 1.009 w/daily top-offs.)

I have searched but have not found any good info on what Daisy's problem could be - I am leaning toward too much stress. I don't know what else I can do besides what I am doing, and I plan to continue trying to get some sustenance into her each day, if she continues to live.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8307363#post8307363 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ocicat
Well, Daisy the coral beauty is very sick, and I don't know why.

Everyone else in the QT is terrific - colorful, active, eating. But on Friday evening, I found that the CB was very pale (her face is usually deep purple, and it had turned lavendar) and struggling to swim, keeping her head toward the surface with her body hanging down. I thought maybe the flame had gotten into her during the day when I was at work. I took a huge clear plastic jar (used to hold pretzels from Costco), drilled holes in it, located it in one corner of the QT tank, and put Daisy in there, so she has her own little room.

Not long after being moved in there, she began lying down on her side. If I did anything to disturb her, she would get up and swim a little and then fall over again. I believe that the only thing keeping her struggling to swim was the flame angel, and once she was safe from any harrassment it was no longer worth the effort. I assumed she was a goner... It seemed crystal clear, inevitable that she was a goner - she was the very picture of a dying fish.

At bedtime I debated removing her from the tank so that if she died overnight, there wouldn't be an ammonia spike that would kill the tank - I decided against it because I didn't have enough equipment to keep another container heated & oxygenated, and despite the apparent futility of her condition I couldn't just leave her to die without heat. (Plus I didn't think there would be an ammonia spike immediately, but I don't really know.)

Much to my astonishment, she was alive, in the same condition, Saturday morning. And then, she was still alive yesterday morning... And again this morning. She is not improving, but she is continuing to live, listing on her side, very weak and very pale.

On Saturday and again yesterday I scooped her out using a coffee cup and did not exactly force-feed her but did hold her in place and put a syringe w/a food mixture to her lips, and I'm pretty sure she ingested some food in this way.

I don't know what I'll find when I get home today. Every time I check I expect her to be dead, and she looks dead until she is disturbed, when she swims weakly for a few moments before lying down/leaning again.

My SG has been 1.009 since Saturday, and as I mentioned everyone else in the tank looks excellent. There has been no sign of ich since Friday. I detected a slight presence of ammonia yesterday and did a few 10% water changes. I have been changing about 20% per day and checking my SG daily. (I marked my water level on the tank so I can be sure to keep it at 1.009 w/daily top-offs.)

I have searched but have not found any good info on what Daisy's problem could be - I am leaning toward too much stress. I don't know what else I can do besides what I am doing, and I plan to continue trying to get some sustenance into her each day, if she continues to live.
Click to expand...
I'm really impressed - you're the fish whisperer! I hope she makes it. You might try here Kelly Jedicki
 
LOL - I once resuscitated a goldfish... It had been gasping for air, and after while it quit moving and looked like it was done. I knew very little about fish-keeping then, but I had heard/read somewhere (this was in the days before the internet) about the fact that your average goldfish bowl has really lousy air exchange b/c the surface area is so small relative to the water volume, so I filled a large baking pan with cold (since cold = more oxygen) water and moved the fish around in circles through the water, so that water would be forced through his gills. After a minute or two, he started moving again, and in short order he resumed swimming on his own. Maybe the resuscitation technique worked, or maybe the cold water just woke him up. ;)

Daisy is still alive but looking pretty bad, still very pale and just lying on her side. I noticed that her tail and fins are slightly ragged at the edges, and her belly is somewhat pink - I don't know whether that is just part of her discoloration or if it means something like a blood infection. I went to an LFS and bought erethromycin and dosed the tank with that, thinking it could be an infection resulting from the ich that she had (and since I am at a loss to do much else). I decided not to take her out and feed her today just because I am sure it stresses her, and I'll give the antibiotic a day to work. I don't have much hope but will do what I can.

Thanks for the link - I will check it out!
 
Sometimes antibiotics take a few days to start working. Try getting some oxygen to her, put an air stone in the container with her it might help. Im pretty sure higher temps, have something to do with low oxygen in the water, some fish need more oxygen than others.

Good Luck!!!
 
Well, Daisy died overnight last night. I'm pretty ticked at myself that I didn't try antibiotics sooner, but it didn't occur to me that it might be an infection until yesterday - and it also didn't occur to me that she might live for 3 more days rather than 3 more hours and actually have a chance. :(

I suppose next time I'll be quicker on the trigger with antibiotics or other medicine, and not be so pessimistic.
 
Don't feel bad, it could have been parasites - IMO you did a great job.

Poor Daisy - may she rest in peace. :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
help with new dracula goby
Replies
5
Views
392
leebca
L
N
75 gallon set up and stocking advice
Replies
8
Views
2K
Newham94
N
vinstr
Anyone need a Harlequin shrimp?
Replies
1
Views
343
vinstr
vinstr
M
20 gallon stocking ideas
Replies
9
Views
1K
MC Blowfish
M
OrionN
Naso elegans, the Blonde Naso
Replies
1
Views
220
OrionN
OrionN
Back
Top