does itch go away by it self sometime?

[khoivo1]

i have one fish got itch in tank,,and i think all fish same tank got itch too but should i just treat the one show itch or everybody in the tank?
would be hard to treat everyone,,,but if i only treat one fish show itch then will itch comeback when the fish back into show tank?
and it is also hard to take them all out at once,,to treat in qt tank,,because i have alot of fishes,,,
i was thinking to tread hplowsalinity,,,0.009 way,,please help me and my fish thanks

 

[khoivo1]

oh my god,,,i can't belive that i has no respond from this reefcentral,,,
where else can i go to ask this question?? ihave no idea,,anyway thankfor nothing,,,

 

[surf406386]

Itch does not go away by itself. Itch is a parasite based "disease" the parasite will attach itself to the fish for a certain period of time after which it will start to produce eggs which will sink to the bottom.

The parasite dies and after approximately 4 weeks the eggs will hatch and the itch will be back on your fish in bigger number. During the inital phase of the disease the spots might not always be pressent.

Hyposalinity might help you out a bit however shrimp and other inverts are very very sensitive for change in salinity.

The other not (scientifically proven) method is to add pieces of garlic to the fish food as this increases their resistance to diseases.

There are also people saying a higher temperature might help, not something I would personally do again as I lost some inverts doing this.

As stress increases the vulneribality of the fish to itch or diseases my first approach to catch the fish would be using a fish trap as this does not give the fish to much stress compared to chasing it around with a fishnet.

At the moment I'm trying this medication http://www.aquapharmlabs.com/medication.php and have no problems with my corals, but I must say I'm not sure if it's effective as I allready lost a yellow tang, picasso tang, angelfish and a clownsfish.

Hope this helps you a bit as itch will always be in our fishtanks even in a dormant state.

 

[PhillyD123]

9 of mine have fought off this parasite by themselves while I was away I would say it depends on the hardiness of the fish so far. So far also it would seem that there are a thousand ways to treat this. No right or wrong way just your way and my way

 

[surf406386]

Absolute agree with you PhillyD there is no right or wrong way to go about itch in general.

And fish will fight off the disease on their own however when the first itch cycle is completed the offspring will hatch 4 weeks later in far bigger numbers than the first outbreak. So in certain cases it might be handy to give your fish a helping hand.