give me your advice!

[mhills16]

Well as i said before i am using rubys kick ich but i do not feel it is as effective as i would like... i have raised my temperature to 84. i have a 110 gallon reef tank with 150 lbs of LR, but currently have no corals other than zoanthids. I have 15 fish from clowns to tangs to butterflies etc. Do not recommend a quarantine tank because i do not have one nor will i ever, i am in the u.s. military and am deployed too often and that is just too much for my wife to have to take care of. it is hard enough for her to handle the 110 gal tank in itself. I am looking for reccomendations on how to treat my ich in my tank WITH OUT QUARANTINE that will not kill my zoanthids or inverts and will effectively get it off my fish and out of my system. thanks, mike!

 

[limitdown]

Then be prepared to decide whether you want your fish to die or your corals+inverts to die. If you copper/hypo the display, then your corals+inverts will die, and if you do nothing, then your fish will die.

If you want both to have a fighting chance, then you'll need to separate them.

I highly recommend reading the article by Steven Pro on ich.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php


I too wish life was easier.....

 

[dones20]

if i were you i would do a 40-50 gallon water change and run plenty of carbon if the fish are still eating i would say feed a variety of frzen and pellet foods soaked in vitamins and aminos as well as alternate with garlic elixer its kinda expensive but in my opinion the best garlic treatment out there

 

[mhills16]

me too, and i am doing so! i soak all my food in garlic and vitamins.... im going to win this battle lol! also, i am going to go buy some medicated flakes also!

 

[limitdown]

Boosting nutrition for sick fish is always a good idea, but that in itself is usually not enough to kill ich. It's sort of like boosting vitamin intake for a human that has hundreds of ticks stuck to his body. The vitamins will help in boosting the man's immune system to prevent secondary bacterial infections, but it's not going to make the ticks fall off or prevent new ticks from biting him. You would need to find a way to get the ticks off of the man and kill the ticks in his environment to prevent the ticks from multiplying, then re-biting the man.

Now for bacterial infections, then yes, I change more water, run carbon feed garlic and soak food in selcon.

 

[mhills16]

when can i expect them to fall off? yes, so are they like ticks, slowly draining life from my fish? or just using the skin to host? anyways, it is just so hard to tackle marine ich, everything was going fine then it just came.......... i am going on a 4 day vacation in 3 days, wish i could do something before then... i get the uv sterilizer by wed. also, i hope that helps a little bit........

 

[Sk8r]

Make a practice of feeding Formula One sinking pellet With Garlic: it probably helps a bit (but raises phosphate, i fear.)
In general, if your fish throw it off, they may gain some immunity to it. And probably your zoas will eat some of it, no kidding.
Ich is more like lethal fleas: it gets into your flooring, then keeps reinfesting every susceptible fish. Even if you lose a fish, do not replace it for 8 weeks after the last appearance of ich in your tank: by then if it has not found a host, it may starve out and die.

Another point, a little disputable, but if you're going to try to tough it out, you might get a cleaner shrimp. Their removing the parasite does nothing to cure the infestation (one flea out of 10,000)---but it MAY get them out of the fish's gills where it can be a serious problem.
A fish that dies of ich is generally dying of oxygen deprivation (gills) or of blood/nutrient loss; the more you can fortify their food with fresh chopped garlic and Selcon (a nutritional preparation) the better chance they have to pull thru. The stuff goes by cycles: it attacks; it drops off into the sandbed; it reattacks. but nothing I have suggested ought to hurt your zoas; and if your fish do survive, they seem to be more resistent. The UV sterilizer will help a bit. Hopefully your corals will consume some of the newly hatched parasite; hopefully your fish will fight back from this.
Good luck to you.

 

[mhills16]

yeah.. i have had a cleaner shrimp for about 2 weeks now had a cleaner wrasse but some crab or something ate his tail off in his sleep then finished him off in his sleep.... he was so small, but he ate a variety of food, i will get another he was very neat.. anyways, yeah i hope it does starve off and die. some of my zoas have been closed for a couple days now, dont know what is up with that.. but, i think it will work out, just hope it doesnt take the butterfle, he is constantly twitching and scratching... but he eats good so..... atleast he will live!

 

[limitdown]

Unless you're actively treating with copper or hypo, you should start getting really nervous when all of the spots fall off of the fish!
Why? because the parasites have done a fake retreat and are actually crazily multiplying. They will eventually come back in much greater numbers and reinfect your fish.
So you must kill all of the parasites when they're in the free-swimming stage to prevent re-infection.
Again, I highly recommend reading this article to understand ich.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

 

[mhills16]

ive read it, well, there is 2 liters of rubys kick ich waiting for it to fall off in the tank!