Have ICH looky here!!!!!

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13800849#post13800849 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by monicaswizzle
Great post. One Question--

For those of us with larger reef tanks and tons of rockwork it can be impossible, or nearly so to catch and QT all of the fish. None of the proven methods can be done in a reef tank. Are there any methods that actually work for treating the display tank and don't kill corals? IME the methods that claim to do so are not reliable. They either do nothing for the ich or can actually kill some of the corals, despite claims to the contrary.

Any advice? (Besides of course prevention which takes patience, sigh!)

Thanks!

this is why it is so important to qt every fish you purchase--even more important with large tanks.
for the fish that are in there --through use of vitamens, healthy nutrition, garlic ect then you can build up their immunity to ich over a long period which will allow them to deal with any ich themselves in a natural way.

note: there is no total immunity to ich but there are ways to build up a tolerance to it.

 

[monicaswizzle]

Thanks for the responses which confirm what I have learned the hard way. Too bad there isn't a reef safe method that has predictable and satisfactory results.

I do QT all of my fish and actually always have (unless they are the first fish into a tank). Unfortunately it is easy to yield to the temptation to cut the QT short after a couple of good weeks. In my freshwater tanks that never really has caused big problems. In salt I not only advocate QT of all fish, but a minimum of four and better six weeks.

Now, if I could only remember why that is so important next time a fish is looking good in QT and the QT tank is seeming a little harder for "the fish" than having it in my nice big display tank would be ....

Oh well, live and learn.

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13803762#post13803762 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by monicaswizzle
Thanks for the responses which confirm what I have learned the hard way. Too bad there isn't a reef safe method that has predictable and satisfactory results.

The preferred method that comes as close to reef safe as you can get is to:
quarantine all fish purchases for 4-6 weeks
dip all coral purchases

on going feed your fish a well balanced diet.

eliminate stress on your fish as best you can

 

[Lungs15]

Hey guys, Im pretty much a N00B when in comes to reef tanks though I have had many trigger tanks. My question is I just set up a tank three weeks ago and purchase 90 percent of my live rock (100lbs) from a very well established tank that someone was breaking down. When I purchased the rock he also gave me 2 free clowns and a cleaner shrimp which I really didnt wanna take but the fish had no where else to go. Some of the live rock had small mushrooms but thats it. Anyhow, 3 weeks into the setup the fish were fine so I picked up a yellow tang and and about a week later (today) the fish are showing the early signs of Ich. (Dashing around and rock rubbing) I have a 30 gallon but is not set up that I can probably use for a hospital tank but now Im concerned that a fresh hospital setup might not be good either. What should I do? From the information above, it seems that if I lose the fish and dont put anything else in the tank for two months I can be safe!

Basically it boils down to me obviously being concerned about the fish but also about the fortune I just put out on the rock, refugium, and lighting. Wife will ring my neck if I have to break this down and set it back up as I'm having a baby in 2 months and am lucky she finally let me piece this together!

I have already learned enough from this thread that a hospital tank is basically a need and will be set up ASAP but correct me if Im wrong that filling a tank tomorrow and dropping the fish in that day isn't a good idea.....

Also, all the fish are currently doing is the rock rubbing and erratic darting (mostly the tang). No hazy eyes or specs of any kind!

 

[sufunk]

I think it's a little off for you guys to be telling newbies that they "must" and "immediately" get any fish with ich into quarantine and hypo. That is NOT the case many times and with good food and good water, the fish will fight off ich on their own most times. As long as the fish are still eating well, hypo is definitely NOT a "must"! Ich is not the death sentence you guys are making it to be most times.

Hyposalinity is a very difficult procedure that has to be monitored very closely. Thats a little much for a lot of newbies. I've had my share of ich outbreaks and almost all of them were from neglecting water changes and having ammonia in the tank. The fish always kept eating and i got the water back in check. They fought off the ich and it disappeared.

Yes, i know it is still in my system but as long as my water quality is high, they do not get ich. This can be done in ALOT of cases where you guys are telling people to tear their tanks apart and do a hypo which can be as or more stressful to the fish. As long as fish are eating, there is no reason to FREAK OUT and do hypo until they stop eating, imo and ime. I have bought 4 tangs in my 4 years in the hobby and all 4 are still healthy, happy and ALIVE despite their very infrequent bouts with ich and i have NEVER done hypo.

Their is a reefsafe fix for your ich, it's good food and good water!

 

[WaterKeeper]

Sufunk,

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13828483#post13828483 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sufunk
I think it's a little off for you guys to be telling newbies that they "must" and "immediately" get any fish with ich into quarantine and hypo. That is NOT the case many times and with good food and good water, the fish will fight off ich on their own most times. As long as the fish are still eating well, hypo is definitely NOT a "must"! Ich is not the death sentence you guys are making it to be most times.

Let me plead my case. Both ich and velvet would be no more than a skin disease and pose no problem if they left off there. The major threat is that they also attack the gill structure, possibly other internal organs, of the infected fish and, once that happens, death can occur in only a day or two.

Once the gills are infected the current methods, discussed in the original post, are seldom effective in curing the disease. They just don't work that fast and, the formalin dip being an exception, do not eradicate the parasite attached to the host fish. That is why I promote treating the disease post haste and not allowing it to progress internally. Often, that is far too late.

Diet and water quality are far overrated as a disease treatment. The two protozoan that cause the diseases enjoy good water conditions as well as any fish. Fat, healthy fish are just as likely to contract the disease as any other fish. There is a fallacy that portends that certain foods prevent ich. That is like saying a good diet will keep one safe from polio so you don't need a vaccination.

I'll stand by my claim that ich and velvet, once they occur, need immediate and proper treatment. I'll rest my case.

 

[WaterKeeper]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13818211#post13818211 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lungs15
Anyhow, 3 weeks into the setup the fish were fine so I picked up a yellow tang and and about a week later (today) the fish are showing the early signs of Ich. (Dashing around and rock rubbing) I have a 30 gallon but is not set up that I can probably use for a hospital tank but now Im concerned that a fresh hospital setup might not be good either. What should I do? From the information above, it seems that if I lose the fish and dont put anything else in the tank for two months I can be safe!

Sorry Lungs, I missed your post. As you surmised the ich probably arrived with the introduction of the Tang. That 30 gallon you have will do fine if you fill it with water from the display. If you have a HOB filter use it too. Begin the desired treatment method and do 5 gallon water changes on the hospital tank each day. During that time the main tank should be left fallow and, when the treatment period is up, it too should be free of disease.

 

[ramirifi]

runing uv will kill the parasite in its free swiming fase ??

 

[WaterKeeper]

True, but the free swimming stage is released from the cyst stage, buried in the sand and rock. Each spot on the fish releases cysts that bury themselves in the sand. After about 3 weeks they mature and release hundreds of new spores, ciliates. They, in turn, find a host fish and attach to it. A few spots on the fish therefore soon become many; as the hungry ciliates host on the fish. The cycle repeats over and over as long as there is a host (a fish). Break the cycle and the disease is not able to survive. The whole reason behind a QT.

This thread is not here because it is my personal opinion. It is a culmination of many reef tank threads on the disease and the opinion of experts in reef husbandry. It may not be the ultimate solution but it is the main stream of ways to fight the disease,

UV and micron filters can catch some, but not all ,of the free swimmers. It is only in that stage that they work. Sadly, they are not 100% effective and enough get by to reinfect the fish. I think UV is a benefit that is not worth the cost. It is unusual to cure ick or velvet with any type of filter. The odds are in the protozoan's favor.

 

[why_drift]

i am a noob who thought i could make it threw ich with good water quality and feeding after being told this by my LFS.
it want till i lost a yellow tang and 2 x clowns that i realised how easily this parasite can kill.
i am now halfway ( YAY 3 weeks to go!!) through my QTing.
If it wasnt for waterkeepers and other experienced members stressing the need to "break the cycle" of this parasite i am sure i would still be losing fish and $$
after losing fish i dont understand why anyone would want to have ich in their tank and have "good water quality" as there only saftey. why would anyone not rid the tank of ich then have good water quality for the right reasons.
thanks to all who provide information on PROVEN methods of treatment.

 

[ryan scott]

great thread
I have now had itch for quite some time, due to not QT as a newbie. And today is a very sad day for me as I am about to put my juvenile Emperor Angle in the freezer as he has become infected and is in a bad way. I really want to rid my tank of it, but I have 13 fish and not too sure if my qt is large enough to handle all fish for 6 weeks? I have 2 cronis, 1 queen trigger, 1 powder blue tang, 1 blue tang, 1 lemon peel angel, 2 clowns 3 damsels, 1 yellow tang.
Some fish do not appear infected but, am I correct in saying to be sure to remove all itch from my tank all fish need to be out for 6 weeks? Even know some fish have built up resistance the itch may still reproduce in the tank using these fish?

I also read on another website http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/marineich.html says this Burgess and Matthews (1994) were attempting to maintain a viable population of C. irritans which could be used in later studies. To maintain the parasite populations, they needed host fish in order for the trophonts to feed and continue the life cycle. Each host fish was only used once in a process of serial transition such that none of the hosts would die or develop an immunity. While the procedure worked very well and enabled them to maintain populations for some time, the viability of the populations decreased with time and none of the 7 isolates they used survived more than 34 cycles, around 10 to 11 months. They suggest this is due to senescence and aging in cell lines is well recognised in Ciliophora.

Does this mean after this timeframe that itch should die off?

 

[WaterKeeper]

Sorry, it means the test fish died in that time frame. As long as there is a host fish then ich will survive. It gives you these options--

• You can keep what you have and not add a new fish. The surviving fish may ward off ich
• You can quarantine all the fish and, after about 4 weeks, add those back into the tank.
• I'd still wait another two weeks before adding any new livestock until you see what happens with what fish you have when reintroduced into the display.

 

[ryan scott]

thanks i have started to catch fish to goto hos[ital tank

thats a challange in itself, they hard smart a very hard to net!!

my hospital tank is 75litres do you think provided that i do daily water changes it will handle all of my fish?

 

[WaterKeeper]

Sure do. With regular water changes the fish can tolerate the "sardine can period" for a little while.Good luck catching them however.

 

[ryan scott]

i dont think that it is talking about the fish due to at the start of this info it says that they use different fish so they would not become imune

can anyone shine any light on this?

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13889921#post13889921 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterKeeper
Sorry, it means the test fish died in that time frame. As long as there is a host fish then ich will survive. It gives you these options--

• You can keep what you have and not add a new fish. The surviving fish may ward off ich
• You can quarantine all the fish and, after about 4 weeks, add those back into the tank.

• 
  
  Tom, I believe the suggested time period for the display tank to be fishless is 6-8 weeks?

 

[WaterKeeper]

The life cycle of the parasite is highly temperature dependant. I tend to shave the time a little as ich should complete the cycle in about a month at 80°F. If you err on the side of caution then six weeks is probably a better choice.

 

[velfamily]

ugh- now what?

ugh- now what?

okay, so we now have confirmed ich in our tank. we have 3 little (1 1/2") domino damsels. everything else is starfish, snails, peppermint shrimp and hermits.

what is our next step? can we treat the entire tank? will it be safe for the others? also, we had a snail die 2 days ago... could this be related?

we've only had the fish about 2.5 weeks. i'm guessing we just got them already infected. we've been doing 20% water changes and testing weekly.

tested just now and amonia is at .5......

eta: the dominoes are losing their color- .... the prompting of our search to see what is wrong - is this normal for them to do?

thank you all so much for your advice

 

[WaterKeeper]

The inverts don't contract ich. It only afflicts fish. Your tank is very small and that is always a problems when it come to treatment. None of the treatments in this thread are usable in the display tank. They would kill the inverts if you used them. What to do about those damsels. Can you come up with another small tank? It need not be bigger than the one you have. If so, then use either hypo or copper to treat them in the hospital tank. Leave it bare bottom and use water changes, a gallon a day should do, to control ammonia and nitrate. You need to do it for at least 4 weeks before returning the fish to the display. It may seem like overkill for a nano but there is no difference in treatment because of tank size.

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13898445#post13898445 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterKeeper
The inverts don't contract ich. It only afflicts fish. Your tank is very small and that is always a problems when it come to treatment. None of the treatments in this thread are usable in the display tank. They would kill the inverts if you used them. What to do about those damsels. Can you come up with another small tank? It need not be bigger than the one you have. If so, then use either hypo or copper to treat them in the hospital tank. Leave it bare bottom and use water changes, a gallon a day should do, to control ammonia and nitrate. You need to do it for at least 4 weeks before returning the fish to the display. It may seem like overkill for a nano but there is no difference in treatment because of tank size.

IMO damsels are very tough for surviving stressful situations. They used to(notice the past tense)be used to initially cycle tanks.
They probably can survive the ich too.:eek2: without doing anything but monitoring the situation.