HELP!!! Powder Blue with ich!!

[gs4boy]

My Powder Blue is covered with ich for the past two weeks. What can I do? He still is very active swimming and still eats but I'm not sure how much longer he'll last. My tank is a reef tank so I'm not sure what treatment options i have. Can someone offer me advise??

 

[maroun.c]

lost mine like this few weeks ago. you'r best bet would be a Q tank with hyposalinity treatment or maybe copper. I prefer the first one. Unfortunately these can't be done in your tank.
if you can't take the fish out then feeding garlic can help boost the immune system of the fish but it's not as effective as those two methods.
investing in a Q tank is very important for every fish or coral you add.

 

[gs4boy]

How low can i take my salinity and still not harm my reef tank?

 

[dhammers06]

tangs a notorious for ich, rin and raise your temperature in your tank over 80 and feed garlic and get a couple of cleaner shrimp. I know everybody on rc like qt tanks but when you put him back in the display tank after 6 weeks of qt he will stress out again and you'll be back where you started. I work at my lfs and my coworker to home 3 tangs for his tank and that was his remedy and it worked.

 

[dhammers06]

gs4boy, don't do hypo in a reef your asking for problems. if you can get him out do a freshwater dip. research it first but it works at the store

 

[sedor]

Ya, you pretty much need to get the fish out of the display. Don't just throw him into hypo water either. Leave the QT water the same as the DT at first, and then daily add RO water to drop the salinity one or two points per day until you are down to where you want to be.

 

[Shane Hoffman]

I will try to find it....but if you search back a few pages you will see how I cured ich in my tank...title of the thread is How i cured ich.....i truly do believe I have cured my ich out break....if I were to ever get another I would do the same method

 

[prickles]

There's a local scientist who claims he has done studies on this. I have tried it and it seemed to work. I had several fish in my 125 with ich bad enough it killed a couple. After several outbreaks in a couple of months I tried this guy's idea. His study claimed that aptasia eats ich in its swimming/floating phase. I therefore added quite a few aptasia to my sump and quite a few peppermints to my display tank. Soon I had an aptasia farm in my sump and no ich in my main display. I was ich free for about 6 months until one day I broke a thermometer (I was worried it might be mercury) in my sump. I pulled the sump out and replaced it the sump. Unfortunately, I had no more aptasia after the replacement. In the weeks that followed, the ich came back. I added more aptasia and the ich was gone again.

While I am not sure it would work in time for your powder blue, I would trap him and put him in copper ASAP if it were me, I would still try the aptasia thing to get your main reef with less ich. There is really little to lose as both aptasia and peppermints are "reef safe." FYI, I tried cleaners and everything else everyone here recommended before the aptasia thing, but had no luck.

If anyone else has had experience with this I would love to know it.

thanks

p

 

[maroun.c]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15413783#post15413783 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dhammers06
tangs a notorious for ich, rin and raise your temperature in your tank over 80 and feed garlic and get a couple of cleaner shrimp. I know everybody on rc like qt tanks but when you put him back in the display tank after 6 weeks of qt he will stress out again and you'll be back where you started. I work at my lfs and my coworker to home 3 tangs for his tank and that was his remedy and it worked.

While this might have some truth to it I would still advise people to Quarantine new additions and thats for a huge lists of parasites and diseases they could bring with them which could affect / wipe out your whole fish list in few days... so lets not understimate the need of a quarantine.
Reason I didn't quarantine was that my Q tank was broken in a tank move.
for around 2 weeks my PBT was showing few spots of ich in the morning then they would disappear in the afternoon... which is typical of ich. tank was running at around 82-84 degrees and I had 2 cleaner shrimps which worked frequently on the PBT and I was feeding garlic soaked food and that didnt work. Not trying to generalize and say that no fish will heal this way however the only two proven methods of treating ich would be with Hyposalinity down to 1.008 9bring salinity down gradually for two days then mainitain 1.008-1.010 for 4-6 weeks then bring it slowly back to what you normally run and watcht he fish in q tank for few days before returning the fish to the display) or with copper.

 

[Deleted member 7065]

Do not do the hyposalinity in your display.

There are a few over the counter treatments. You can try that.
Feed them - use garlic and other other medicated treatments.

If you can get him out - better.

Many get it and get better. Mine did.

 

[rgrobe]

I used to have problems with ich. It was a constant battle despite feeding garlic additives, having cleaner shrimp, etc. I finally had one outbreak so bad I knew I'd loose everything if I didn't do some thing drastic. If it is really bad and you want to save your fish;

First - Remove all your fish to a QT. Even if it means moving rock.

Second - Do a freshwater dip in RO/DI. Make sure the ph and temp is consistent with the tank water params. Slowly reduce salinity between 1.019 and 1.021. Treat your fish in the qt with copper meds. Make sure you don't have an ammonia spike with a new cycle though.

Third - Allow your reef to be fish free for at least 21 days (the longer the better). Ich can't survive without a host fish. The ich in the DT will die off.

Fourth - After all of the above and proper acclimation return the fish to DT.

Proactive care - Maintain good water quality in the DT. Use a garlic food additive to maintain immunity. UV filters will help control free floating ich. QT ALL new fish before adding to DT and treat any signs of ich or illness before adding.

 

[HighlandReef]

if you dont have a qt now might be a good time to get one, you can get a 10 gallon pretty cheap from petco or petsmart and just put a couple of pieces of lr in it, instant qt
if not try catching her a giving a freshwater dip but if you have ich in the tank it probably wont help alot
best bet is a qt