How to cure ick

[newreef06]

My new 6 week old blue hippo tang has ick. Well at least I think he does. He has all these little white dots on him. Its not bad maybe 10 or so. If he has ick how do I treat it. Also MyLFS said it might not be ick. If It is waht can it be. Will it go away. Also I want to cure it if it is ick. How do I cure Whats the best way to do it. I dont really want to make a hosipital tank. What medication can I use. Some one told me crushed garlic. PLease let me know. Also how long does the treatment last. Or needed to be done

Scott

 

[camocustom]

When they said might not be ich, it could be sand stuck to his slime coat, from layin on his side in the sand...everybody has their own way of dealing with ich...some use treatments, I have always had luck with a freshwater dip....about 5 minutes for a fw bath...usually goes away...other suggestions anybody????

 

[akaatomic]

I've had great luck with garlic. Pick up a bottle of Kent's liquid garlic from the pet store and soak their food in it. You can also add it directly to the tank (the bottle gives instructions). The theory behind garlic is that it help fish grow a slime coating. During the normal ich cycle, it drops off of your fish, incubates and reattaches to the fish in greater quantity. The garlic inhibits the reattachment. At least that's the theory. Garlic is reef safe, so you can give it a shot with no harm.

 

[Grins]

Dealing with ich now myself and personally I opted for Coppersafe in a hospital tank and leaving my main tank fallow.

 

[HPD Turbo]

I use Azoo Anti White Spot in the half of the recomended dose and it went away in 1 week. Is reef safe as the botle saids.
Is important that your fish eats a lot, especially Nori or Spirulina that helps grow their inmune system.
Regular water changes may help.

Hope the hippo do fine.

 

[kau_cinta_ku]

if it truely is ich then you will want to setup a seperate tank to put "all" your fish into and your best bet would be to use the hypo treatment as copper teatments arn't very safe with tangs. and leave the main tank fishless for a min. of 6 weeks. don't just treat the fish showing signs of ich treat them all or you will have the same prob. later

 

[kevin2000]

If the fish has ich ... and if the fish is in the Show Tank .. then your show tanks infected and if you want an ich free show tank you will now need to QT and treat all of your fish leaving the show tank without fish for approximately 5 weeks.

There is no consistently effective method of treating ich within a show tank .. people have been looking for one forever and its just doesn't exist.

Garlic has no direct impact on ich .. may stimulate appetite and have a positive impact on the immune system but thats about it.

Cleaner wrasses, cleaner shrimp, and even std UV lights won't eliminate ich.

The two consistent and effective methods for eliminating ich are hyposalinity and copper - neither is appropriate for a show tank.

Here's a link discussing ich

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

Within the treatment section in the above link you will see separate sections on how to setup a QT, how to use hyposalinity, and how to use copper (cupramine).

Hope this helps.

 

[dcombs44]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10278044#post10278044 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by akaatomic
I've had great luck with garlic. Pick up a bottle of Kent's liquid garlic from the pet store and soak their food in it. You can also add it directly to the tank (the bottle gives instructions). The theory behind garlic is that it help fish grow a slime coating. During the normal ich cycle, it drops off of your fish, incubates and reattaches to the fish in greater quantity. The garlic inhibits the reattachment. At least that's the theory. Garlic is reef safe, so you can give it a shot with no harm.

IME the only thing that garlic does is to encourage the fish to eat, inturn strengthening the fish's ability to fight off the parasite. The garlic itself has no ability to grow slime coating. Most people will say to use hyposalinity to treat ich. Some will say to use copper, but others say that it may not affect ich like other inverts.

 

[ahullsb]

I STRONGLY advise you to run hypo. If I ever buy a tang again I will run hypo before it ever hits my display tank. FYI I bought a established tank with a blue tang. The owners said it had previously had ich but that they dosed copper to cure it. A month after having my tank the ich was back. You have a few choices. Either try the "magic" garlic treatment which might make it appear that the ich is gone, dose copper in a quarantine tank, (which didn't work for me as I said), or hyposalinity. I personally think copper is a harsh way to do it and you have to be quite exact. If you do hypo salinity properly it shouldn't be that stressful, and in most cases it will rid you of ich in the future. If you want to do it this way feel free to message me and I will detail how to do it, and provide some links. I just don't want to write out a long description here if you don't really want to do it that way!

 

[ahullsb]

Oh I forgot one important thing. If you do some sort of temporary fix like garlic, ich can come back at any time. It is sort of an accident waiting to happen, and with a tang, I would get used to it coming back. Little things such as adding rock, or reaquascaping was enough for my tang to show symptoms again. I would get it over with now, it really sucks having it come back and then having to pull your tank apart trying to get all you fish out. At least this way your tank is fallow, and your fish are being treated. You can get the tank exactly the way you want it and then add your fish in 6 weeks with little chance of ich reappearing.