I hate ich!

[Bgcoop8784]

Sorry, had to post. Just added a new mushroom to the tank yesterday, today I noticed an aiptasia on the piece of tonga branch it was fragged to, so I inspected it and made sure it was the only one I could find, cut the mushroom off and re-fragged it onto a new piece of rock. While i was being amazed that it instantly opened back up after being placed back into the tank, my wife says "what's that on Tod(her foxface rabbit fish)". Sure enough 2 spots of ich and a few spots where he's been rubbing on the rock. Closer inspection of the other fish we notice a spot on her clown and her clown also. The only thing I can think of, I added a duncan about a month ago with QT like an idiot....From now on nothing is going into my tanks whatsoever without a full QT. Got the spare 29 gallon heating up and salt mixing as I type, too many fish for my 10 gallon qt tank. Now comes the fun part...catching a foxface, royal gramma, striped goby, and clown without draining the tank and removing all the rock...This will be interesting, think I might fab up some kind of fish trap out of acrylic tomorrow, as soon as a net goes in the water, the fish disappear seeing as how I just moved them all last week.

 

[SammyL]

Same thing just happened to me!

My wife's Foxface, etc.

I ended up taking all of the LR out o the tank to catch the fish and placed them in a emergency QR (rubber maid Tote) and just started copper treatment.

Hopefully in 8 weeks everything will be ok.

 

[Calappidae]

A healthy happy fish will not catch ich. Adding a peice of coral wouldn't make that dramatic of an impact in the tank..

ALL systems have some sort of disease or parasite lurking around.. it depends on your fish's immunity system whether or not they're affected by it. QT prevents already stressed out new additions from transfering anything new and heals them of whatever they may have caught in the holding tanks.

What was your water quality? Did you add a new fish to the tank/never quarentined?

I actually have a blue hippo with ich right now that I can't catch.. everybody else is fine tho. Which figures as blue hippos have weaker immune systems in general.

 

[Bgcoop8784]

I moved the whole tank, including fish. The fish were moved into a holding tank in a cooler, then to my sump while I set up the new plumbing, and back to the display, so they went through an acclimation twice in 2 days. I know they were stressed which probably led to them getting ich, but ich had to have came from somewhere, so I'm guessing the coral is the culprit. Water quality is dead on other than my nitrates being almost 5ppm. i don't have exact numbers on my, but I have them in my log book, check all my perams every week. and had my LFS double check for me after I moved the tank just to be sure. The fish were moved into a holding tank in a cooler, then to my sump while I set up the new plumbing, and back to the display, so they went through an acclimation twice in 2 days.

 

[triggreef]

A healthy happy fish will not catch ich. Adding a peice of coral wouldn't make that dramatic of an impact in the tank..

ALL systems have some sort of disease or parasite lurking around.. it depends on your fish's immunity system whether or not they're affected by it. QT prevents already stressed out new additions from transfering anything new and heals them of whatever they may have caught in the holding tanks.

What was your water quality? Did you add a new fish to the tank/never quarentined?

I actually have a blue hippo with ich right now that I can't catch.. everybody else is fine tho. Which figures as blue hippos have weaker immune systems in general.

This is bad information. Even a healthy happy fish can get ich if it is present in the system. If the coral came from an infected tank, ich most certainly can be transported. Not any different than contaminating a tank from using the same equipment.

If you have it on one fish, then every other fish in the system could have it as well, whether or not you see it or signs of it means nothing.

Keep in mind, when fish are killed by ich, its not from the spots you see on the fish. Studies I've read from links right here on RC, show that ich first and foremost infects the gills. The damage it causes in the gills is shown to never fully heal. eventually a fish that is being infected and re infected will die. It may take a while, but a couple years of seemingly good life in a tank is not success on a fish that should live for 20.

 

[Art13]

Looks like you did the same thing i had to do, tear through the entire tank to catch the fish. After that experience i run all my fish through a full treatment before they go into the display. I also let my tank sit for 12 weeks fish less and i believe i did 8 weeks of cupramine for the other fish. All the initial survivors made it.

 

[Bgcoop8784]

yeah, rough part of getting them out begins tonight, I have always qt'd my fish and now i'll start doing it with all my corals also. I've had to deal with Ich several times with my past freshwater experiences. I'm hoping seeing how we caught this early there won't be too much perm. damage to the fish. I watched them close last night and no signs of fast breathing and still eating good. Hopefully there will be minimal losses. the worst part is having to wait another 8 or so weeks before I can add any new fish, lol. Guess I can start getting my clean up crew together and maybe work on a frag tank while I'm waiting.

 

[gone fishin]

This is bad information. Even a healthy happy fish can get ich if it is present in the system. If the coral came from an infected tank, ich most certainly can be transported. Not any different than contaminating a tank from using the same equipment.

If you have it on one fish, then every other fish in the system could have it as well, whether or not you see it or signs of it means nothing.

Keep in mind, when fish are killed by ich, its not from the spots you see on the fish. Studies I've read from links right here on RC, show that ich first and foremost infects the gills. The damage it causes in the gills is shown to never fully heal. eventually a fish that is being infected and re infected will die. It may take a while, but a couple years of seemingly good life in a tank is not success on a fish that should live for 20.

Totally Agree.

 

[Calappidae]

This is bad information. Even a healthy happy fish can get ich if it is present in the system. If the coral came from an infected tank, ich most certainly can be transported. Not any different than contaminating a tank from using the same equipment.

If you have it on one fish, then every other fish in the system could have it as well, whether or not you see it or signs of it means nothing.

Keep in mind, when fish are killed by ich, its not from the spots you see on the fish. Studies I've read from links right here on RC, show that ich first and foremost infects the gills. The damage it causes in the gills is shown to never fully heal. eventually a fish that is being infected and re infected will die. It may take a while, but a couple years of seemingly good life in a tank is not success on a fish that should live for 20.

Ah! my bad I completely forgot about half of this information. Reason why we leave tanks and live rock empty of fish for 8 weeks.

 

[Bgcoop8784]

Went ahead and made a couple things to make this task a little easier..
a crude acrylic fish trap...took about 20 mins to make and worked great on everything except for the goby, and the bottle trick worked for him.

and a set of aluminum steps, still going to add a removable table top and some hangers for buckets later..

all the fish are now in a hospital tank and slowly dropping salinity.

 

[snorvich]

This is bad information. Even a healthy happy fish can get ich if it is present in the system. If the coral came from an infected tank, ich most certainly can be transported. Not any different than contaminating a tank from using the same equipment.

If you have it on one fish, then every other fish in the system could have it as well, whether or not you see it or signs of it means nothing.

Keep in mind, when fish are killed by ich, its not from the spots you see on the fish. Studies I've read from links right here on RC, show that ich first and foremost infects the gills. The damage it causes in the gills is shown to never fully heal. eventually a fish that is being infected and re infected will die. It may take a while, but a couple years of seemingly good life in a tank is not success on a fish that should live for 20.

I agree. Ich is a parasite that eventually overwhelms rather than immediately killing. However, there are parasites that can quickly wipe out all fish in a tank: uronema, brook, velvet, flukes. If you do not want to quarantine, they will eventually find you. If you want examples, come visit us in the fish diseases forum.

 

[SS_Sean]

A healthy happy fish will not catch ich. Adding a peice of coral wouldn't make that dramatic of an impact in the tank..

ALL systems have some sort of disease or parasite lurking around.. it depends on your fish's immunity system whether or not they're affected by it. QT prevents already stressed out new additions from transfering anything new and heals them of whatever they may have caught in the holding tanks.

What was your water quality? Did you add a new fish to the tank/never quarentined?

I actually have a blue hippo with ich right now that I can't catch.. everybody else is fine tho. Which figures as blue hippos have weaker immune systems in general.

False.