I have Ick in a large tank.... what to do?

F

frontman21

New member
I just looked at my fish this morning to realize that there was a massive ick outbreak :mad:

Well here is my stocking list for my FOWLR
1- zebra eal
1- dog face puffer
1- midnight puffer
1- harliquen tusk (sp)
1- red coris wrasse
2- green chromis

Well I have had ick in my freshwater tank before and I just raised the temp and added alot of sea salt. I just read the article on ick but I am still unsure on what I should do to treat my tank? or do I need to pull all the fish out? I really do not want to do this because my tank is a 210 gallon with 250# of live rock and this task will be a major issue but at the same time I do not want to lose any fish...

Please help me!!

Brian
 
I use Copper Power and it works great. But you will never be able to get it out of the tank. Thus, if you ever want to change the style of tank you will have to consider the copper in the tank. A freshwater bath helps a little but is a moajor pain in the booty. Hypo is a great choice but takes a long time in a larger tank. I ran into the same problem when I first set up my 210. But I said screw it and added it into my tank, my thoughts were I am not going to lose anything in the tank and I didnt. In the long run that tank will become a QT tank or hold my 2 triggers when I start my 720. Also, with the copper power you will still be able to keep hermits but not shrimp or snails, even though you cant really do that now. Good luck with all -D-
 
Well, I am not sure. My sister used it with her porc, but dog faces are really different. I have a christmas wrasse and he is doing great in my tank. Copper level is only .25, which is very low. I would think that it would be okay for the wrasse. The dog face I am not so sure. I will make a call and find out- give me a couple.-D-
 
Okay here goes, The brand Copper Power states that it is 60% less toxic than other copper treatments and is suppose to be safe for scaleless fish. But there is always that chance. There is light at the other end.... Herbal Ich Attack...is the answer. All natural safe for scaleless fish. Onyl down side is you will need 5 bottles to treat your tank. One each day for five days costing a mere $30. Safe for everyone. I would look online for more info cause its your tank with your babies and its always better to be safe than sorry and ****ed.
When I treated my 210 with copper power my eels were not affected. It could have been pure luck or the eels are just that healthy. I think that they are very healthy and I am unlucky when it comes to health issues. -D-
 
That is the stuff and it is suppose to be all natural and safe for reef tanks and scaleless fish. I have never used this stuff but it was recommended by my LFS, who I have placed all my tanks within their hands. Using copper with live rock is up to the tank owner. I think the only reason why it is said not to use it with live rock is because it leaches into the rock and is impossible to get it out.(that is the problem I have...well its not really a problem but just an obstacle.) Call your LFS and ask them what they would recommend.-D-
 
I had the same problem in my 180 fowlr. I did not have a QT running that could handle all my fish and I did not think I would have much success keeping them alive in an uncycled qt even if I could set one up that was big enough.

So... I ended up pulling out all my live rock and putting it in rubbermaid containers with a heater and powerhead. I left the sand in the tank to keep some bio filter in place. I tried hyposalinity first - did not work (I now think my refractometer calibration was off and I did not go low enough). Then I did coppersafe which was hard to keep at the correct dose because the sand was adsorbing it. The copper killed the ick.

So after doing several water changes and running cuprisorb and poly filter I replaced the sand (yes it was expensive) and put the live rock back in.

Not a ideal solution but I did keep all my fish alive and since I do not keep corals in the tank it should be OK. I have snails and cleanup crew in QT now waiting to be re-introduced. A few snails and crabs I kept with my live rock in the rubber maid containers are back in the tank and also OK. I did lose a lot of snails in the containers with the live rock since they fell over and I could not see them to help.

Kind of a bass ackwards way of doing it but the size of the tank created problems in doing it the correct way (remove and treat the fish in QT).

B.
 
Well that actually sounds like it might be my best bet to lower the salinity but I didnt put in live sand so do you think that I could get away with not having any live rock the tank has been set up for only about 4 months?
 
Do you have a skimmer? How deep is the sand? I would say yes 4 months is long enough to get bacteria growing in the sand.

If you are going to try hyposalinity (good choice I think) you could always leave in a few pieces of base rock in if you are really concerned. When you add back your other rock later it will eventually become live again. Might need to do this since you have puffers (high bio load).

Obviously you will want to monitor the parameters like amonia, nitrite and nitrate to some degree and also keep an eye on ph since hypo makes it hard to maintain. I had to add some buffer occasionally to keep my alkalynity and ph where I wanted. Water changes can always be of assistance in this regard as well.

EDIT: I also added some PVC pipe elbows and other pieces of large size to give the fish someplace to hide and help keep the stress down.

Good luck with whatever you try.

My puffer has no immunity to ick at all and he did not care much for the copper (lost some appetite) but he came through ok. Since puffers have no scales I think ick is a hard deal for them. My other fish in the tank (including tangs) were not hit with it or only showed a spot or two. Oh well, it is better to have an ick free tank. Now the challenge is keeping it ick free.
 
Do not put copper in your main tank. This is a major no no. If you can set up a QT you may use copper but be careful with the puffer. I have used copper with my DFP before and he did fine, but i monitored it daily. I kept it 1ppm for the first week and gradually brought it down to .25 for the last week. Total of a month. He did well and it did kill all the ick. If you have to treat in your main tank, hypo is the way to go. You will have some die off in your LR and all inverts will die...maybe not hermits, but the ick will go away. Feed with garlic extract every other day to keep there immune system high. Your live rock will recover and the bacteria will live through the hypo. I would suggest this in a large tank. After the hypo, and all is well, get a cleaner shrimp and keep in the tank. Introduce him at night when there sleeping. They may go at him until they realize he is for there own good. Hope this helps.
 
Never treat your display tank!

It will never be rid of copper, which is a poison, and even fish cannot tolerate it longterm without impact on their health.

Withdraw all fish to qt, treat with hypo or copper, not both, and leave main tank without fish for 8 weeks.
 
I just went through this, only with a 26g tank.

Ich is a nasty parasite, it has something like a 20-30 day life cycle. It feeds on the fish for a while, then falls off and sits in the sand or on the bottom, and grows baby parasites for a while, then will release the baby parasites to attack fish again. If there are no fish in the tank then the parasites will die off.

After all of my reading the only way to kill all the parasites on your fish and in your main display tank is to setup a Quarantine (QT) or Hospital (HT) Tank.

I setup a HT and dosed my fish with copper sulphate.

Things I read about and learned

1.) Don't put copper in the main tank, I didn't do this, but everyone says this is bad

2.) Setup a quarantine tank, move all your fish to it, get the temperature and salinity as close to main tank as possible. Only put PVC parts in the tank so the fish have something to hide in

3.) Don't put any sand or rock or anything else in the tank as the copper you are dosing might be absorbed and rendered ineffective.

4.) Don't put any Bio-spira or waste money on bacteria producing products in the tank. The copper is going to kill all the bacteria you need to convert ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate. This is going to cause ammonia spikes, so you need to do daily water changes, I've been doing 15-20% daily changes.

5.) Feed the fish a lot

6.) Siphon any left over food and dead parasites off the bottom of the QT tank floor, bare bottom lets you see all the nasty junk you need to spihon

7.) Copper sulphate requires 0.15ppm to be maintained for 14 days to kill Ich, check this twice daily and dose before the lights go out a night, as the parasites release into the water at night and making sure the dose is correct at night kills them quicker.

8.) Leave carbon filters out of the filtering system, it will absorb copper and render useless.

9.) I believe everyone has said after the 14 days of copper, you put in your filtration stuff, like carbon and the rest, add some bio-spira to kick start the good bacteria process, and let your fish chill in the QT tank for another month. If no outbreaks then Ich is probably dead

10.) Let main display tank sit without fish for 4-6 weeks.

Since copper requires daily water changes, it might not be the best for a large QT tank. I've heard from a lot of people that low salinity kills Ich too, probably a lot less work.
 
well the only reason that I am not leaning towards the QT tank is because my fish are large my eel is over 2' alone I have alot of spare tanks but I do not think that I could make water fast enough to do daily water changes, the only place I can set up the qt tanks would be in my sun room and this would mean extreme temp fluxuations, this is why I am leaning towards hypo salinity in the main tank and removing all live rock for 60 days or so to make sure all ick is dead. I think this will be less stress on the fish I just havent ever had succes with removing fish and putting them into qt because once you notice that they are sick they are already stressed out, then you have to catch then (in a 200 gall suffed with rock this isnt easy and stresses all fish out) then you put then in a little tank with no bacteria and throw copper in the tank and bla bla bla I just want to cause the least amount of stress on them
 
Hypo in a fish only tank that you have removed most or all of the rock is fine in my opinion. I think it is your best bet to not lose any fish. Of course if you have a big, cycled qt tank that would be nice.

B.
 
well after reading some articles I removed all my fish and I am going to be doing daily water changes for the next month I have all my fish in two 65 QT tanks except my red coris wrasse that I cannot find even after taking every piece of rock out of my tank...


I am not very happy I really hate doing this to my fish....
 
Good luck.

Did you check any little caves that might be in your rocks? My wrasse sleeps in a hole in one of my rocks.

B.
 
Kick ick worked very well for me. I put it directly into the display since I could not catch all the fish and followed recommended treatment regimen. Ick is gone, fish are fine and no apparent effect on corals or inverts. No doubt a treatment in qt is best but this was not feasible for me.
 
yea I took out every rock and looked very carefully actually he must be deep in a rock probably dead now... but either way it sucks and I wish I was able to get him out no sign of him today either
 
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