i screwed up, HELP

hdevils

New member
i bought a cleaner wrasse and a midas blenny on sat 3.31. i made the stupid mistake i swore i would never do. i added them both to the display tank. last night 4.3 i noticed the bleeny diving down on the sand bed. took a closer look and see a few white spots on my Flame's back fin and a couple on the bleeny. i have a 20g qt ready to go. (other fish are 2chromies 5 fish total)

should i add those two fish to the qt? add all fish to the qt? treat the display with reef safe med? i hope i can catch this early enough. should i use garlic? any advice will help.

THANK YOU!!
 
All of those fish in a 20g is a lot. Any way you can set up another qt? It would be best if you could remove all fish and leave the display tank w/o fish for 6 weeks (this will eliminate all ich from your tank by breaking their life cycle).

IMO reef safe meds are not very effective. Most will agree that if you truly want to eliminate ich, you need to use hyposalinity or copper. You can do either of these treatments in your main tank if it is fish only w/o live rock. However, both of these treatments will kill invertebrates and must not be used in a reef tank.

I recommend hyposalinity, but you should have a refractometer to do it. Go to the fish disease treatment forum to read up on it.
 
no i cant have 3 tanks running. i dont even know how im going to get the fish out. this is not good

im so mad at myself
 
I don't know then. You can use the reef safe meds, feed with garlic and hope for the best, but the ich will always be present in your tank. And when the fish get stressed, there will be an outbreak again.

I also learned this lesson the hard way. I know it's exciting to get a new fish, and you just want to put it in right way so you can see it in your tank. But it is soooo not worth losing everything in your tank.

You can try putting them all in the 20 and maybe moving your skimmer to the qt also. You will have to do water changes religiously, and monitor your parameters very closely. Provide plenty of places to hide, and keep them as stress free as possible. I think this is a better option than the meds and garlic.

A little random info... In general cleaner wrasses make very poor additions to aquariums and usually die within weeks in captivity (although in your case it may actually help and clean the other animals). Many are being collected and sold in the aquarium trade, and die soon after capture. This not only kills the animal, but it robs the natural reef of a key component. I'm not trying to get preachy because I know almost everyone has seen a cool animal and wanted to get it immediately, but you (and everyone) should try to do a little research about animals before you purchase them.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9645986#post9645986 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rustybucket145
Soak your food in garlic. Feed it to your fish. The ick will be off the fish in a few days.

Seriously? That's it? Just soak the food in garlic and feed your fish and good bye ick? How long would you need to continue this treatment for it to be effective?
 
I've been thru 2 ick outbreaks. i used Kent Marine RX-P to treat the ick, and added garlic to the food everyday while treating. After the outbreak is done, use garlic every few days or Selcon. I would also recommend Marine C (vitamin C by kent).
 
I have used the fish pellets named Spectra A+ ever since I had an outbreak of ick from a flame angel I added to my tank last summer. The Spectra A+ (make sure its the A plus) has garlic in it and I use it as the staple for all my critters now. No Ick outbreaks since. Seachem also makes a product called garlic gaurd that I have heard good things about. Worst comes to worst, crush up a clove of garlic and feed it directly to your fish. They might get bad breath for a while, but its just garlic, and is edible. The idea is that garlic improves the immune system somehow and also stimulates the desire to feed in reluctant animals. Hope this helps
 
From all the research I've gathered on ich, the only reliable way to get rid of ich is hyposalinity. I just had to do it in January when the same thing happened again. Garlic isn't going to fix anything. It might temporarily but it is an accident waiting to happen. Buy a rubbermaid garbage can if you don't want to spend a lot of money. I would read A LOT about people's experience with supposed "reef safe" chemicals. I have read some nightmare stories. Just my 2 cents though.
 
I just read that and need to clarify. The garlic isn't an accident waiting to happen, but ich will still be there and someday it will return. Once this happened to me I only wanted to deal with it for good.
 
It is true that Ich will alway be there if you do not pull all fish out for six to eight weeks. But in a reef tank it is hard to do unless you tear it down and get the fish out. The key to garlic and vitamins is that it enhances the imune system of our loved animals. I ch will not attach healthy fish. It is the week and stressed fish that fet affected. I used Garlix Extreme by Kent but you could make your own with store bought garlic.
 
When you quarantee a possible itch problem, do you quarantee only the fish with it, or all of them? What about my BTA, hermit crabs and snails? Do they all need to be moved to a Quarantee tank for hyposalinity?

Also are you feeding them straight garlic?
 
Last edited:
You CANNOT do hyposalinity on any invertebrate (BTA, hermit crabs, snails, shrimp, etc) it will kill them. Plus, only fish are hosts for the ich parasite. If you want to be rid of ich for good, you must quarantine all fish in the tank, do hyposalinity, and leave the main tank fishless for at least six weeks.

IMO people spend a lot of time, energy, and money on buying additives to fight ich. I don't know about them, but I would rather be rid of it forever than have to buy chemicals to fight it constantly.

If you still have questions about the "reef safe" meds, hyposalinity, or copper, I recommend you check out the fish disease treatment forum. There you will find everything you need to help your fish.
 
I think I have done the same thing hddevils did with the same fish. I added my angel a week ago, and have found this morning that she has cloudy eyes. That is the only sideaffects so far. She doesnt swim funny, no scratching and no spots. She has only one cloudy eye so far. My clowns seem ok. What about my anemone?
 
The idea behind hyposalinity is that when you lower salinity to 1.009, your fish will survive but the ich parasite will not. After a few weeks they will drop off the fish, and since your salinity is 1.009, they will all perish. At the same time, your display tank has no fish in it to host the ich parasite, so during that time, any ich in your tank will die off as well. After going through this once it really isn't as difficult as I thought it would be.
 
but ich will still be there and someday it will return
Actually many researchers feel that ich is in MANY reef and fish tanks. The parasite only gets a leg up when the fish are not healthy and water quality is poor.

Yes, when you soak your food with garlic the white spots (from my experience) will dissapear within a couple of days. You can use pretty much any type of garlic but the easiest seems to be the herbal garlic supplements in gelcaps. Just put frozen cubes in a dry cup, add a pill, let it thaw(the food) and it will dissolve the geltab. I'd let it soak for at least 5 min, the more the better. Then just add aquarium water and squirt the food in the tank.

I'd do the garlic treatment everyday until there are no signs of ich on the fish (white spots) then step it back to every other day and eventually back to once a week just for safe measure.

The garlic pills are about $4/bottle so it is a really cheap and SAFE way to treat ich.

I know a couple of people who battled ich off and on for years. Went through q-tine only to have the ich return. They started using garlic and have never looked back. Fish are as healthy as ever.

You should really consider your water quality. You might want to step up your skimming and/or make sure your skimmer is working properly. The skimmer won't remove ich but clean water is a key to keeping ich off your fish (ie, your fish will be too healthy for the ich).
 
Back
Top