"ICH FREE TANK" Quest Begins

Status
Not open for further replies.
Plaz-I have some caulerpa in my refugium and was thinking I needed to increase the lighting a bit more as it doesnt seem to be growing much I have an 18 watt marine tube above the fuge and leave it on 24/7 should I just leave it do you think? Didnt know it was an antibiotic.
Now on my last day treating the chromis with melafix.They all seem a lot healthyer but the brown blotch remains there I wonder if it is the wounds left from the ich.
 
I HAVE BEEN READING ALL THE INFO THAT I CAN ON "ICH". I HAVE A 55 GALLON THAT CONTAIN : 25 LBS LIVEROCK, A CLEANER SHRIMP, 15 HERMIT CRABS, 2 FEATHER DUSTERS, AND 5 SMALLER "REAL SHRIMP" THAT I BROUGHT HOME FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO. PRIOR TO THE HERMITS AND THE SHRIMP, I HAD A COUPLE OF TANGS AND DAMSELS. SOME HOW, ICH KILLED ALL OF THE FISH. SO AFTER READING ALL THE INFO THAT I COULD FROM THIS LOCATION, I LET THE TANK GO "FISHLESS", FOR WHAT I NOW ALMOST 6 WEEKS. I HAVE SEEN NO SIGNS OF ICH NOR HAVE I LOST ANY SHRIMP OR THE OTHER CREEPY CRAWLSER. THE QUESTION THAT I HAVE IS : IS IT OK TO BRING FISH HOME FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO? WE LIKE TO GO TO THE BEACH ...WE USE A CAST NET TO KEEP THE KIDS ENTERTAINED...THIS IS HOW WE HAVE COME UPON SOME REALLY UNIQUE SMALLER FISH THAT YOU DONT FIND IN THE PET STORES. NOT TO MEANTION I HAVE HAD AN ISSUE WITH THE LOCAL PET STORES HAVE ICH AND SPREADING IT TO WHAT I HAVE. I RECENTLY GOT A "LADYFISH" WHICH SOME WOULD OTHERWISE KNOW AS FISH BAIT. ALSO HAVE A COUPLE OF KILLIFISH. PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK. MY OPINION IS THAT THEY ARE A MUCH HARDIER FISH THAT WHAT YOU GET AT THE PETSTORES, AND THEY DONT COST ANYTHING. THANKS FOR ALL THE GREAT KNOWLEDGE YOU GUYS GIVE ON ICH......
 
Quarantine Round 2: Week 1

damn,,it's only been a week..seems like a month already..
fish look good with copper treatment so far..
can't tell if my blenny is eating the seaweed selects or not.
he still looks like he has weight..

Only 7 weeks left....
 
Glad to hear your fish are doing well with the copper treatment so far triggerfish and hope your blenny does ok.My chromis have now had 7 days of treatment with melafix and although they are feeding and swimming around ok the brown fungus is getting worse not better they all have it now and its going into little lumps on some of them.I have done a 50% water change today but I am wondering what to do next.I thought melafix would work and be kinder as its main factor is t tree oil but it hasn't worked.Any suggestions?
My main tank is still ich free thank goodness.
 
tough to say what the heck is going on there mark.
it sounds like a bacterial infection.
you could go with a more heavy duty type of antibiotic like Maracyn Two or Tetracycline
 
I was also going to suggest Maracyn 2. Must be something tough to have affected chromis like that!

The good news is that our ammonia is getting under control. The bad news is that we've moved to the next phase of the cycle- Nitrite (intro horror movie sound effect). Also green slime algae. The bright green kind that's "fun" to look at. Time for a water change. Again. I just really hope we get past Thursday without any new spots. Then I can FINALLY start counting down 6 weeks.
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone I am going to try several water changes with water from my main tank and see if that helps first then give the maracyn a try. Apart from the chromis and this fungus thing everything else is going to plan now and the main tank is ich free still so the 6 weeks of having a fishless main tank has paid off.Now if I could just get rid of my back ach from doing all those water changes I would be a very happy reef keeper :-)
 
Yes, personally - I discovered capsicum back patches because of this ordeal! They burn like the devil, which makes you forget about the other pain:-)!!!
 
Quarantine Round 2: Week 2

well 25% of quarantine is complete. no sign of ich with copper treatment since 7/20 or so.
sure is tough to tell the level with those seachem kits with there ever so slight shading of the same color..
1 more week of copper then will carbon out. i do not think i will do hypo after that,,just monitor for 5 more weeks.

i picked up a mated pair of false percs today for 10 bucks..i have them in my 10g with a BTA. they will stay in there for 6 weeks. awesome fish.

that's it,,the waiting game continues..glad not to hear from anyone regarding their past issues...continued good luck.

take care of that back mark...

btw: updated pic in my gallery of main tank.
 
i have a jawfish that is infected with ich.. my tangs and clowns seem to be ok..since this fish is impossible to catch because he hides in the sand what should i do?
 
Bite the bullet and pull the rock out an do a QT with low salinity or copper.
Or treat with unproven methods and pray.

Still looking good over here. We have had a couple scares but what we have figured out is this. Our fish are sleeping in burrows at night and in the morning we see white spots that are gone by noon. Ich would not behave like that and there are no other indicators of ich, so far so good.
 
ouch! so the ich will not go away like the common cold. some ppl believe this. qt it is then. should i qt the other non infected fish too?
 
fc-pride,

Sir TJay and I took all of our fish out (there were only 4) The newly purchased Kole Tang did a number on us: Infected our 90g then died 9 days later. We tried to save it, but to no avail. :(

But the others lived through the 6 week hyposalinity!! Now we QT *everything.*

We weren't as "lucky" as some who treat ick as the common cold. We found out the hard way, ICK IS NOT like the common cold!

Save your fish and QT them all. Better safe than sorry.

Good luck!

donna in New Orleans
 
yes,,at times small grains of sand will adhere to the slime coat of the fish...often times as the fish moves the sand will move around as well.. it does seem to panic you at first untill you get used to seeing that pattern..

on a side note: by damn 10g QT that has my new clowns and a BTA was at 100 degrees this morning..everything seems to have recovered though..damn falty heater.. close one there...
 
im going to break it down and qt all the fish.
6 weeks is usually ok? for tank to be fallow?
adding corals would disrupt the fallow process since there is no way to know they would be ick free.
did anyone add corals during fallow time to main? if so how'd it go?
 
fc.pride your going to find that one of the hardest things to except when ich is in your tank is that you are going to have to take all your fish out and leave your tank empty for 6 weeks 8 would be best.Belive us there are no short cuts here.Dont add any thing to your tank during this period and in future make sure that everthing goes through QT including corals.Its depressing but it teaches you the importance of using QT for all your livestock.Good luck to you.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top