"ICH FREE TANK" Quest Begins

[Triggerfish]

Kick Ich Update: Round 1 Dosing

kick Ich - Round 1 Dosing(11oz/Dose)
skimmer turned off, carbon removed
All dosing done in pm
10/28 - 1st dose: 5 fish visibly infected - Angel worst yet
10/30 - 2nd dose: no ich visible
11/1 - 3rd dose: no ich visible
11/2 - 10g sump overflow - added 6oz to make up for loss
11/3 - 4th dose - Major spot outbreak
11/4 - 5th dose

Summary
>Round 2 dosing will begin tonight (16.5oz/dose)
> Visible ich on at least 4 fish for 5 consecutive days
>fish continue to feed steadily
>I suspect it's only going to get worse
>garlic added to all feedings = no visible help
>3 cleaner gobies = do nothing
>future plan - if there is one it's still undecided


Side Notes:
the tank is need of a major water change. i was adding some old salt makup water (bit of an odor) that i think is the cause of some of my acro RTN loss and the snails not doing well at all.
I do not want to dilute the kick ich that is in there now and will wait until round 2 dosing is finished to see if the infection has decreased prior to doing a 30% water change.
However, I've pretty much thrown any hopes of a possible kick ich remedy out the window anyway...

 

[jeffbrig]

How will you bring the SG back up? I find that to be the biggest pain in the whole process.

Water changes using higher sg water.

If my tank is 1.010 and I want to raise it to 1.012, I can do a 50% water change with 1.014 water, or do a 25% water change with 1.018 water. You can play around with the numbers and calculate it any way you want. I actually set up a spreadsheet in Excel to do the calculations for me.

I don't mind doing a series of water changes - it helps the water quality in the QT. I pull aged sw from my display tank, replace with freshly mixed, then dilute the sw with RO/DI to get it to the sg I want for the QT.

 

[Triggerfish]

here is the link for raising the sg.
i believe it is done with removing water, adding the salt then replacing same water.

http://www.saltyzoo.com/SaltyCalcs/SalinityAdjust.php

 

[guitarfish]

I recently started adding salt to a QT tank, by mixing the salt in a bucket and letting it sit overnight. Well, before long my reef chromis looked real bad!! Turns out the salt wasn't completely dissolved, and was causing tissue damage. Lesson learned. From now on I will definitely have to age the water better.

 

[jimmyj7090]

I'm bringing my salinity back up this week. I'm doing it by keeping a 55G barrel with a pump and heater, with the salinity at 1.030. I use this to change 5-10 gal a day out of the QT (about 85G with sump).

Fish are looking great, up to 1.020 today.

 

[guyguerra]

The link Triggerfish gave is perfect for raising salinity. You can decide how much you want to increase salinity per water change based on the gallons of the change and it will tell you the salinity of the mixture required. saltyzoo is a great resource. Takes ALL the guess work away.

As a side note, I put up a picture in my gallery of a group of fish that I am treating with Cupramine for Ich. The reason I mention it is that so many people feel they need to go bare bottom and PVC fittings. I really disagree with this and believe it puts undue stress on the fish. These fish are 2 weeks into treatment, Ich is gone, and the Cupramine levels are staying steady. They probably don't even know they are being treated.

 

[tjay]

I used that calculator for bringing mine out, worked perfectly
earlier in this thread are some tips for using it

 

[guitarfish]

Well, here we go...just started dropping my QT tonight. I have a new coral beauty (got 5 days ago), a firefish goby and a couple reef chromis in it. It's a well-established QT. I'm figuring a minimum of 6 weeks in hypo. Wish me well !

 

[guyguerra]

guitarfish, first I have to say I love the name. If you click on my www redhouse you'll see my wife's website. We are musicians, own a recording studio (Hurricane Recording) and both play guitar.
Have your fish shown signs of Ich or is this a precaution? I looked back in the threads but didn't see anything, maybe I didn't go back far enough.
I have 4 firefish goby's in my QT right now. I also had a Coral Beauty, but it died after 4 days. The firefish (and a Kole Tang) have done great with Cupramine and are not showing anymore signs of Ich. I'll be curious how the hypo does for you and how the Coral Beauty does with it. I couldn't be sure if the treatment affected him, or if he was a dead fish swimming when I bought him. The others look and act great.

 

[DMCQ]

Has anyone ever tried the following to get rid of itch?

Two days ago (Sunday) I bought a Blood Red Fire Shrimp a hermit crab and the next day my two regal tangs, copper band and Heniochus Black and White Butterflyfish (Longfin Bannerfish) all have itch. I was reading up on itch and it needs a water temperature of 24-27 degrees to survive so if I was to increase the temperature to 29-30 would this work and also do water changes cleaning the sand for of all tomonts?

Has any one ever tried this with effect?
I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t have a spare tank so canââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t hospitalise the FISH and I have inverts and coral so canââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t Hypo salinity Treatment

My tank list is

Fish
4 clown fish (2 black 2 false percula)
2 regal tangs
1 copper band butterfly
1 black and white banner fish
1 Royal Gramma Basslet
1 Black Cap Basslet
1 Neon Goby
1 Yellow & Purple Wrasse
1 sleeper blue dot goby
Inverts
3 blue legged hermit crabs
1 red legged hermit crab
1 skunk shrimp
1 blood red fire shrimp
Coral
Leather finger coral
Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m feeding my fish garlic with there food to increase there immune system and hope they can fight it off with out dying.

Any other suggestions would be great

 

[jeffbrig]

As a side note, I put up a picture in my gallery of a group of fish that I am treating with Cupramine for Ich. The reason I mention it is that so many people feel they need to go bare bottom and PVC fittings. I really disagree with this and believe it puts undue stress on the fish.

I think a bare QT is more important if you're using hyposalnity or other non-copper based methods. Having a bare tank and syphoning it regularly will remove most of the ich cysts during their reproductive phase, which increases your chance for success. With copper it's not such an issue, proper coppper therapy is lethal to ich no matter what substrate may be present. Just be sure you don't re-use that rock with inverts in the future, and you will be just fine.

 

[jeffbrig]

I was reading up on itch and it needs a water temperature of 24-27 degrees to survive so if I was to increase the temperature to 29-30 would this work and also do water changes cleaning the sand for of all tomonts?

I haven't seen anything from the experts indicating that a slightly elevated temperature would be a successful treatment option. My understanding is that the life cycle may speed up, so the visible spots may drop off your fish faster, but then they will simply reproduce and come back with a vengeance. Not an effective cure, IMO.

 

[guitarfish]

guyguerra - my two favorite hobbies, guitars & fish, hence the name.

The firefish had a few spots of ich. I decided to get one more fish (the CB) before taking the tank down to hypo. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by doing a few fish together. I had a CB once before and did hypo on her, no issues. I think they key things are avoiding drastic changes, and monitoring things closely.

DMCQ - it's "ich", not "itch". Not being picky, just thought I'd mention that. Ich is short for Ichthyophthirius (type that a few times...) which is actually a freshwater parasite.

The things you suggested may remove some of the parasites from your system, but by and large will not rid you of the problem. As so many threads will attest, people have tried all sorts of things. The only two things that work consistently are copper or hyposalinity, both of which are fairly involved IMO.

 

[bronzeback42]

NO SICK FISH fish treatment

NO SICK FISH fish treatment

I am a fisheries biologist working on the Ohio River and surround tributaries. Since I am involved with sampling fish out of these waters, I put together my own personal voucher fish tank at my apartment. I have a 55 gallon setup which houses numerous types of sunfish, southern red bellied dace, a central stoneroller, raindow darters and crappies. Like most people, when my tanks came under illness I went to the pet shops and asked them what I can do to help combat ich as well as tail rot. So I bought some treatments from the pet shops and tried to see if they would help cure my fish. Most of the ich treatments required me to remove the charcoal filter and they also stained my tank blue. During this time my fish didn't seem to recover very much at all from Ich or tail rot. I was getting frustrated from losing my vouchered fish so I decided to try and see what other types of fish treatments are out there. This is when I came across NO-SICK-FISH fish treatments. After I tried just about everything over the counter, decided to go ahead and go for it. My crappies that were in my tank were the worst off at the beginning. They had Ich all over them and I could tell weren't going to make it much longer. I used the ich and tail rot treatments from No-Sick-Fish as directed. In just 4 days my crappies were almost completely ich free and the tail rot was completely gone. I continued to use the treatment for the required 7 days. That was 2 weeks ago. Everything in my tank now is completely healthy and there is no signs of ich or tail rot. Besides the fact that the treatments cured everything in such quick time, I also liked the fact that I could leave in my filters and didn't have to worry about changing the water afterwards. This product is awesome. My fish are doing great and in my profession, thats all I can ask for.

 

[guitarfish]

RE: NO SICK FISH treatment

You're talking about freshwater fish, right?

 

[plaz]

I'm glad it worked for you - but aren't those all freshwater fish? I think ich is a very different beast in Marine Fish.

 

[Triggerfish]

1 post marketing....

 

[pecan2phat]

Triggerfish,

Be careful with the Kick-Ick and acros. As I had mentioned, I started to lose quite a few acros and almost all my monti caps when I treated my SPS tank back in July. It only took about 8 days into the treatment when I noticed the RTN'ing.

When I get my notes together, I'll update on my use of Kick-Ick, Kick-Ick with Rally and NSF in both the 120g SPS reef tank and also the 90g FOWLR tank.

 

[Triggerfish]

yeah,,i've been keeping an eye on that.. my cap seems ok..although color is a bit dull lately..
i am having trouble with 1 blue tip acro...although it could be from the bad water i was using...
thanks

 

[jeff72081]

No Sick Fish Product

No Sick Fish Product

I am a Fishery Scientist/Biologist that samples Freshwater Fish for a Living. I Have a 55 gallon tank that I like to keep my fish in which has around 35 to 40 fish in it ranging from darters to shiners. I had a bad problem with ick and fungus for a while which i tried to combat with popular treatments from pet stores. I lost all my fish due to ick. i tried nearly everything I could find. I tried elevating water temperatures, changing all the water, disease treatments, and getting all new fish. it seems that it is just difficult to get a correct balance for a heathly fish community. after loosing all my fish twice i decided something had to be done i looked to a company out of Saint paul Minnesota called No Sick Fish. I tried their product and was amazed how well it worked. i did not have to remove my filters and neither did the treatment stain my tank. To my understanding this product was intended for saltwater use but works equally well for freshwater. When i started this treatment my new fish already developed ick and was completely covered with the infamous white crystallike deposits on the scales. After three days i could already tell a huge improvement. My fished looked healthier than ever. to this day I have never lost another fish. I highly recommend you give this product a try.