ICH: how to cure it, id it, understand it.

[Musbtr1pin]

I don't like doing fresh water dips I had the longest ICH problem with my blue hippo tang she got ICH all the time all I did was let it be and her immune system and feeding her really well helped her defeat it she is now 4 years old and I have not seen ICH in my tank for years. You could use mella green it works and is reef safe you could also buy some cleaner shrimp that works to. Anyways I got a quick question I'm getting a baby dwarf lion fish I'd like some impute on that

False! Cleaner Shrimp do absolutely NOTHING for ICH, and anything that is "Reef Safe" for treating ICH, is a waste of your money and time. QUARANTINE QUARANTINE QUARANTINE!!!!!!!!

 

[Rosscopeco]

:headwalls:
Some people will never learn. cleaner shrimp and mella green will do nothing for Ich.

Given that many fish with Ich show no sign at all, I do wonder about the QT process and the way people think it is %100 successful. The Ich is pretty hard to see when on the gills.
If it wasn't for the tell tale fish such as surgeons and blennies, the Ich can go largely unnoticed even after QT.

Peroxide dips are another option that is still being tested. The fish can handle the peroxide although the peroxide is not reefsafe.

 

[Musbtr1pin]

:headwalls:
Some people will never learn. cleaner shrimp and mella green will do nothing for Ich.

Given that many fish with Ich show no sign at all, I do wonder about the QT process and the way people think it is %100 successful. The Ich is pretty hard to see when on the gills.
If it wasn't for the tell tale fish such as surgeons and blennies, the Ich can go largely unnoticed even after QT.

Peroxide dips are another option that is still being tested. The fish can handle the peroxide although the peroxide is not reefsafe.

How long do you QT? I keep all my fish for 8 weeks MINIMUM in a QT. If there are signs of stress, usually the symptoms will occur. I do freshwater dips, as well as HYPO if needed... I had an ICH breakout in my 180... I'll never go through that BS again!!!

 

[Rosscopeco]

No new additions for some time now apart from rock and corals. No QT as I feel the stress from the QT is often a killer.
Please don't take this the wrong way and think I'm advocating a no QT policy. Quarantine works if done correctly. I just feel that it's beyond the means of many aquarists.

The point I'm trying to make is about people thinking that sticking a fish, in a tank by itself, will show signs of ich if infected. How do you know unless you stress the fish out to a point where the fish is covered?
Take a cutting from the gills and view it under a microscope?
"Back to the lab Batman".

 

[Musbtr1pin]

No new additions for some time now apart from rock and corals. No QT as I feel the stress from the QT is often a killer.
Please don't take this the wrong way and think I'm advocating a no QT policy. Quarantine works if done correctly. I just feel that it's beyond the means of many aquarists.

The point I'm trying to make is about people thinking that sticking a fish, in a tank by itself, will show signs of ich if infected. How do you know unless you stress the fish out to a point where the fish is covered?
Take a cutting from the gills and view it under a microscope?
"Back to the lab Batman".

I made the mistake of not QT' my Hippo tang, and the transportation process obviously stressed the hell outta him. Soon after he developed ich. My QT water and my DT water are the same in every way. If theres a problem after transport in the QT, big deal, its isolated. Praying your fish dont get a disease, and if for some reason they do in your tank, how do you treat? it's impossible to treat in your DT tank! you just let your fish go about their business?

 

[snorvich]

False! Cleaner Shrimp do absolutely NOTHING for ICH, and anything that is "Reef Safe" for treating ICH, is a waste of your money and time. QUARANTINE QUARANTINE QUARANTINE!!!!!!!!

Cleaner shrimp or cleaner wrasses provide no value for parasite control (ich or others). Quarantine for sure.

 

[Rosscopeco]

I made the mistake of not QT' my Hippo tang, and the transportation process obviously stressed the hell outta him. Soon after he developed ich. My QT water and my DT water are the same in every way. If theres a problem after transport in the QT, big deal, its isolated. Praying your fish dont get a disease, and if for some reason they do in your tank, how do you treat? it's impossible to treat in your DT tank! you just let your fish go about their business?

To answer your question. Yes, I just let my fish go about their business.

Again, I'm not telling anyone they should not quarantine.

My point is that there are gaps in many of the quarantine procedures.
How do you know that your Hippo tang didn't catch Ich from your DT?
How do you know that any fish is disease free after 8 weeks in quarantine?

 

[marc nichols]

% years ago when I acquired Hot Lips, our powder brown tang, she came with ick. I removed all but one fish from the display and did the quarantine thing for double the required time. In the mean time I tried to catch/kill starve the holdout with no success. So, back went Hot Lips and the other inmates. Back came the ick.

So, did the holistic thing with vitamins, garlic and the best feed plan I could devise. That worked! In 5 years, have not lost a fish or seen any sign of ick.

 

[T Diddy]

A fresh water dip is useful (although not curative) for oodinium. It has no effect on cryptocaryon irritans.

Freshwater dip does nothing but to stress it more. Give it plenty of hiding space. I got an Achilles three weeks ago and it had ich. Less stress fast recovery. Avoid sticking your hands in the tank. I dont quarantine. I just feed them more often. Seems like any new fish I add to the tank it will have ich but the other fish shows no signs of ich. Cleaner shrimp also helps.

A fresh water dip most certainly does help to keep a fish alive for longer than not doing so. I have done this experiment, and the control group ended up dead...

Dips won't cure the disease, but it does treat the symptoms.

 

[snorvich]

A fresh water dip most certainly does help to keep a fish alive for longer than not doing so. .

Sorry, that simply is not true. There is a difference in how deep the parasites embed with cryptocaryon irritans compared to oodinium which embeds much shallower.

 

[T Diddy]

Thanks snorvich, but I'm not referring to oodynium. You are correct in that fresh water dips will not affect deeply embedded "ich". Fresh water will cause osmotic shock and lysis of the protists not within the submucosal layer of the host, potentially (and matter of factly) extending the life of the host. As I said, I've done this experiment. :hammer:

 

[battousai622]

Thanks. This article was very helpful.

 

[ryanuuy]

I dont think my display has any ich as well. I had a major outbreak so caught every single fish there and put them all through a 2 month QT and when i added them back, no more problems. I treated the QT with quinine sulfate in conjunction with hypo.

This is my question though! I wanna add a few coral frags to my tank from my friends tank. His tank im sure has ich and by extension im sure his water is carryng the parasite. Right now i have 4 zoa frags that are in my coral QT(fishless), how long do you think i should wait before i add them to the main? Should it really be the whole 1-2 month period?

Thanks!

 

[montrosereef]

spent lots of money on fish medication, none really works. prevention is important. I does garlic extreme when i see my fish flips around the object. It works very well.

 

[3rdimension]

It is mentioned plenty in the link provided above You cannot perform this in a regular reef tank, fish can handle it but many other organisms will die from this low salinity. Read up and be careful.

What if you have a FOWArtificialReef tank like mine? No live rock, all rock, plants, reef are artificial. Then I'd assume it would be ok to do this in a desperate scenario and didn't have a QT setup. I really see the importance of having a QT even with a setup like mine, so you don't have to put other fish through unnecessary stress with hypo-salinity. But if worse came to worse, I believe it would be the better solution than transferring them over to a smaller QT stressing them out even more in smaller confinement. Even if the ich shows predominantly present in just one or two of the fish, and just those fish are placed in the QT, ich will still be thriving in the main tank in the sand and then host on any fish left in the main tank. Therefore, I feel the more humane and easier treatment for my FOWAR tank is to use the hypo-salinity method. It sounds like the best solution especially with a fully stocked tank.

 

[sandcounty]

So here's a stupid question.

What exactly are cleaner shrimp and wrasses cleaning at their stations?

I've been told parasites in addition to stuck food bits, dead flesh, etc.

No?

 

[Paul B]

What exactly are cleaner shrimp and wrasses cleaning at their stations?

Paracites that are much larger than ich and dead skin. Even if a shrimp ate a few paracites, there are tens of thousands of them so the shrimp will be ineffective.
Shrimp and cleaner fish are totally useless at curing ich but if you like cheaner shrimp and fish, then buy them. I have them in my tank because I like them but I know they will do nothing for ich.
You can quarantine or not quarantine, that is up to you but your fish should be in a state of health where they are not bothered by ich.
Fish in a new system wil never be in great health no mater what they look like so in those systems it is better to quarantine. As the system ages, after a few years the fish should be in breeding condition and they will not succumb from ich.
I personally have not had a quarantine or hospital tank in probably 25 years and I have no problems from ich or anything else. I buy fish from all different places and even collect some myself along with seawater, seaweeeds and rocks.
The key is food and stress.
If you don't believe any of that, then quarantine everything. You will need to.

 

[madasmick]

The good old ich/white spot debate
Im by no stretch of the imagination a expert on this but have run in to the ich problem a few times and spent many hours researching how to get rid of it if your tank is like mine catching fish is no easy task and you only get to catch a fish when its very unwell form what iv found through research and talking to many people is that you can never get rid of it completely some fish are more prone then others and yes the old debate that only stressed of unwell fish will get ich or white spot i have noted myself in my tank that it seems only if the power has gone out for some time or something has gone wrong with a pump chiller heater and stressed fish or adding a new fish do i ever get ich i now have a backup generator if the power goes out and whenever i get any new fish i ask the shop to dose with stress guard and i no longer float fish but put them in a bucket and use a air line to siphon tank water to the bucket and then add stress guard also the bucket seems to not stress out a new fish as much as floating the bag in your tank fish don't normally swim at the top of the water as this is where something will eat it and in a bag your new fish can see the tank and other fish and can't get to the tank i have used medic by polyp lab seems the only treatment that is 100% reef safe but needs dosing every 12 hours also UV and ozone will help to control it before it attaches to your fish if anyone out there has more experience or success in treating or getting rid of the ich/white spot let me know

 

[Fat Man]

mad as mick, I can't read that without punctuation. It makes my brain hurt.

 

[returnofsid]

The good old ich/white spot debate
Im by no stretch of the imagination a expert on this but have run in to the ich problem a few times and spent many hours researching how to get rid of it if your tank is like mine catching fish is no easy task and you only get to catch a fish when its very unwell form what iv found through research and talking to many people is that you can never get rid of it completely some fish are more prone then others and yes the old debate that only stressed of unwell fish will get ich or white spot i have noted myself in my tank that it seems only if the power has gone out for some time or something has gone wrong with a pump chiller heater and stressed fish or adding a new fish do i ever get ich i now have a backup generator if the power goes out and whenever i get any new fish i ask the shop to dose with stress guard and i no longer float fish but put them in a bucket and use a air line to siphon tank water to the bucket and then add stress guard also the bucket seems to not stress out a new fish as much as floating the bag in your tank fish don't normally swim at the top of the water as this is where something will eat it and in a bag your new fish can see the tank and other fish and can't get to the tank i have used medic by polyp lab seems the only treatment that is 100% reef safe but needs dosing every 12 hours also UV and ozone will help to control it before it attaches to your fish if anyone out there has more experience or success in treating or getting rid of the ich/white spot let me know

BWAAAAA!?

I know your Shift Key works, because you actually capitalized UV. Your lack of punctuation, sentence structure, etc. makes your post completely unreadable.