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

[yellowtruck75]

So I just lost my flame angel and small yellow tang to ICH. I noticed it on the flame and the next day after work they were dead. Now that they are dead and removed will the ICH still live on in tank? This is a reef tank and I don't have the option rip it a apart. What are my options to protect future fish and my 2 percs & pixie hawk that are still living with no signs of disease?

 

[Rosscopeco]

That's a pretty quick turn around for ich. One day doesn't seem long enough to cause death.
Velvet on the other hand will act that quickly.
Read through the article linked at the start of this thread for solid info on how to handle ich. Most of the otheir info in this thread is not worth a pinch.

My experience with ich has been text book and everything in that first article rings true. Unfortunately, ich found a gap in my original quarantine procedures and all hell broke loose after the tank was well established.
If your tank isn't too old it's worth doing everything in your power to get those fish out and start a new quarantine regime. You'll be happier in the long term if you can keep ich out of the tank all together.
On the other hand, if you're like me and can't get all the fish out without killing them in the process, you will just have to cross your fingers and hope for the best.
I have a four year old reef that was heavily stocked with fish and corals which made it impossible to get all the fish out of. After losing half my fish stock over a week to velvet and ich I tried everything to get the fish out for treatment. Even with all the water removed and the rock work high and dry some fish were inside the rock itself. Short of killing them i eventually gave up.
Given the choice I'd always opt for treatment and quarrantine.

A year later and the tank is healthy with no more outbreaks or stock losses. I consider myself lucky to have got off so lightly.

 

[Mark SF]

Any thoughts?

My two damsel fish were showing definite signs of Ich during the initial cycle of the tank. After about 36 hours of showing signs of the parasite it has completely disappeared...I wouldn't think that the Ich would have just gone that quickly, especially with the fish as stressed as they are with the water quality as poor as it is. I have been doing 2G water changes on my 14G bio cube every night to help keep up with the poor water quality.

Ammonia .25
Nitrite (off the chart) > 5.0 (Could be misreading awful API test kit...)
Nitrate 20PPM

 

[Rosscopeco]

Any thoughts?

My two damsel fish were showing definite signs of Ich during the initial cycle of the tank. After about 36 hours of showing signs of the parasite it has completely disappeared...I wouldn't think that the Ich would have just gone that quickly, especially with the fish as stressed as they are with the water quality as poor as it is. I have been doing 2G water changes on my 14G bio cube every night to help keep up with the poor water quality.

Ammonia .25
Nitrite (off the chart) > 5.0 (Could be misreading awful API test kit...)
Nitrate 20PPM

I feel sorry for the poor damsels. Why do you need to make them suffer while your tank cycles?
Read the article link at the beginning of this thread for the answer to why the ich appears to have vanished.

 

[drdavethedude]

Wow even after 8 months? It hasnt shown a sign of ich in def 8 months now i would of thought if he was still carrying it it would of came back by now i always keep a close eye on him but never once seen any signs of ich.

Hes a beast though i mean all my other fish got to fight for food when i feed cause he goes in a frenzy the minute i walk near the tank and scoops up food like a dyson vaccum cleaner.

There are studies that claim that after 10 months or so in an aquarium, as long as no new fish have been introduced, the parasite loses virulence, and infections become unlikely. So, you might be OK.

 

[mywifeispist]

i went through this for months

i went through this for months

i went through this for months as my kole tang, blue tang, flame angel, and several others had ich pretty bad...... i kept doing water changes every week of about 30 gallons to my 125 gallon tank and it seemed to slow it down but it was still pretty bad. I decided it wouldnt hurt to try a UV sterilizer and some skunk shrimp so i did, i put in 3 skunk shrimp and a 36w turbo twist sterilizer and the problem quickly vanished, its been two months now with no sign of any ich and im back to once a month water changes and my tank looks amazing.

 

[Clownin Aroun]

Don't you stress the fish by moving him from the QT to the DT thus starting the whole process all over again?!?

 

[hambone_smith]

Don't you stress the fish by moving him from the QT to the DT thus starting the whole process all over again?!?

After keeping freshwater and saltwater fish for awhile I just accept the fact that Ich will enter my tank one way or another. Keeping unstressed fish that will fight off the parasite is the trick. I agree that the more you move/try to medicate the fish the harder it is on them. They say that if you keep fish out of your DT for 1 month to 6 weeks the Ich parasite will die off. The problem is that corals and invertebrates can carry Ich. Therefore anytime you purchase a coral you could be introducing Ich to your DT. And you certainly can't treat your newest coral purchase with copper in your QT. Its a vicious cycle.

 

[andyrm66]

After keeping freshwater and saltwater fish for awhile I just accept the fact that Ich will enter my tank one way or another. Keeping unstressed fish that will fight off the parasite is the trick. I agree that the more you move/try to medicate the fish the harder it is on them. They say that if you keep fish out of your DT for 1 month to 6 weeks the Ich parasite will die off. The problem is that corals and invertebrates can carry Ich. Therefore anytime you purchase a coral you could be introducing Ich to your DT. And you certainly can't treat your newest coral purchase with copper in your QT. Its a vicious cycle.

But you can QT any non fish item for 10 weeks before introducing to DT. This solves that problem. It cant live on corals or inverts.

 

[salty joe]

Does anyone know the ideal temp for ich to reproduce? I ask because 10 weeks fallow at the ideal ich temp (fastest ich reproduction) would be more meaningful. I'd think it's the high range of reef safe temp, but IDK.

 

[electronaught]

Having recently dealt with ich in my DT, I am now a firm believer in a few things:

- put the new critters into a QT unless they are the kind which cannot carry ich in any fashion (my cleaner shrimp went straight into the DT)
- get a serious parasite destruction crew (I just picked up a couple ORA cleaner gobies - cool little fish and completely useful)
- pay attention and learn everything you can from RC and your LFS

Only one fish survived the ich in my DT, and that's the one (powder brown tang) who contracted it first. That fish survived because I quickly put it into a QT and lowered the salinity over the course of a few days to just above brackish levels.

Once it's in there, the ich is in there. While it needs a fish host to survive through all the stages of its life cycle, it also takes a long time fallow to truly remove it.
Rather than believe that 10 week fallow cycle actually killed off every last bit of those little suckers, I went with the method of adding some critters who actively kill it off.

IMO, it's all part of balancing the tank out nicely. There are lots of cool creatures that work well together to help keep our reefs functioning well. Learn about them, employ them and build a happy reef that doesn't keep you up at night wondering what's going to go wrong next.

 

[tekjunkie28]

Having recently dealt with ich in my DT, I am now a firm believer in a few things:

- put the new critters into a QT unless they are the kind which cannot carry ich in any fashion (my cleaner shrimp went straight into the DT)
- get a serious parasite destruction crew (I just picked up a couple ORA cleaner gobies - cool little fish and completely useful)
- pay attention and learn everything you can from RC and your LFS

I agree with everything but listening to your LFS. I would never listen yo them. Ever. I have dealt with too many dumb a

 

[danil]

I think this tread should be locked after initial post. Now it's full of silly posts and becoming less and less valuable for new people. Please read initial posts. All you need to know is there and stop reading further .
For my young reef fellow I can say there are two schools of treating ich/velvet etc. First school treats symptoms. It's like taking Tylenol when you sick. Second one is actually treating illness either it's Marine Ich, Velvet or something else. Many people posting in this thread belong to first school and it's NOT what this tread about. If you want to share your success of treating symptoms of 'some' illness with shrimp, garlic, wrasses, reef safe bottles from Petco, dancing around you tank and so on please do but not in this thread. If you want to threat (and kill) Marin Ich or Velvet you have to do it as it's posted at the start of this thread.
My preferences are below in order of effectiveness.
1. Copper. Go for this option. Get cupramine few test kits (one may not be enough) and start treatment. Very high success rate (~90%)
2. Chloroquine phosphate. Expensive, hard to get and has no clear direction how much for how long it has to be used. Proven to work in some cases though. I have above average success rate.(~70-80%)
3. Hyposalinity. Lowest success rate. Like 50x50%
4. Tank transfer. Never worked for me as a process.

You might ask why not 100% well success rate here is combination of treatment and survivability of livestock. With copper treatment I've lost few fish. Plus due to wrong diagnostic or wrong dosage of med it's possible for treatment to be ineffective. What's why we have to keep fish in QT after treatment for further observation.

 

[Clownfish558]

I agree 100 %

 

[FlyPenFly]

Treating ich is like treating herpes. Many fish already just carry the parasite and it exhibits when they're stressed. Nobody seems to have done a rigorous peer evaluated study on the treatment of marine ich in a captive closed cycle environment yet they treat anecdotal advice loosely based on science as scientific fact.

In my experience, you can lessen the symptoms with copper, hypo, dips but it's just not going away and the more you try to do drastic "treatments" the more you'll lose fish. I've killed fish following the advice on the linked thread. By feeding live food and maintaing a stress free environment, I'm 5 for 5 in curing it. I've also found using powerful UV for treatment can be a factor in helping your fish's immune system fight off fewer parasites in the water column.

Understock your tank, keep pristine water, feed healthy food, and don't stress out your fish is the best cure. As soon as stress factors come back, you'll have an outbreak.

 

[josh26757]

ICH is not easily identified. Most deaths in the treatment process are from incorrect diagnosis. If the spots are bigger than a grain of table salt you are most likely dealing with a fungus.

I learned this lesson first hand. If you are treating and do not see a result in 7 days rest assure the problem was misdiagnosed.

 

[toky916]

Well I had a ich on my powder blue first time in half a year all other fish looked fine . So I used garlic/plus kent food supplements, brine,live brine, PE Miyses,nori ect...

He was like a pig ate all day fought it for 4 weeks and ate till the day he passed away I took a nap and woke up with him in the rock
So why he pass away I don't know have flame and six line wrass that where fairly new to the tank. Maybe the six line ?
But he's the only one that passed away now I'm just keeping an eye on everyone else.
I was going to qt him but people said more stress leave in tank and just feed.

 

[goldy26]

I treated my 60 gallon reef tank with KickICH and followed their 15 cycle treatment plan. It's been roughly a month and a half and I don't have any signs. After the cycle I vacuumed my sand bed to try and suck up any dormant left overs. Still early, but so far the results are promising.

 

[Dingo44]

I had an ICH outbreak in my 40g about 2 years ago, all 4 fish were heavily infected from 2 chromis I had just bought and didn't quarantine. This was my second ICH episode in the hobby and the first claimed everyone in the tank from poor advice by an lfs. This time around I read these articles posted at the start of the thread by Snorvich. I put all my fish in a hospital tank and did a hyposalinity treatment for the prescribed time. I left the tank fallow for the recommended time to allow the ICH to starve to death.

2 years later, not a speck to be seen.

My point, don't believe the hype, follow what was laid out in detail in those articles.

And quarantine!!

 

[JohnniG]

good read