Ich in 10 ft fish only

[icliao]

The Regal angel in my 1000 GL fish only tank (at least for now) is showing significant marine ich infection after 2 week of purchase.

(I was made to believe the fish has been in holding for over 1 month at the shop.)

The infected fish is behaving normally (not scratching) and eating with gusto.

There are only 9 fish in the tank, mostly fish I had for a few years now.
All fish are eating well and non other are showing any sign of infection.

Since the tank is 10 ft long and 4 ft wide, it was nearly impossible for me to remove the fish.

The ich seemed to be gone away this morning but I fear the devil just enter another stage of its life cycle.

What about hyposalinity treatment? Or should I just leave it be?

 

[julie180]

If the fish is doing better and still eating well, I would take the wait and see approach. Its possible that the store did hold him for a month, probably in lower sg, and the stress of moving into your MASSIVE (insert jealous) tank was enough to cause the ich.

I know some people swear by garlic in the food.

Best of luck,
Julie

 

[icliao]

Any one recommend to go Hypo salinity?

 

[reefinder]

get it out a treat it before it dies and effects the rest of your tank. loosing one is alot better that the whole lot

 

[icliao]

get it out a treat it before it dies and effects the rest of your tank. loosing one is alot better that the whole lot

It's very difficult to get it out due to the size of the tank.

 

[KafudaFish]

get it out a treat it before it dies and effects the rest of your tank. loosing one is alot better that the whole lot

Yes but now the entire tank has ich. If the fish is removed, treated and then re-introduced the same thing could happen.

I guess the quesion is did the fish bring in the ich or was it already in the tank and the stress weakened its system?

 

[sanababit]

I would leave them alone, feed them a lot, as long as they have no stress and they are eating, they will fight the parasite. as for hypo, i would not really recomend it, because it will stress the fish and might kill it or them....

Sana

 

[sneeyatch]

Not too sure about hypo - the lower salinity will wipe out any inverts or cleaners you have and if you don't do the hypo treatment exactly, you can either kill your fish or it may not get rid of the parasite. Additionally, I think a hypo treatment is somewhere around 6 - 8 weeks IIRC.

If you're not willing to remove the fish and wait it out, be prepared for loss. I did that once and lost half my fish. I was able to successfully treat the survivors later on down the road but it was a horrible site to see animals I had for years just sit there and die a slow death due to my own laziness and negligence.

 

[olemiss reb]

I would leave them alone, feed them a lot, as long as they have no stress and they are eating, they will fight the parasite. as for hypo, i would not really recomend it, because it will stress the fish and might kill it or them....

Sana

This.

 

[cdeboard]

All of this ich stuff drives me crazy. People freaking out. "Take it out, its gonna kill everything". I am on the boat that all fish have the possibility to get ich at any time regardless of how long they sat in a QT. I had a yellow tang for a year in my tank, never showed signs of ich. Got him in a stressful situation (tank move) and he got ich without any new additions of fish in a year. I cranked the heat up a little bit and fed them well. He got over it. My blue tang also got ich after purchase, cranked the heat up, fed well, he got over it. I have never had ich kill a fish.

So I agree with olemiss and the above. Feed well, leave them be. Trying to pull them out will just increase the stress and make the issue worse. Also cranking up the heat helps them through the cycle of the visible signs of ich. It speeds it up. Not crazy high just a couple degrees. I turned my tank up to 81 and it ran about 82ish.

 

[ab5ebdxer]

I wonder if the fish being in such a large system it will have such a negative affect on the other fish in the tank? Plenty of studies have shown that ich is found commonly on healthy fish so it is likely that it was already in the tank before. This fish may have a higher load on it or maybe the strees of the move allowed already present ich to infect it. My guess is it has always had it. Do you have cleaner shrimp? Do you have a UV filter on the tank or one you can put in line? It won't help the fish that has it but might help reduce the amount that is found in the water and hopefully not lead to stress on your other fish.

 

[Stuart60611]

Well, as stated above, you have several options.

First, keep water quality up and feed well and hope that the infestation goes subclinical and the fish become asymptomatic. Many people can keep fish alive for many years without the fish suffering too much discomfort this way.

Second, you can remove your fish, treat them with cupramine or hypo in a quarantine tank, and keep the display fallow for at least 8 weeks.

Third, you can treat the display with cupramine (hypo does not work in the display). If you elect this option, realize that there are substantial risks and consequences from doing so. Your bigest problem will be controlling ammonia from the initial fauna die off. How substantial and how long the ammonia spike will be is dependent on how much fauna you have in the system. Removing dying fauna (worms, crabs, algae, etc.) can greatly reduce both the intensity and duration of the ammonia spike. If you are considering this approach, read the below thread, as well as the threads cited therein, carefully and realize the risks and difficulties in doing so. I have successfully treated my fowlr (rock and sand) with cupramine and eliminated ich from the system.


http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1791555&highlight=ich+450

 

[Pallobi]

always QT your fish... dont ever listen to the LFS, most of them lie to get the fish out the door whether people wana believe this or not, its the truth... and treat the fish now, dont wait... if you had stept throat and went without treating, you would eventually die... please be kind to your animals and do the right thing... treat them now, and QT EVERY fish you add from here on out... your fish will love you for it and you will be much more satisfied as their keeper... jus my opinion

 

[reefinder]

its your tank, ride it out and suffer losses, be proactive and remove the fish and maybe get lucky. you stated the fish has "significant marine ich", the fish is most likely going to die, remove him now and try to treat him. If no other fish show signs of ich like you said that is great. but the longer he is in there, the more likely it will be that he will infect the rest of your tank. Everyone has an opinion here and that is great, but i have had multiple large tanks and this has happened to me a couple of times in my past. I tried different ways to treat the tank, hypo, excessive heat, amino acids, garlic, kick ick. the only thing that truly works is manual removal of the sick fish. I am also a big believer in UV sterilizers for maintaining fish health not for curing fish that are already sick.

 

[fishyness]

If it's easier to remove live rock and inverts, Id hypo the DT. Theres no reason you cant, and it does not stress the fish if its done properly. Mine are back in the DT now and Im very happy to be rid of ICH! I took the wait and see approach and lost alot. Its worth it, trust me.

 

[steelhead77]

its your tank, ride it out and suffer losses, be proactive and remove the fish and maybe get lucky. you stated the fish has "significant marine ich", the fish is most likely going to die, remove him now and try to treat him. If no other fish show signs of ich like you said that is great. but the longer he is in there, the more likely it will be that he will infect the rest of your tank.....

ARRGGHHH!! Please stop spreading this kind of stuff! Ich is NOT a death sentence! My Purple Tang had a SEVERE case of ich (see pic) and he survived just fine with no treatment, other than UV, and no other fish came down with it in a 72 gallon tank. Fish can and do survive bouts with ich everyday.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/steelhead77/3526844642/" title="Prince_Ich2 by steelhead77, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3526844642_841f746b6a.jpg" width="500" height="343" alt="Prince_Ich2" /></a>

This was almost two years and two tank upgrades ago, so before people start flaming me and tell me that ich is still in the tank and all it takes is a little stress to infect and kill everything, I call BS. They have been stressed. I am convinced that ich is no longer in my tank OR my fish have immunity, but I have added about nine other fish since this pic (including several Tangs) and NONE have come down with ich. So I lean toward there is no ich in my tank. Keep you water params pristine, and as long as the fish is swimming and eating normal, wait and see what happens.

 

[julie180]

As someone else mentioned. A cleaner shrimp is always a good idea. I know its not proven that they eat ich, but they are all around good to have in a tank.

 

[Pallobi]

cleaner shrimp do not eat ich as far as i know though i do have a couple in my "FOWLR"... and as far as steelhead's post, i understand what you are sayin, but why did that purple tang even have to go through that infestation? its unhumane... put him in a QT for a week or so, and he never even would have had to go through that... but hey, i guess he is still alive so who cares bout treatments right? ... if your fish had ich that bad, as clearly we can see it did, a little short term medication would have helped him a ton, your lucky and you got a very very hardy one... this does not make not qt'ing a good practice...

 

[Pallobi]

and i completely agree with reefinder...

 

[Stuart60611]

A couple of things to keep in mind here.

There is, indeed, some scientific evidense to support the assertion that crypt has limited abilities to reproduce and therefore may die out totally on its own without any intervention. There is a well known study conducted by a scientist named Burgess where he was culturing cryptocaryon for the purpose of deliberately under controlled conditions infecting fish for a series of experiments. What he found was that no matter what he tried his cultures could not be sustained beyond approximately 11 months. In each instance over multiple cultures, all the cultures died out at around that time. Although far from conclusive because clearly these cultures are not the same as natural infections of fish and because it was not the purpose of the experiment, many have extrapolated that the crypt parasite can only multiply for a certain number of generations ending at around 11 months or so. This could explain why crypt may have vanished on its own from a given system.

Also, fish vary in how well they cope with and whether they become immune to crypt. Fish have been proven to have the ability to obtain two types of immunity to crypt. Fish can obtian partial immunity where they can greatly reduce the number of parasites that can survive attached to the fish and complete immunity where the fish can literally resist all of the parasites attaching. Whether completely or partially immune, it has also been proven that fish can only maintain either immunity for a matter of months and that eventually if the parasite is in the system both immunities will fail.

Likewise, some fish tolerate cypt much better than others. So many variables come into play on this front that it is impossible to predict. Generally, after observing many different fish with crypt, it is my view that most fish become symptomatic to varying degrees and show some negative reactions to the parasite, whether it be spoting, rubing or darting, hiding or reduced activity, or reduced appetite. It is my view that living with the parasite in this way cannot be healthy for the fish.