Ich outbreak in new tank

[steallife904]

I wasn't thinking much into it because I have went through ich years ago. Back when I had it before I made sure to feed good frozen food soaked with vitamin C and garlic. All signs on fish went away within a couple of weeks and never saw it again. That was 2 or more years ago and in old tank.

So a month ago I upgraded to a bigger tank and recently added a few more fish (couple wrasses and a naso tang). Noticed about 3 days ago my blue tang had the spots. Over next couple days it seems every fish in my tank have them and are scratching other that the hippo tang? So I am feeding the good food with garlic and vitamin C. Anything else I should try or just do what I am and hope for the best.

I do not have a quarantine tank and no where to put one so its not an option, its also a reef tank stocked with coral. Nothing I can really do about removing them.

 

[mattcoug]

Sounds like your plan is to wait it out and see what dies. There are no reef-safe ich cures - the best you can hope for without getting your fish out, is to lower stress and feed well and hope the fish are strong enough to defend themselves.

 

[steallife904]

its really all I can do, don't have a Qt tank or anywhere to put them and I think it would be almost impossible to get them out without breaking the tank down (tank is a 150gal). I hope they can make it. They all eat no problem so hope they are strong enough to fight it off. I went through it long ago just not as many fish back then. Just looking for advise or anyone with similar problem that beat it.

 

[skp]

My tanks lived for years with Ich that just seemed to go away. At most fish only had 3-4 dots on them and they seemed to fight it off. I thought relatively healthy fish never die from Ich. I found that this is not always the case.

It can get out of hand and kill everything very quickly. It might have to do with the instability of a new tank or it might have to do with just having one fish that can't fight it as well causing the Ich population to explode by taking advantage of the one weaker fish.

Whichever it is, if you don't eradicate it from your tank, you're taking a gamble. With that said, I totally understand if that gamble is worth it for some. If I were thinking of just keeping fish that were less susceptible to Ich then I would leave it, do a lot of water changes, have a lot of mechanical filtration and feed well. If I were thinking of keeping tangs, I would think of the effort required to eradicate the Ich as a 'cost' of the rewards of keeping tangs.

 

[mattcoug]

You can try feeding ich shield pellets from nls- it will not clean your tank but it is possible that an individual fish might get enough CP in their body to fight ich. This is risky because it also suppresses the immune system, so the fish's immune system goes away. Also, any coral that eats the food will die.