Ich problems

[MrSean]

I am relatively inexperienced in the reef keeping hobby, and yesterday I found one of my fish dead and another quite ill.
I grabbed my book on aquariums and saw that it must be ich. the rest of my fish have it too. sadly the one that was quite ill died last night.
This morning I ran to my lfs and got a quarantine tank set up and have my fish in with some meds.

I read that a UV Sterilizer will kill the waterborne ich parasites.
Now that my fish are away from the rest of my inverts and coral, do i need to now get a sterilizer for my tank to make it safe for fish to return to???

I have a 14g biocube with some leather corals, a zoanthid, hermit crabs, cleaning shrimp, atlantic anemone, and some minor stuff like snails et cetra. are any of those guys in danger of getting ich?

I really appreciate any advice.

 

[Dbroncos]

None of the other things in your tank will get ich. Are you sure it is ICH? It will look like salt on the fish? Also if it is you will need to keep your display tank fish free for a couple of months so the parasite will die off.

 

[MrSean]

I don't know if my fish can stay in the quarantine tank that long. If i got a UV Sterilizer would it clear my display tank sooner?

 

[Sk8r]

Not guaranteed. First, a UV sterilizer must be matched re 1) size of tank 2) flow rate of the pump, to have the desired kill floating past the bulb long enough and slow enough to kill it and 3) it must be placed on the outflow line from the tank and BEFORE any fuge or sump, or it will kill the beneficial life the fuge is trying to deliver to the tank.
And it's not guaranteed to work 100%. It might slow down the infestation. It might make it survivable for the fish. It might not. The bulbs also have safety issues: do not handle while on, keep shielded, etc. And if I can add an experience from my troubles with my use of a unit on my koi pond (for algae, not ich) the darned units keep catching fire. I've had two erupt in sparks and flame this year.
What does work with a better percentage is just getting all fishes out of the tank and into treatment in a barebones qt, finish the treatment course, and leave them out for a total of 8 weeks that the big tank is without fish. The ich starves out and dies off after 8 weeks with no way to reproduce. Corals and inverts are immune to ich, so it's not necessary to remove or treat them. Quarantine all incoming fish and you can avoid this.

 

[MrSean]

One of my fish in the hospital tank just died. and the other two are looking bad!

I am doing everything I can to keep them alive, what else should I do?

I just got home and my two clowns have puffy eyes. the ich seems to be spreading, and one is staying close to the flow in an apparent attempt to breathe.

Please. if there is anything I can do. I will do my best.

I have them in a 3g tank I set up as quickly as i could. I've been doing water changes daily as per the medicine's instruction. I don't know what else to do.

 

[MrSean]

This is what i have going on.

I really love these little guys, they are my fish friends. and I really want to save them!

 

[MrSean]

I am Using "ICH-X: Salt water" by hikari usa

and I cant find on the bottle that it is a copper treatment.
I am really frustrated with my LFS, they set me up with this stuff, and I dont think the guy knew what he was talking about.

f

 

[Floowid]

14 gallons is pretty small to have just the pair of clowns... how many and what types of fish did you have in your 14g bio cube, or were they in a larger aquarium? Also, how long has the tank with ick been set up? How long did you wait after set up before adding fish.

The reason I ask is because there is always a reason fish get ick or other diseases. Overcrowding can be a big issue, as well as stress induced by a new tank.

 

[Yaqngie]

I would set up a 10g for a QT/Hospital tank. More room for your fish and treatment. All you can do at this point is dose and treat. It might be too late, only time will tell. Sorry for you lose but as mentioned before what fish did you lose?

 

[snorvich]

Without additional information, I cannot say if you have ich or velvet. But if you have ich, now is a good time to understand more about it.

The life cycle of this parasite is interesting and is important to understand when evaluating a treatment. The stage where the parasite is attached to a fish is called a trophont. The trophont will spend three to seven days (depending on temperature) feeding on the fish and that is what you see symptomatically when you see "salt sprinkled on the fish". After that, the trophont leaves the fish and becomes what is called a protomont. This protomont travels to the substrate and begins to crawl around for usually two to eight hours, but it could go for as long as eighteen hours after it leaves it's fish host. Once the protomont attaches to a surface, it begins to encyst and is now called a tomont. Division inside the cyst into hundreds of daughter parasites, called tomites, begins shortly thereafter. This noninfectious stage can last anywhere from three to twenty-eight days. During this extended period, the parasite cyst is lying in wait for a host. After this period, the tomites hatch and begin swimming around, looking for a fish host. At this point, they are called theronts, and they must find a host within twenty-four hours or die. They prefer to seek out the skin and gill tissue, then transform into trophonts, and begin the process all over again. What this means is that when your tank is infected, you can actually see symptoms during a very small part of the life cycle, and it why your tank is infected even though your fish are resistant. It will also explain why symptoms come and go.

Many hobbyists are fooled into believing they have cured their fish of the parasites, only to find Ich present again on fish a few weeks later; a reason why following through with a full treatment protocol is so important. Don't make this mistake and be lulled into a false sense of security. The parasites may be in a stage where they are merely regrouping and multiplying for their "next offensive." In the wild, this sort of massive reproductive phase ensures that a few will find a suitable host to continue on the cycle. In the close confines of our aquariums, though, it means comparatively massive infection rates.

This disease is usually associated with several environmental triggers. Changes in water temperature, exposure to high levels of ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate, low pH levels, low dissolved oxygen often associated with overcrowding, are all factors contributing to the onset of the disease. You could lump all of these in a general category of "stress", but it is more appropriate to think of all of these as "unnatural conditions". In fact, Cryptocaryon irritans is rare in the wild even more unlikely to be lethal. Ich is truly a disease that exploits the conditions of captivity to reproduce and easily find suitable hosts.

By the way, trophonts are under the skin so cleaner wrasses and cleaner shrimp have no real effect on reducing this parasite.

Since not all water would pass by whatever UV you have installed, it most likely will not be 100% effective at eliminating this parasite.

Whether it is velvet (oodinium) or ich (cryptocaryon irritans), you must leave your primary tank without fish for 8 weeks to totally eliminate it. However treatment for each of these parasites would be different. If you have oodinium, copper will kill it but not before it kills your fish.

 

[MrSean]

So,
I probably overstocked my tank. and its embarrassing now that it was apparently a real issue.
I had at the peak. 2 clowns, 1 wrasse, 1 royal gramma, 2 cleaner shrimp, and 1 algae blenny.
I thought the shrimp wouldn't produce much crap, and the blenny as an herbivore wouldn't cause much waste. I was probably wrong

inch to gallon estimate was less than 14.

My tank is over a year old.
I waited a few weeks and added one damsel, then after a few months i switched to two clowns. then slowly added others over the year.
The blenny was the last addition (and without QT) and the first fish to die in my tank.

Has anyone had experience with ICH-X?

Do I need to go and get a true copper medication instead?

 

[snorvich]

So,
I probably overstocked my tank. and its embarrassing now that it was apparently a real issue.
I had at the peak. 2 clowns, 1 wrasse, 1 royal gramma, 2 cleaner shrimp, and 1 algae blenny.
I thought the shrimp wouldn't produce much crap, and the blenny as an herbivore wouldn't cause much waste. I was probably wrong

inch to gallon estimate was less than 14.

My tank is over a year old.
I waited a few weeks and added one damsel, then after a few months i switched to two clowns. then slowly added others over the year.
The blenny was the last addition (and without QT) and the first fish to die in my tank.

Has anyone had experience with ICH-X?

Do I need to go and get a true copper medication instead?

Inch to gallon is irrelevant with saltwater. No medication that does not contain copper has been proven with ich. Hyposalinity (1.009) and copper work (actually there is a third involving tank swaps but it is not likely to be feasible for you).

So, you learned some lessons and that is a good thing.

 

[MrSean]

I met with a friend of mine who is quite experienced, and He suggested that it is not ich.
but another parasite that is smaller but looks like ich in the early stages.

SO I am trying Hyposalinity (1.009), and he gave me some medication that is blue. and heavy water changes.

I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

[onevia_01]

Fish get ich when stressed,there are various different factors that can stress a fish. Find the cause of the stress and fix that. The ich will disappear.
Just my experience over the last 3 years with my 130 gal and blue and powder blue tangs(which are ich magnets)
By keeping up with regular house keeping and regular feeding I have eliminated ich. I have not seen it in over a year. No qt used, no medication. The tank and fish are very well looked after.
If I were you I'd have spent my qt money on a bigger tank as 14 is very small and it really is so much easier with a bigger tank. I had a 20 g and found that a lot harder.
The water parameters just go up and down to easily.
Anyway just my opinion based on my experience. Good luck