Ich treatment HELP!!!

[jbittner]

Ich treatment HELP!!!
Is there any effective way to treat ich in a reef aquarium. It must have come in on some new live rock I just put in the tank. Please help, tang has three spots on his fin. I am looking for treatments for a reef tank. It would be very difficult to remove the tang because I have nowhere to move the rocks and corals to. But if removing them to a QT tank is the best way I will try to do it, but the last thing I want to do is stress the fish out by chasing him around the tank.

Thanks

 

[leebca]

To the best of my knowledge, no "reef safe" treatment to kill off Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) has ever been found that works all the time.

The only sure way of getting the disease out of your tank is to remove all fishes to a hospital tank, treat them, and let the display tank go fallow for 8 weeks.

As far as LR. . .Use any clean plastic garbage can. As far as catching the fish, there are threads on RC that cover that subject. This is one:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=586506

Once you remove LR and water, you'll have an easier time of catching the fish. The stress it's going through being ill is greater than the short-term stress of being caught.

Good luck!

 

[tatoofr]

hi,
You could try medicated food.

[violation]

 

[Rondelet]

If your fish only has three visible spots you might want to give it a couple of days to observe what's going on and confirm that you have Ich. It's possible putting the new rock has stirred things up a bit and you're seeing fine grains of sand on the fish. Also, Ich isn't always catastrophic (although it can be!), fish can fight off ich and develop a certain level of immunity. Keep stress to a minimum, ensure you water quality is as good as it can be and use some high quality feed. It may also help to add a vitamin and/or glucan supplement to the feed to help boost the fishes' immune system. There are some in-feed treatment options, but success isn't as guaranteed as it is with hyposalinity or copper. Having said that, hypo and copper can be very hard on fish - so you take your chances either way. I've had success using a multi-pronged approach that didn't use hypo or copper - see this thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=743761

 

[jbittner]

Now both my tang and my coral beauty have multiple spots on thier fins. I purchaced a cleaner shrimp and I am feeding with fresh garlic soaked nori. They eat the seaweed as well as the small pieces of fresh garlic. Hope this helps

 

[jbittner]

Have you used the fish food in the above link---Blue Lagoon

 

[Rondelet]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6654438#post6654438 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jbittner
Have you used the fish food in the above link---Blue Lagoon

If you're asking me - No.

With respect to your tang and now your coral beauty, the shrimp may provide relief. Not so sure about the garlic - but some think it helps (and it won't hurt). The trick is to keep a close eye on the shrimp and observe what it does. Cleaner shrimp can be very hit or miss. If you see both fish actively soliciting it and cleaner activity - obviously what your want and a good sign. However, in many cases the relationship doesn't develop, or is very poor. In my case, the two shrimp I bought were both on my angel within 10 minutes of being released into the tank. The Angel then literally harassed them for 2-3 days. No long after I noted drop in the number of spots on the fish. Note that I was using UV, Metro in the food and aggressively changing my water. In your case if you don't observe cleaning behaviour from your shrimp and, more importantly, you don't see a reduction in the number of spots - you should be prepared to move your fish to a treatment tank and consider hypo or copper.

 

[jbittner]

Copper??? On a tang??

 

[ravenr]

I have a 75 fish/reef and my blue hippo had ich. I usually dont like to put chemicals in my tank, but my LFS recommended "Kick-Ich".
They told me it was completely reef safe...so I tried it. Following the dosage recommendations, within 6 days, no more Ich, and everything is still living in the tank!!!

 

[billsreef]

How many days ago was that?

 

[ravenr]

Ich free for several weeks now...using the Kick-Ich

 

[BTTRFLYGRL]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6669867#post6669867 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ravenr
Ich free for several weeks now...using the Kick-Ich

Are you still using it??

 

[leebca]

Anecdotal at best.

For everyone saying it ('Kich Ich' or any reef-safe treatment for Marine Ich) has worked there are 6 more who say it doesn't work.

In controlled experiments you need:
1) Independent, microbial identification of the disease organism;
2) Verification that the infection is underway;
3) A control group (infected but not treated - near identical fishes)
4) Prescribed treatment;
5) Independent, microbial verification that the disease organism is gone.
Then. . .
6) Repeat this in multiple tanks; different labs/homes; different locations.

Most of the 'reef safe' treatments for Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) don't provide the above information.

I worked years in the early '70's with a scientific approach to find alternative treatments for MI. Copper and hyposalinity were the only treatments that worked more than 99% of the time.

Though I'm not trying to impugn ravenr, I would still need the date from the above 5 steps as a minimum to believe it. The significant and amazing part of the above steps is that they are not all that difficult to go through, yet the very large, (wealthy?) manufacturers of these reef safe products either don't or won't provide the results and data of such work.

What most of these products contain is a single or multiple group of materials which have shown to have a negative affect on MI, or even fool the theronts, but which, in clinical studies, have failed to totally wipe out the disease. The disease has one very vulnerable part of its life cycle -- the free swimming, infecting theronts. A variety of materials can kill theronts in the lab, but in a reef aquarium there are so many variables, with everyone's reef being a little bit different, that those same chemicals are compromised into having little or no effect. A label that says 'contains [material] which has shown effective against [MI]" can be true, yet the treatment fail for the above reasons.

We all want to find the shortcut. A short cut has been sought for more than 70 years now by some of the best minds in the scientific community, and if something existed to rid marine food fishes of this !@#$ organism, the aquaculture industry and the private and public large aquariums would be all over it like 'white on rice.' But guess what they use?

I truly wish I had something more encouraging to say on this. :sad1:

 

[ravenr]

BTTRFLY...No, I ran out the dosage as prescribed. The dosage was 2oz per 25 gal. every 3 days...
The bottle says "reef Safe - NO COPPER" "Safe for all Fish,coral, and invertibrates"
The cost was about $22 give or take a few bucks...

 

[billsreef]

I wish you luck, but in my experience, everything Lee said is quite accurate. One of the things that seems to happen is that sometimes the fishes own immune system can handle the ich, sometimes building up an immunity and sometimes just suppressing the infection to a subclinical infection. This can happen with no treatment other than providing good conditions and food, however that is not always sufficient and hence the need for proactive treatment. What often happens with the "reef safe" ich remedies is that just often enough someone uses it and coincidentally their fish also happened to suppress it or lick it on their own. This gives the appearance that the remedy worked. However, when put to the test of time these remedies often have a success rate equal to that of doing nothing. IMO I'd rather the odds of using cures with a better success rate

 

[TerryB]

I agree with Bill and Lee. Sometimes I think it would be better if someone did not occaionally appear to have success with one of the "reef safe" treatments. All it does is encourage people to go with what looks like the easiest solution. Then when it doesn't work (and it mostly doesn't) the results are more dead fish. It is much better to go with hyposalinity, copper, or the transfer method.

There is a new method available for fisheries. It consists of a coating that goes on every surface of the raceway. It is difficult for ich to attach to this coating well. Then the coating is swept every couple of days to remove all the tomonts before they can hatch. Not sure if this well ever be practical for the hobby. It would require a tank without rock, substrate or decorations. I don't know how expensive the coating is and then you have to have a machine that sweeps the ich from the coating.

Terry B