Ich!!!!!

[JurisHP]

My Hippo Tang has been fighting Ich for about 2 weeks. It seems to keep coming and going. I have been treating him with Kick Ich, treating the food with garlic, and have 2 Cleaner Shrimp. This morning, I awoke to find the HT covered. Last night he looked OK, but this morning he is covered. Any suggestions? I can't remove him--too fast and too much LR.

 

[Lishoop6]

if you get the water muddied it will swim towards the light which will be the out side wall and then you can catch it thats how one of lfs around here did it in a 300 cube fully stocked

 

[manuelink]

every day the parasit becomes stronger and i test the kick ich and i didnt have results
but i tried with cupramine in a quarantine 1 month and finally killed the ich attack
and sorry for my bad english!!

 

[limitdown]

If you have other fish in the tank, then removing only the HT and treating him will not break the cycle. The parasites are on the sandbad and all over your corals and live rock, so they'll eventually infect your other fish.

You can either move all of your fish to another tank and treat with Copper (best is Seachem's Cupramine).

Or move all of your corals and inverts to another tank and then treat your display tank directly with copper or hyposalinity.

 

[Cantonesefish]

Don't treat your display tank with copper, otherwise you will not be able to put corals back in.

Also avoid copper because it can damage tangs, like your hippo.

 

[scuzy]

i have the same issue but i have very limited corals in my tank would u suggest moving all the corals out of the 150 and doing hyposalinity on the tank ?

 

[OliverM3]

holly crap limitdown I can't believe you would suggest treating a display with copper you'll never be able to keep anything but fish in a tank treated copper ever.

I actually just infected my tank with a newly purchased sailfin tang.
I'm going to do the same thing I've always done. "Nothing" fish will fight ich off all on their own if the water quality is pristine.

 

[dones20]

i agree 50 50 with what oliverm3 says what i dont agree with is that you said you can never put anything back in display tank that is not fish only well i most contest with 1st hand experince in doing a copper treatment in one of my 120 gallon full blow lps and softies reef. i once had a achilles and powder blue tang brake out with a real bad infestation of oodinium or velvet and was forced to take all corals out to be able to treat my whole diplay with copper wich was the best thing i did b/c we all know how bad velvet is and that it attacks and kills fast and i treated all fish for a 1 month periode and did a full water change and a month later after another 50% water change added some feather dusters to see if they would live along with a few cheaper inverts and corals and all was well so can you treat a dp with copper yes do i recommend it yes if you have the resources is it a pain in the as# yes and is it worth it yes unless your rich and dont mind hundreds of dollars worth of fish dieing

 

[OliverM3]

I don't know but from what I've read If you treat your display with copper it will never be the same. The copper will leach back out of your substrate and LR for who knows how long. So maybe some of your corals will live but then maybe that one you've tried over and over again keeps dieing and you don't understand why.

It may be a pain but take the fish out and treat the fish.
Hey that'll give you an excuse to really make your aquascape even better if you have to remove all of your rock.

The fish can live in a makeshift wal-mart tote with a powerhead/filter and heater.
And unless you're planning on running a fish only tank I wouldn't even risk it.

 

[e55MD]

Creating a HT/QT tank is not quite so easy. You need to have some filter media with a well establshed population of nitrifying bacteria. I have a fully stocked 400 gallon DT that I am running fallow. I am just finishing week 1 of 8 weeks. My HT is 240 gallons. Initially, I had no established filter media so I had been doing daily 50-75% water changes to control the ammonia. Basically, you are keeping delicate saltwater fish in the equivalent of a goldfish bowl. It is not easy, practical, or convenient. Some days you feel like it is simply not worth the effort or the expense involved. The biggest lesson I learned is to quarantine new fishes. It would have been a lot easier than doing this. As I read, nothing good happens quickly in a marine aquarium. Ich is a totally avoidable problem.

 

[baobao]

ich is not a serious problem, though. you just need to add copper, or if you dont want to bother, just keep the specific gravity at 1.008. just remove all live rock/inverts

 

[e55MD]

I disagree with you. Ich is a serious problem if left unchecked. Removing all live rock is not an easy propostion for people with large tanks. I did remove 500lbs of live rock from my tank last week just to be able to capture all my fish. You don't "just add" copper to your DT- you will never be able to keep inverts in it again. Copper is also very rough on the fishes being treated and its use should be carefully considered.

 

[dones20]

i give up!!!! do as you please my opinion is that copper is the best med out there

 

[OliverM3]

Dones20 I agree with you 100% I wouldn't use anything else to kill Ich.
I just don't like using it in the display.

 

[e55MD]

To clarify, I agree that copper is the best treatment. I am using Cupramine in my HT. I just would never consider it's use in my DT.

 

[phk36]

its hard to watch all your fish die and not try to help them. copper works

 

[OliverM3]

I went old school with this outbreak I picked up a couple cleaner wrasses.
I'll just give them to a LFS when ich has passed.
Unless of course they start eating normal food.
They're actually nice fish I like to watch them interact with the other fish.

 

[paulamrein]

What are you going to do when your cleaner wrasses get ich than? Old school is old for a reason, with the knowledge and technology of today with internet, you can get on the shoulders of the people who have gone through it and tried it for themselves. Only way to completely eradicate this parasite is in a QT/HT no less than 6 weeks leaving your DT fallow, and a treatment of hyposalinity or Copper. No reef safe cures, no natural cures, If your dog or cat was sick, you'd treat it with chemicals or drugs that a vet prescribes. Why not do it for your other pets as well. Most of us aren't vets, a few of the people on here are marine biologists. Listen to them, read the stickies, follow the prescribed treatments. And your fish will survive.
I realize that it's a royal pain to do QT. I tried everything to avoid it like everyone else. Bottom line it's a forgotten essential to this hobby. Go on any common forum and post a thread and ask who quarantines. And you'll get 90% saying all they do is feed heavy and water changes. I'm sorry for the rant, I know I'm blathering.

 

[OliverM3]

Ahh not true most fish can fight it off all on their own I'm just giving them a little help with a couple wrasses.
I've done it before just keep the water quality up and keep them fed well and they will fight it off.

The stress of the medicating or QTing the fish does more harm then just letting it run its course and keeping them in their normal environment.
A lot of the ich cases on here are people who have their tank with less then Ideal water conditions which is why the fish get the ich in the first place.
When I see a post on a fully stocked month old tank and someone is complaining about ich well I wonder why.

With an established tank I bet I wont loose a single fish.

We will see they are clean now so the ich has dropped off of all my tangs and is waiting to hatch I'll vacuum to help a little then we'll see if the cysts come back when the ich is swarming.

I'll post back in a month or so when none of my fish have died.

I just want to add you're definitely right about quarantining that's the best practice. But hey everyone slips now and again and doesn't have the time to set up that QT tank when they see that perfect fish in the LFS.

 

[dones20]

IMO cleaner wrasses can actually make situations worse as far as ick goes cause i have seen some in the past stress my fish out by for no reason at all bitting them in a agressive manner i prefer cleaner shrimp or neon gobys are good as well