Ick in a large system

[trigger gta]

For people that have had ick in their large system.

How did you deal with it in the aspect of QT all your fish and letting your system go fishless for the ick cycle?

my QT tank is only a 50g and there is no way i can get them all in at one time.


cheers scott

 

[Elliott]

not much choice here, either remove all fish for 90 days or live with Ich in your system

 

[psusocr]

IMO, IME if your fish have ich i would feed heavy with all food soaked in garlic, just make sure you skim hard and do water changes every two weeks and let them get fat and heathy and the fish will be fine..I understand the ich wil still remain in the system but the fish wont show any signs if they are fat and healthy for the remainder

 

[jusn317]

Well as a person that is going through it, I went out and purchased Rubbermaid stock tanks and put all fish in there. Leaving my display fishless for next couple months and will treat fish in the QT tank.

On bright side it gives me the chance to replace sand and redo the aqua scape.

 

[adam87]

When my fish got ick I used ground up ginger root. 2 tablespoons of ginger root ground up in the blender with tank water. I poured the ginger root into tank every other day for a week. NO MORE ICH. It been over 4 months since I seen ick on my fish.

 

[TundraGuy]

Well there are other things you can do that will rid the tank of the problem without having to remove your fish. One trick that most public aquariums is to employ the use of ozone through a protein skimmer. Ozone when done correctly is cost effective, and has some side bonuses. Ozone when used improperly can be dangerous like most things in the reef hobby. Another more expensive and does not come with some of the other bonus side effects of ozone is the use of UV sterilization. It is rare to see UV being used correctly. For starters contact time of the uv must be long enough to affect the reproduction capabilities of the organism. So a large unit with a slow feed must be used. I got to tell you in my experience anything under 35 watts is pointless, and a unit big enough for a large tank will be pricy!

Now one thing to note about Ich is that there is a staged life cycle and only during certain phases of its life are we able to kill it. Once the Ich has started to attach to a host there are few things we can do. Then once the Ich has popped into spore phase again not much we can do. If they make it to the ozone rich skimmer then they will be destroyed. But more likely they will land in the substrate (this stage can last for months/years) and wait for the opportunity to go into a free floating stage. The stage when the Ich is free floating is the best time for attack. During this phase the Ich is free swimming for 24 to 48 hours before it can attach to a new host. If at any time during the free swimming phase the Ich comes in contact with efficient UV sterilization the organism will never be able to reproduce there by limiting the next out break and this continues till you as the owner no longer see it affecting the fish. With the use of a properly sized skimmer with adequate ozone the Ich will be over oxidized and destroyed before getting the chance to attach to a host. This is why it seems to be a faster fix for Ich.

Now both methods can help limit the growth of other unwanted organisms like diatoms, cyano, and briopsis to name a few. Ozone comes with dangers of over dosage (way less likely or common then stories led you to think). As for UV you need large pricy light bulbs that need replacing (most commonly compact fluorescents) these lights usually burn for 6 to 9 months before needing to be replaced. But with the advancements in Led technology we may be on to the next level of UV sterilizer technology also allowing for stronger longer lasting units.

Remember even if you remove the fish and wait for months and months while treating the fish in isolation and don’t see any more Ich out breaks this does not indicate that you have rid your system of Ich. It’s not this simple. Also note that Ich is not a lethal organism in the wild only in captivity. We must look at the system to know why our fish immune systems are not strong enough to fight off the parasite. In the past I can remember larger tanks that I have had to care for and any time I had certain types of fish i.e. blue hippo, powder blue, or golden puffers they always showed signs of Ich. As if these guys had some magnetic attraction to Cyuptocaryon Irritans. But I never lost any of these fish to the parasite as all were kept in healthy diverse systems. Offten times lowering the salinity and raiseing the temp can help but in a divers system the fish should be able to find off the attack. Better food. More stable conditions.

 

[Haffs09]

After two unsuccessful attempts of taking my system to hypo conditions (appox. 500gal), I recently pulled my fish (5 tangs and a foxface) and split them between a 30gal and 55gal hospital tanks. Fortunately, my tank is still young and I don't have any corals nor inverts. I plan on draining the entire system, filling with RODI water, run for 2 weeks, drain, refill, add salt and then start cycling. In terms of the fish, they are starting a 4 week cupramine treatment now. Hopefully, this takes care of the ich.

How many fish do you have? Is your tank FOWLR or a reef?

 

[Haffs09]

Double post

 

[benchen8844]

well,one thing really confuse me about ick,i have 200gallons tank for 2 years, i have 10 tangs in the tank, i bought all very small, last six month i dont have new fish, all the fish are healthy and fat, dont see any sign of ick, 5 month ago, i upgrade to 400gallons tank, all fish from 200gallons tank, no new fish,fist few days ,all tangs have sign of ick,2 blue hippo are really bad, but they still eat like a pig, a week later all the fish looks perfect, now all the fish is good,my question is my 200 gallon tank always have ich,but not sign,my new 400 gallon tank might have too,so how can we know the system dont have ich

 

[Crazyfingerz]

I have a 60 gal DT and 20 gal Sump with 8 fishes one being a yellow tank and i have never had an outbrake of ich. I have the tang about 2-3 months now. He doesn't eat nori but is big and healthy. I attribute this to the garlic enhanced pellets that i feed the tank heavily.

 

[rsl3]

I have a 265 total volume of 550 gallons. I just got ich over night had not added anything for quite some time. The solution for me was heavy feeding of spirulina soaked in selcon and garlic powder. I also did 20% water chanes twice weekly for a week and skimmed very very heavy, everything seems to be doing fantastic

 

[psusocr]

well,one thing really confuse me about ick,i have 200gallons tank for 2 years, i have 10 tangs in the tank, i bought all very small, last six month i dont have new fish, all the fish are healthy and fat, dont see any sign of ick, 5 month ago, i upgrade to 400gallons tank, all fish from 200gallons tank, no new fish,fist few days ,all tangs have sign of ick,2 blue hippo are really bad, but they still eat like a pig, a week later all the fish looks perfect, now all the fish is good,my question is my 200 gallon tank always have ich,but not sign,my new 400 gallon tank might have too,so how can we know the system dont have ich

Fish can have ich but it's dormant and you won't see it for months or years but when they get stressed, harassed, transferred amongst other things it can immediately show up again.

 

[osi]

There is lot of different misleading information on the web about marine ich. I see lot of incorrect info on this thread as well. I found only one article on the web with useful and believe to be true information. And all the things you need to know is on this article as well.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.php

When I setup new tank I leave that tank 30+ days fishless. And I keep all my fish 30+ days on QT tank and treat them with Cu. And siphoned bottom of the tank every day. Its lot of work but I ever had an ich problem in any of my tanks.

BTW all wild caught fish have ich parasite on them. Mostly on the gills so we cannot see them. But in wild it gets controlled by nature and never rise to harmful levels. Also in wild they get well fed so if they get covered by parasites its not a big problem.

Cleaner shrimps and diesel wrasse are very good at removing ich parasite from fish. fire shrimp also do the same but they don’t do it all the time like Cleaner shrimps.

 

[benchen8844]

Thanks psusocr, I'm not an expert. But I was learned when I stared this hobby, leave the fish in the tank, heavy feeding, a lot of seaweed , 10% water change

 

[trigger gta]

After two unsuccessful attempts of taking my system to hypo conditions (appox. 500gal), I recently pulled my fish (5 tangs and a foxface) and split them between a 30gal and 55gal hospital tanks. Fortunately, my tank is still young and I don't have any corals nor inverts. I plan on draining the entire system, filling with RODI water, run for 2 weeks, drain, refill, add salt and then start cycling. In terms of the fish, they are starting a 4 week cupramine treatment now. Hopefully, this takes care of the ich.

How many fish do you have? Is your tank FOWLR or a reef?

i have 9 fish in a 275g tank with 500g total volume.

right now my blues is showing a few spots but my naso is has some at its gills and is breathing very rapid.

i have some corals soft and lps. but not alot yet

 

[psusocr]

Thanks psusocr, I'm not an expert. But I was learned when I stared this hobby, leave the fish in the tank, heavy feeding, a lot of seaweed , 10% water change[/QUOT

True or not i look at it and say all fish are carrying ich, weather they display it or not is one thing, so if people dont quarantine and treat their fish right from the beginning then we all run the risk of fish having it. On the other hand i take the "keep my fish fat and happy" approach and they wont show any signs. I know several of my fish when they were transfered to my new tank after 4 years in another tank( with no signs of ich) all of a sudden showed signs of ich. I increased feedings all soaked in heavy garlic, skimmed very heavy kept up on my water changes and once they were all settled in i havent seen it since..

These of course are just my opinins on ich and how i treat the matter.

 

[benchen8844]

totally agree with u psusocr,i always think all fish are carrying ich weather they display it or not, quarantine is very nessary, but i dont think they can get the ich away

 

[trigger gta]

Ok i dont think i ask my question the way i ment to so i am going to try it again


for the people that removed their fish for treatment... how did you treat a large number of fish at one time?

 

[Haffs09]

You'll need to get either:
1. Another QT tank and split your fish between the two
2. A larger QT tank and QT them all at once.

What kind of fish do you have?

I recommend treating with cupramine or going to hypo conditions. I suspect my failed attempts at hypo were due to taking 10-12 days to lower the salinity. It's recommend to drop salinity over the course of 48hrs. In my case, I didn't have the water storage capacity to rapidly drop the salinity over the 48hr time period. Maybe some of the ich was able to adapt because it took so long? Either treatment method you choose, you'll want to make sure you have enough water ready for frequent water changes.