Just got ICK... how do you deal with it when you have a big tank?

Ozone will kill the infective stage of whitespot but only if it is exposed to it in a reactor and for long enough at a sufficient dosage, it will burn off the cilia they use to move and to find hosts- Ozone must not enter the main display or it will kill/harm other desirable life .
 
Darn those ich's really crazy, feel so sorry for this fish. I've got powderblue & swallowtail angel at my 75g, although i have QT still i get this kind of problem too ich. I don't know how many of you do believe of using miracle mud will help your system to avoid the problem like ich etc... but for me this miracle mud it really helps my fish health, i coudln't believe even my angelfish i thought this will never make it look at it now within a week this fish skin tottaly recoverd from ich as well my powderblue. i don't have any cleaner shrimp all i have is this neon goby & cleaner wrasse, but i think since i used this miracle mud all my fish i noticed haven't seen sign of ich. my tank it's only a month half old don't have any corals yet hopefully by end of this month.
 
Wait and see approach is always the best. Most people overreact and lose fish because of their impatient and try a million different things. Patients is what this hobby is all about. I've always used the natural approach and don't subject fish to harsh methods. We are not doctors and adding a concoction of different meds can have a drastic impact. Copper is very hard to monitor and could do more harm than good in most cases. I feed my fish a bunch of different types of foods, pellets, frozen, nori and they're healthy as can be. I had a good amount of my fish get ich. I offered a lot of food throughout the day and kept up on waterchanges, carbon, heavy skimming. If you have excellent water quality and feed a variety then you'll be amazed by the results you can achieve. It's common for certain fish to get ich. It simply comes and goes.

Fish lose their slim coat during transit and once you get them home it's very easy for them to pickup some ich.

I think it's actually good for fish to be exposed to ich. That way if there are any drastic temp/ph changes, etc they can deal with it because they're immune to it! :)

The only thing you really need to worry about is marine velvet. This disease is nasty and practically impossible to treat for. That's why it's a good idea to QT fish or buy fish locally who have been in a tank long term.
 
cougaran said:
I hate to be bearer of bad news, but that most likely is just round 1. Ich comes in cycles. Without meds you most likely will always have the parasite. Some fish can build an immunity to the parasite, but still get infected with a few of the parasite. The ich cycle is then able to continue. When you add new fish then they will most likely get infected. The only way to know that a tank is 99.9% ich free is with no fish for 8 weeks. The ich need a host fish to continue the cycle of the parasite. If you treat the tank with the fish in it then this will also interupt the cycle. With the few fish you have left you may now consider a treament tank for the fish and go with hyposalinity or copper treament plan for them. As for catching them, have you considered draining the tank with the help of 8 to 10 30 gal plastic trash barrels or even a rubbermaid 300 gal container? With the water out of the way you should be able to get to the fish without disassembling whole tank. If you have a sand bottom you can also make a large divet that the fish would most like go into as you are draining the tank.
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Waste of time IMO You'll always have ich present in your system no matter what you do!! :wave:

Not to mention the stress put on the fish..
 
LOTUS50GOD said:
If I lose my anthesis in the morning, then I will leave the tank empty of fish for 2-3 months while this passes. I have some fish that are exempt from ick... ie.. manderins...
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If you want to leave your tank fallow, you have to remove every fish including mandarins. It is a misconception that they can't get ich. Their slime coat helps to make them more resistant, but they are not immune.

Also 2 weeks isn't long enough in QT if you are wanting to be as close to 100% sure your new additions don't have ich.

Good luck, I hope the rest of your fish pull through!
 
SaltwaterAdict said:
Waste of time IMO You'll always have ich present in your system no matter what you do!! :wave:

Not to mention the stress put on the fish..
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IMO If that were the case then we wouldn't need medicine or marine biologists. Heck next time you get sick, have poison IVY, catch anything dont bother going to the doctor or the ER or even use medicine for that matter. If you give it enough time it will just magically go away.......See how much stress it causes you as you wait for it to go away......
 
Stumped said:
If you want to leave your tank fallow, you have to remove every fish including mandarins. It is a misconception that they can't get ich. Their slime coat helps to make them more resistant, but they are not immune.

Also 2 weeks isn't long enough in QT if you are wanting to be as close to 100% sure your new additions don't have ich.

Good luck, I hope the rest of your fish pull through!
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If you attempted to treat a mandarin for ich he wouldn't stand a chance! They can't handle copper period.
 
cougaran said:
IMO If that were the case then we wouldn't need medicine or marine biologists. Heck next time you get sick, have poison IVY, catch anything dont bother going to the doctor or the ER or even use medicine for that matter. If you give it enough time it will just magically go away.......See how much stress it causes you as you wait for it to go away......
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Ich is something completely different. Fish live with it in the wild. Now a fungal infection or bacterial infection would need to be treated. Ich, not necessary..

Your looking at ich as if it's a disease when it's not. ;)
 
Yes, but when fish live with it in the wild they get hit with one or two parasites because the ocean is vast, in a closed system they can multiply in deadly numbers. Ich is a parasite and if you had a parasite you would treat it, why is it different for your fish?
 
I should clarify that I run my ozone reactor in a basement fish room sump. I keep my ORP at 450 but it has plenty of time to burn off before it returns to the display tank which is about 20 feet away and one level up.
 
I got hit by Ich like a month ago, the original fish that started with it (Kole Tang) died, then a the Multicolor Dwarf Angel began to act more passively and had some spots, I managed to removed him and into the QT he went, the other fish were impossible (At least by me) to catch, so left them in the tank, as of now still no signs of Ich, even the Multicolor is, after 4 weeks, back in the DT, I know crypto is still present in the system and it can come back at any given point, this is why I'm considering a big UV Unit (150W from Emperor), I think that the main problem with this parasite is letting it go out of control, if you keep numbers down, fish will be more prone to fight it.

Can someone correct me if I'm wrong?

Thank you
 
cougaran said:
Yes, but when fish live with it in the wild they get hit with one or two parasites because the ocean is vast, in a closed system they can multiply in deadly numbers. Ich is a parasite and if you had a parasite you would treat it, why is it different for your fish?
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You'd be surprised how resilient fish are to ich. Once they fight it off, which they naturally do without any meds, then they'll be better off long term. I've seen fish caked in ich take care of it themselves without any harsh methods!
 
UV will work but it has to be properly sized and have appropriate flow , ich is big in the free swimming stage over 20 microns and needs a dose over 250 000 uw2 to make a dent in its DNA. UV will not cure Ich but a properly sized unit will reduce Ich numbers
 
The Pittsburgh Zoo has had positive results in using chloroquine phosphate mixed with food to treat reef tanks. Bob Goemans has a nice write up on it in his latest book. Might be something to look into for situations like this.
 
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