marine ich?

[Joel A]

I've got what i believe to be my first ever case of marine ich... I've been keeping marine tanks for more than 3 years now, and this is the first incident that i've had.

Here's the story, short and to the point. Recently set up a 120 gallon tank, started basically from scratch, only seeding the tank with a select few pieces of live rock from my previous 75 gallon tank. Cycled for a month, maybe a bit more before i started to slowly move fish over, started with my yellowtail damsel, followed by my clownfish, followed by my golden rhomboid wrasse, and finally followed by my blue hippo tang.

Everyone was doing great, the tank was still undergoing typical issues for newly set-up tank, such as diatom blooms, green algae blooms, and unreliable skimmer performance.

Recently i added a Regal Angelfish. I'm aware that these fish can be tough to keep, and tough to get them to eat, but luckily i did my homework and bought a specimen from Sustainable Aquatics that was readily accepting NLS marine pellets. I've had the fish for about a month or two now, and she's been eating great, and acting very healthy and active.

About two days ago however, i noticed what looked like a pretty severe outbreak of ich on the blue tang.. never dealing with marine ich before i figured i'd just keep an eye out, since everything else in the tank was healthy, and the blue tang was still very active, and eating like a pig (he's still the best eater in the tank).

Today however, i woke up to see that my Regal now has what appears to be ich as well.. i noticed it on the fishes eyes before i noticed a light coating of it on the fishes body. Same with the blue tang, accept that the blue tang has it more noticeably on the body as well.

What's the plan of action here? I don't have a quarantine that is big enough to house 1 or these fish.. nevermind both of them.. I don't have any corals in the tank yet (they were going in next week) so i suppose i could try and treat the display.. but i'd rather not treat the display with liverock, and other clean up crew inverts in there?

Should i be trying to do something, or is ich something that in an otherwise healthy tank should run its course in healthy well fed fish?


As far as what brought on the ich, the only thing i could guess is a combination of stress from a new fish added, along with a bit of an uncommon temperature swings in the past few weeks.. maybe from 78 to 83 degrees on certain days (the tank is recently set-up, and it's in a room without AC)

any help is appreciated..

 

[rholguin]

I had an ich outbreak about 9-10 months ago. Ill be honest with you I tried a qt tank and failed with some fish. I left the rest of the fish in the diplay about 5 or 6 fish. I did large weekly waterchanges and fed the fish pellets,frozen food soaked in selcon. In about a weeks time the ich went away. About 3 months ago I started adding fish including a juvi blueline angel. To date there is no signs of ich in any fish and all are doing well. So my advice is to leave the fish do water changes and feed a good diet. I might have been lucky but that is my story. Good luck with what ever you do.

 

[Reefman29]

You could try an actualy ich treatment. Just don't use copper, but the water changes and a good diet will definetly help. I would also recommend you increase the tmeperature.

 

[Joel A]

You could try an actualy ich treatment. Just don't use copper, but the water changes and a good diet will definetly help. I would also recommend you increase the tmeperature.

ok, increase the temperature to what out of curiosity? I know that Ich can not live in higher temperature environments, but i thought the temperatures were a bit too high for maine reef enviornments.. say maybe 84 degree farenheit?


Would would you recommend i raise the temperature too, 80, 81 degrees?

 

[suta4242]

Personally I wouldn't increase the temperature. Increasing it does speed up the cycle in the freshwater equivalent, but doesn't have the same impact with the marine protozoan. Even worse, theres less oxygen in warmer water. So once the gills are heavily infected the fish has greater difficulty breathing.

 

[spsgtr]

I would go with hypo instead of copper. Some fish r very sensitive to copper even at half doses and you won't know until you've dosed it. If try copper and the fish act unusual remove it asap. Fish usually won't die from ich unless they are stressed. Velvet is another beast altogether.

 

[jimmyj7090]

ok, increase the temperature to what out of curiosity? I know that Ich can not live in higher temperature environments, but i thought the temperatures were a bit too high for maine reef enviornments.. say maybe 84 degree farenheit?


Would would you recommend i raise the temperature too, 80, 81 degrees?

Hey Joel

No, don't raise the temp. That's pointless in your situation right now.

Raising the temp is often suggested when trying to eradicate it because elevated temps will slightly speed it's life cycle.

That would potentially be helpful if you were trying to speed the fallow time for the display, or maybe even to get through a hypo or copper treatment a day or two faster (I wouldn't try that, but some suggest it).

I have never heard anything about how high of a temp it would take to kill the parisite, but I suspect that you are right. A temp would be high enough to kill the ick would probably also kill a LOT of other things you don't want to kill.

For now, I would suggest keeping stress levels as low as possible, feed well, and take a few days to decide your strategy. Either you go for managment or eradication. Decide, then figure out your game plan and stick to it.

Raising temp is good if you want to "manage it" by not dealing with at all and just holding your breath and hoping it goes away. For that it would help because the spots would probably clear hours or even a day sooner (and then re-appear again more quickly as well).

Good luck
jk

 

[suta4242]

joel, have a read here about the life cycle etc... so you can make an informed decision.

http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/marineich.html

 

[Joel A]

Thanks for the advice everyone.. I think i'm just going to stay the course at the moment, because to be honest i don't think i really have a way to treat it at the moment that wont cause significant stress to the fish.. and i feel as if causing significant stress to the fish wouldn't be such a great idea...

if i get antsy in the next few days and things appear to be getting worse i might try to treat it..

 

[RBU1]

Thanks for the advice everyone.. I think i'm just going to stay the course at the moment, because to be honest i don't think i really have a way to treat it at the moment that wont cause significant stress to the fish.. and i feel as if causing significant stress to the fish wouldn't be such a great idea...

if i get antsy in the next few days and things appear to be getting worse i might try to treat it..

Sounds like a plan. You got a bunch of great advice from several different people. Nothing wrong with keeping water quality good and letting nature take its course. Can you please keep us updated on how things are going for you and what you did?

Thanks