natural and crustacean friendly ich treatment

[mascencerro]

Ok, as most of the people that get ich and have no clue, I'm new to SW. I have a 6 gallon w/ a false percula, yellow-tail blue damsel, mollie, 2 reef crabs, misc. hitchhikers, and a recently purchased cleaner shrimp.

This morning my wife woke me with 'our fish have ich'. I looked and the clown had several spots around its gills, the mollie had 7 or 8 on its tail and a couple on its top fin, and the damsel had some around its mouth. Last night I had watched them for a few hours and saw nothing, so this pretty much caught me by surprise. The tank stays at a steady 80 degrees, I had just tested the ammonia and nitrite, all was ok.

I was short on time and had to leave for work, but before leaving I gave them a freshwater bath for about 10 minutes and lowered the salinity in the tank to around 1.015.

After work, i looked into formulin, copper, etc, and was advised to get a cleaner shrimp, because the medicines would not be good for the inverts in the tank.

When I got home, the clown's spots were gone, the mollie looked clean, but the damsel still had a white mouth. I adjusted the salt in the tank back up to 1.020 gradually, put the cleaner shrimp in, and watched.

The damsel rubs against its antenna a lot, but the other fish don't go near it.

After a couple hours, the clown started holding both fins close to its body, and now its just one fin clamped, but i dont see it utilizing the shrimp at all. It just hangs out behind some of the rock swimming back and forth. The mollie seems fine, always has an appetite, and swims ok, the damsel darts around and hides like it always did with a mouth that looks like he ate some white paint mind you, but the clown has me worried.

To get to the questions:

1) What can I do to treat the tank without dumping some random medicine that will be poisonous to one but not another (I dont have a LFS that carries any of the "reef safe" treatments)?

2) What can I do to treat the fish without stressing them too much and risking their immune system even more (keep up the FW baths, and how often/long each time?) ?

3) Will the cleaner shrimp, reef crabs, and misc. hitchhikers (spaghetti worms, fan worms, etc) eat any of the floating parasite?

4) Should I just be patient and let the ecosystem do its thing on its own time and just keep a close eye?

I know this has probably been asked a lot, but I scanned through archives as much as I could find, searched for answers around, and all I came up with was copper and formulin, which are not good for what else I have in the tank. If i had just the fish, they would be ok, but the crustaceans are there too.

Thanks.

 

[kevin2000]

My 02

FW dips are not considered effective when dealing with ich ... will remove some of the trophonts on the fish but some of the trophonts are going to be buried too deep for the FW to have any impact ... and sticking them back into the infected tank just lets them be reinfected.

Cleaner shrimp are not considered an effective method for eliminating ich .. thats an old myth thats apparently hard to kill.

Lowering the SG to 1.015 may reduce osmotic stress on the fish and perhaps bolster their immune system ... but that level of SG is unlikely to have direct impact on the ich and I suspect is harmful to your inverts. A salinity level of 12-14% (SG of 1.009) will disrupt the ich life cycle but will kill of many inverts and is often reserved for QT tanks only.

Heres a good link on ich .. discusses its life cycle, common myths, and effective methods for treating.
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

No offence intended but a six gallon tank would be considered super small for SW use ... too small for that many fish.

 

[mascencerro]

Thanks for the link. I would like to drop the SG down around 1.010, but like you said, it would kill a lot more than the ich.

No offense taken on the 6 gallon comment, its only my starter tank, and eventually will be a QT. I've gotta get used to the ins and outs of SW care with a cheap small tank before I can convince the wifey that a bigger tank would be a good idea.

as a side note, i gave them another quick bath last night before bed, just to see if it would relieve them any, this morning the clown is using both fins, the mollie seems ok, and the white on the damsel is almost gone. I know I'm definately not out of the water per se, the tank is still infected, but at least the fish look a little more comfy now. I know one thing, through it so far, none have missed a meal, so thats always a good sign.

 

[kevin2000]

You can purchase a ten gallon tank for about $10 at Petco/Petsmart .. that and a $10 powerfilter and a few pieces of pvc pipe make an inexpensive but effective QT. Just move the fish into the QT and leave the inverts in the old tank .. something to consider.