Powder too good to be true

vietcu

vietcu

New member
I just noticed today my powder blue got ick. All over his body, just starting though. I think I am just gonna let it run its course, would be too hard to catch him and get him out of my tank. I'm ****ed, but hey I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later. Any advice for leaving him in the tank, any type of treatment I can do?
 
Got two cleaners in there, saw the powder blue going by them and letting them pick him the other day. Going to dip my algae in garlic right now. Anything else?
 
TSwifty nursed his former Powder Blue for about 6 months successfully. You may want to touch base with him.
 
I asked about this before I bought the powder blue from him. If I can remember correctly, he treated it for something else but not ick. I think he just let the powder blue fight off ick on its own. I could be mistaken, hopefully he reads this post and chime in.
 
Mine gets it from time to time. I feed ocean nutrition green marine algae, the garlics already in it, got one cleaner shrimp and i run a big *** UV.
 
Hey Vu,

As Phil mentioned... I had a Powder Blue that broke out in Ich pretty badly. I checked out the ginger method, but decided to go another way. I basically just mixed up some DIY food and added Kent Garlic Xtreme to the mix. Then bumped feedings to 4 times a day, along with making sure Greens were also present for him.

I think the DIY mix I used was just what I happened to have on hand at the time... Frozen Mysis Shrimp, Krill, Spirulina Brine Shrimp, Some Formula 1 & 2 pellet food... probably some other stuff also... along with the recommended dosage of garlic. Blended it up, then froze it in a ziploc bag.

Basically my thoughts on ich are that a healthy fish will beat ich. I know there's people that swear by pulling the fish for Hypo/Copper/whatever, but I wouldn't do it with a Powder Blue... or at least save it as a last resort. As long as the fish is eating every time you feed the tank, and looks ok... as far as breathing and activity level. I would leave it alone, and let it fight it. That being said... I would get a Hospital Tank up and running just in case. That way if he would happen to take a turn for the worse you can transfer him right away for Hypo. (a Hospital Tank doesn't need to be anything fancy... could just be a rubbermaid bin with a heater, powerhead, spongefilter, one of those ammonia alert badges, and some PVC fittings... no substrate).

IMO ich isn't that big of a deal, just handled improperly in most cases.

As some others also stated, keeping your water params stable will also go a long way.

Good luck.
 
I have a Blue Hippo,Morpho, Tang whatever it is really called. Anyway, It had Ich on it to the extent the Pectoral fins looked stuck to his body. I bought a cleaner shrimp and Ocean Nutrition Seaweed select Green Marine Algae with garlic. He looks great now. It's fins healed and he is bright blue and yellow again and getting fatter. I don't know what the cure was but that was the only things I did diff. He was a new addition to my tank at the time. I just put a Yellow Tang in my tank and that Cleaner shrimp went right to the yellow tang and started picking within 30 seconds of being in there. The tang was a little spooked at first but now they are buddies.
 
My cleaners are still a little shy, just got them for about 1 week. But I did see the blue tang let them get on him for a few minutes. Hopefully he let them clean him a little longer today. Glad its Sunday, I can stay home and check on the tank and see if there are any improvements. Thanks for all the help guys.
 
As soon as I put my arm in my tank... my cleaner jumps on my arm. It kinda freaked me out at first. Now it likes to take pieces of mysis and silversides out of my hand. They are pretty cool. He makes it hard to spot feed other corals though.
 
Can two cleaners go to town in one night? I just turned on my actinic to check on the powder and saw that there are nothing on him. I saw a bunch of white spots on him last night, with all the lights on. It wasn't sand dust or anything, they were actual spots on his body. I don't know if I cant see them with just actinic, but I don't see anything. And the thing is where the powder blue rest at night, it is in close proximity to the cleaners. They like to stay to one side of my tank. False alarm or not, I am hoping it went away.
 
I would think two cleaners could clean him in a few minutes if the tang was cool enough to sit still and let them.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14076150#post14076150 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vietcu
Can two cleaners go to town in one night? I just turned on my actinic to check on the powder and saw that there are nothing on him. I saw a bunch of white spots on him last night, with all the lights on. It wasn't sand dust or anything, they were actual spots on his body. I don't know if I cant see them with just actinic, but I don't see anything. And the thing is where the powder blue rest at night, it is in close proximity to the cleaners. They like to stay to one side of my tank. False alarm or not, I am hoping it went away.
Click to expand...
It's more than likely just the lifecycle of the parasite. They drop off the the fish, reproduce, then reattach (well that's the basic idea at least)... Anyway, you're probably going to see a stronger infestation in a few days. If you go "au natural" and just let it be, you'll have to be ready for the rollercoaster ride though, as one day he'll look fine the next he'll be covered. I think it took almost a month for mine to finally build up enough of an immunity to kick it all.
 
Good to hear it went into remission for you. Like TSwifty said though, they have an intermittently parasitic life cycle, so it could definitely come back. All my cleaners every do is pick dead skin off my cuticles lol. I don't think they ever clean fish, although it may happen at night, or behind the rocks. I've never had a case of ich, freshwater or saltwater, but having worked at 4 lfs's, I've seen my fair share of it. It's an easy fix if you have a healthy system and a mostly healthy fish to start with.
 
The parasites get knocked off or scaped off during the day...when the fish goes to it's favorite spot to sleep, they hop back on...they need a host to live and reproduce or they die off....hence the cycle...
 
All lights came on and I still see the spots where the parasite used to be on the fish. He's healthy as of right now, going to bump up feeding to twice a day to see if that helps. Will update if I see anything change in my tank.
 
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