QT Help needed - have ICH!!!

M

mrsgoose

New member
Hi,
OK, I need to set up a QT ASAP. My green clown goby has ICH. I have a 29g w/ lr and ls, a few corals and 2 percs and 1 firefish, plus a bnch of inverts. I started treating with Kick-Ich today - I panicked when I saw my fish was sick. The water is fine - amm 0, nitrites 0, pH 8.4, SG 1.023, kh 9, temp 79.
I'm oging to get a 10g tomorrow for QT and will try to catch th fish and get them in there. Here are my questions:

1. How slowly do I need to acclimate them down to 1.009? And do I take water from my DT and dilute it with RO water slowly?

2. Should I continue with the Kick-Ich treatment to alleviate the symptoms? So far only the clown goby is showing ICH.

3. Should I feed them the garlic in the QT?

4. Can I put a piece of lr from my tank in the QT to give them some comfort, or will the low SG cause die off and an ammonia spike?

5. Other than a ph for circulation and a heater, do I need anything else in the QT? If I transfer the sponge from my DT filter, will that provide enough bacteria? Also, would a piece of lr be good, if it doesn't cause problems in the QT??

I think that's it - I will be MOST appreciative of any advice. I've been doing tons of reading and learning and am kicking myself for not having a QT for my new additions. Lesson learned!


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

That article should help. You should be able to drop the SG over some number of hours, by using DT water and RO-DI, as you suggest. I'd ditch the Kick-Ich, since there's no evidence that it works. Garlic might help encourage the fish to eat, if that's an issue.

I wouldn't put live rock into the display, for the reason you suggest. Unfortunately, you really need to have a sponge filter or something similar going before you add the fish, so that's going to take some time.
 
Be sure to read the second portion as well. There is a link at the end of the article.

Regards,

Pat
 
I have used hyposalinity with good success, including on some desperately ill fish. Just a few points -

make sure you are dealing with ich irritans, not oodinium. Hyposalinity is not effective against oodinium.

Don't feed garlic while using hyposalinity. Under hyposaline conditions the fish are unable to flush their kidneys normally & the chemicals in garlic can result in possible death. I support the use of garlic to treat ich, but not under hyposaline conditions.

No point using the Kick Ich. Once a salinity of 1.009 is reached, that will kill the parasites the Kick Ich is not needed and may only be extra unneeded stress on the fish.

Increase the temperature. This speeds up the parasite life cycle & reduces the time needed for effective treatment.
BTW there is a myth that when there is ich in a tank, the temperature should be increased. In fact, it should be lowered, to slow down the parasite life cycle & give the fish more time to get immune. Temp should only be increased when some form of treatment is being used that targets a particular phase of the parasite lifecycle, such as copper, or hyposalinity.

Finally, youe fish will be re-exposed to the ich once you put it back in the tank. End of the day the best thing that can happen is for your fish to become immune. A few weeks in hyposalinity may give it time to achieve this, however you should also consider leaving it in the main display, keeping water quality very high, lower salinity to 1.022 ( Helps a fish full of parasite wounds to maintain its internal salinity, but still salty enough for your corals and inverts ), feed garlic, keep fish well fed on a healthy diet. If you do this, even badly infected fish will normally eventually pull through and develop immunity. This applies to ich irritans, not ich oodinium which is often fatal in only a few days.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9433101#post9433101 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wilsonh
Finally, youe fish will be re-exposed to the ich once you put it back in the tank.
Click to expand...

This is true.

Your best course of action will be to pull ALL of your fish into QT and leave your display tank empty of fish for at least 6 weeks.

Make sure to test DAILY for ammonia and do a lot of water changes to keep that ammonia down.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9438703#post9438703 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wilsonh
I think you should do a little more reading Bertoni :lol:
Click to expand...

Do you have a source for your information? I would be interested in reading that.

Regards,

Pat
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9441514#post9441514 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by PatMayo
Do you have a source for your information? I would be interested in reading that.

Regards,

Pat
Click to expand...

A fish internal salinity is somewhere around 1.007 (frorm memory). The fish has to constantly work to maintain this difference between its internal salinity, and the surrounding seawater. When a fish has a major ich infestation, it is in effect full of holes, that allow greater osmotic pressure to be exerted on the fish, and the fish has to work even harder to maintain it's own salinity level, at a time it is already sick. It can be dehydration that actually kills the fish, particularly small fish. Lowering salinity to 1.009 can bring surrounding water so close to the fish own salinity that even an extremely sick fish can still cope, that would otherwise die. However if in a reef, the salinity cannot be taken that low, but every little bit helps, so lowering to 1.022 is better for the fish than say, 1.027, and will still allow corals and inverts to survive during the treatment period. In extreme cases this can be the difference between life and death for the fish.
Bertoni linked an article talking about water conditions, and the article was correct. However we are not talking here about ideal water conditions, we are talking about treating a sick fish, lower salinity is better for a badly infested fish.

Do I have a source for this information? Yes, my own experience over the years, plus research I have done. There is a lot of info on this out there I am surprised you more experienced guys are unaware of it. I will not link all of it, just cannot be bothered looking for it. But it is fair enough of you guys i guess to ask for some evidence, so here is some :-

Taken from the article Bertoni linked - "One of the alleged benefits of this treatment is the resulting conservation of energy for the affected fish. Reef fish have to constantly drink saltwater and excrete the salt to maintain the proper osmotic balance. Lowering the salinity of the surrounding environment eases this energy demand on the sick fish, thereby allowing them to expend more energy towards fighting the infection (Kollman, 1998 and Bartelme, 2001). " end quote.

And this from another article -
Quote - "Marine teleost fish (higher bony fishes) maintain their osmotic concentration at about one quarter to one third that of sea water. In normal sea water, these fish have a tendency to lose water from their gills due to osmosis and also in their urine. Fish have to drink a lot of water to make up for the loss, however, as the water contains a lot of salt (35‰) they must remove the excess salt from their system. The sodium and chloride ions are secreted by the gills and magnesium and sulphates are excreted in urine. This is an active process and requires energy much like the energy required to keep warm blooded animals warm.

When fish are under stress, one of the processes that is affected is ion regulation. This means they have difficulty adjusting the concentration of ions (sodium, chloride, etc.). Lowering the salinity of the tank water makes the concentration of ions closer to that of the fish"s internal fluids and reduces the fish"s efforts to maintain the correct concentrations. " end quote.

Taken from this article which I use as my own reference guide when performing hyposaline treatments. http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

Please also note this article also states there is no hard evidence about reducing salinity helping an ich parasite infested fish, but other articles do provide the hard evidence.
 
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I had a BAD ich problem 2 months ago. I could not possibly catch all my fish w/out taking everything out of the tank so after reading a lot of different articles I tried a combo of things together since I couldn't QT. And I'm happy to say I am still ich free today and I didn't lose any fish. :)

For 2 weeks I did the following...
I dropped my SG to 1.021, raised the temp to 83, did a 10% WC every other day, started soaking food w/ garlic & using spirulina enriched food. I also started using Kent RX-P ich treatment every other day.

I thought lowering the SG would help for the same reasons mentioned above. I also thought it would be a struggle for the ich to survive at the lower SG so they may slowly die off. Allowing all the other things I implemented to take advantage of the situation.

Just my 2 cents. :D
 
i would use many qt tanks for different fish and keep stress down and make sure you give them tons of air - cause that medicine keeps them from getting it
 
There's no actual evidence that SG in the range of 1.020 - 1.025 helps at all with ich. There's plenty of tanks that have had nasty ich problems at that SG. The article I posted has a number of links discussing why lower SG is likely a bad idea.
 
You don't get it Bertoni. An sg 1.022 does not help with ich. It makes life a little easier for the fish while it has the ich. Badly infested fish die easier the higher the sg.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9444002#post9444002 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bertoni
The article I posted has a number of links discussing why lower SG is likely a bad idea.
Click to expand...
I think we accept that a normal reef should have normal sg. What we are discussing is treating an ich infested fish. Where do these links say lower salinity is a bad idea for the fish with ich?
They don't? Thought so. ;)
 
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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9444002#post9444002 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bertoni
There's no actual evidence that SG in the range of 1.020 - 1.025 helps at all with ich.
Click to expand...
What's this then?
"Lowering the salinity of the surrounding environment eases this energy demand on the sick fish, thereby allowing them to expend more energy towards fighting the infection (Kollman, 1998 and Bartelme, 2001). "
 
Given the number of problems reported in tanks with low salinity in the range you suggest, I don't think there's any practical value to the approach, and I didn't see any reference in your original post to maintaining this lower salinity only short-term. I intepreted it as a long-term recommendation for a display tank that includes corals, etc. Anyone who's interested can also read the entire article at the link posted.
 
My approach would be to QT all fish in the tank and let the tank go fallow for 6 weeks and start again. In my experience that is the best practical way to beat ich.

Regards,

Pat
 
To answer your questions from the first post...
this is what I learned from threads and articles here on RC...

1. reduce SG over a couple days. you can use water from the DT and dilute w/ RO water.
2. if you hypo you shouldn't need kick ich any more. ich can't survive in 1.009 SG.
3. starting to feed w/ garlic won't hurt. it helps the immune system.
4. you shouldn't use LR in QT because ich can incubate in LR & LS. use pieces of pvc. it can be washed & reused and it won't obsorb meds.
5. besides the PH, heater, & sponge you should be ok. just watch your nitrates & ammonia.

treating ich this way should take about 4-6 weeks. if your display has ich you may introduce your fish to ich again upon return to the DT. some fish may develop an immunity to it after the first bout.
* Again, this is what I've learned from readings here on RC.
Good Luck! =)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9447056#post9447056 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by FLReefGirl
To answer your questions from the first post...
this is what I learned from threads and articles here on RC...

1. reduce SG over a couple days. you can use water from the DT and dilute w/ RO water.
2. if you hypo you shouldn't need kick ich any more. ich can't survive in 1.009 SG.
3. starting to feed w/ garlic won't hurt. it helps the immune system.
4. you shouldn't use LR in QT because ich can incubate in LR & LS. use pieces of pvc. it can be washed & reused and it won't obsorb meds.
5. besides the PH, heater, & sponge you should be ok. just watch your nitrates & ammonia.

treating ich this way should take about 4-6 weeks. if your display has ich you may introduce your fish to ich again upon return to the DT. some fish may develop an immunity to it after the first bout.
* Again, this is what I've learned from readings here on RC.
Good Luck! =)
Click to expand...

Number 4 is incorrect. Ich can only live on fish. It cannot live on rocks or other things in the tank. The reason to keep the rock out is that it just is not needed in a QT. Most people tear down the QT after they are done with it. Plus if you use copper or other treatments the chemical could leach from the rock in QT into the main tank if you should put the rock back into the main tank. Plus without rock the QT tank will be much easier to clean and you can also re-catch the fish easily.

Regards,

Pat
 
I didn't say live, I said incubate. =)

From what i read as part of the cycle the ich falls off the fish into the sand/LR and starts the 2nd stage of the cycle (Trophont Stage) until it gets to the free swimming stage (Tomite Stage) to find a host fish. I guess this is why it takes 6 weeks to rid ich from a tank w/ no fish. it will go through the clycle until it tries to find fish to host, then it dies of starvation.

I think i also mentioned about the meds being absorbed into the LR and pvc is easy to clean & reuse.
See, we're all on the same page. =)
Happy Reefing!
 
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