reef fish came down with ick

[jjoos99]

I found one of my anthias dead this mourning without even knowing it was sick. upon looking closely tonight all my tangs appear to have ick along with my royal gramma. I added a new powder brown tang 3 weeks ago and am treating my sps corals with bayer for aefw. I had some leach back into the tank and killed my shrimp but the fish have seemed to be unaffected. Looks as if the addition of the new fish and the coral treatment has stressed the fish enough that I have a full fledged ick breakout. My purple tang has white patches and cloudy eyes, my yellow tang is starting to show the usual salt specks and noticed it rubbing against rocks. What are my chances of it passing and going back into dormancy or do you think they are all goners? This really sucks, first I got aefw to contend with now I might loose alot of my fish. Double whammy. I added garlic to the tank tonight and feed garlic soaked nori but have read it wont help.
thanks
Jeff

 

[ThRoewer]

Forget about garlic or all other reef safe medications - they never work (all reports to the contrary may be due to fish getting over it on their own).

You will have to catch all fish and treat them in one or maybe even multiple hospital tanks. My medication of choice in a case like this (where it could be ich or something worse) would be Chloroquine Phosphate (= NLS Ick-Shield Powder).
In case you have wrasses, seahorses or pipefish you need to treat them separately with something else as they don't handle CP well.

Your display tank will have to stay fishless for up to 11 weeks to make sure the parasites have died out.

 

[jjoos99]

So if the fish get over it on their own are the parisites still living in the fish? Seems as if they are in the sand or other stage of life they would die out if not feeding off a fish. I have had several outbreaks over the years but has always been after adding a new fish. The last time was adding a powder blue, the blue came down with ick along with several of the other tangs but the blue was the only death. The others seemed to get over their symptoms.
thanks
jeff