rrr.. i hate ich

[markandkristen]

this stuff is like the devil himself :mad2:

ive lost 4 fish i think im on the other side of this. went through this before about a year ago.

added a fish a month ago and i could have ..... kicked myself

when we build our home im having a designated tank for quarantine.

i even told myself about 2 months ago .. fish were perfect leave it alone... do i listen .... no... got to add just one more...

 

[Gimplar]

If your having an ich problem still, talk to john at FAOIS, i did exactly what he said and ive been ich free since mylast occurance which was about 3 months or so ago.

 

[mflamb]

It's a hard lesson. I quarantine everything.

 

[paulhines]

Okay, in a nice new 150g. How did you deal with it? Any lessions for the un-initiated?

 

[markandkristen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8703821#post8703821 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by paulhines
Okay, in a nice new 150g. How did you deal with it? Any lessions for the un-initiated?

yep everything moved over to the 150 perfectly didnt lose a thing in fact they were thriving. urrr. my emperor angel was just starting to change. ( bought hime from the size of a quarter).

played the russian roulette( sp) of adding just one more fish. well 4 fish dead .....

i have read so much on this stuff .. kick ick is useless. i know copper in a quarantine tank or hypo would have prob. saved the 4 . but it would take at least a 55 to quarantine them. didnt have the room exactly.

 

[W Ellis]

I had a little outbreak on my purple tang last week. I fed only medicated food and i have a cleaner wrasse and it cleared up in a few days. The cleaner wrasse was the best $10 i have spent on the tank yet. He even eats whatever kind of food i put in the tank.

 

[mattliu]

gimplar, rather than passing off the solution to john how bought just sharing your information and experience.

quarantining is fine but there's still the chance that your fish can catch ich. if ich is still subsisting off your fish in low numbers with no apparent ailments to the fish in your display and it's continuing its life cycle (i guess you could say lying dormant), it could easily attack a newly introduced ich free fish. then this new fish could become a much more viable host, which leads to more parasitic offspring and an ich outbreak.

since you can only treat ich in its free swimming form, why not have the ability to treat your entire system. quarantining in conjunction with uv sterilization is a valid solution, imo.

 

[HotReeferSRT4]

Yeah... UVs are the best thing to do. Thaw food in garlic is pretty good too. It builds up the immune system. Medicated food works. Since the fish's skin is mainly made up of what it eats the medicated food is what turns ick away. I don't know if it is good for anything if you don't have a UV sterilizer though. You can always crank the temp up a little bit.

 

[poknsnok]

I had ich 9 months ago and lost my regal tang. all the other fish pulled thru and I havent seen a spot since. Since I suscribe to the "Ich is always present in the tank" theory, I was reluctant to add any more fish. I broke down and added a mystery wrasse and all was good. (whew). But as much as I would love to add another regal tang Im not going to. those fish are ich magnets.

 

[markandkristen]

i added a few fish about 4 months ago. just a mild outbreak and it was gone.

i have a small tank that is connected to my system. i started to keep in thier and probably should have. i bet.... if i would have for like 3 months untill he was fat and happy i might have whipped this thing.

it seems like the harassment of a new fish brings on the ich more as well..

so im looking at this as a new dawn .. income tax $ea$on is just around the corner so i get to look at new fish. i used to get real mad about this stuff. im not saying we should try and kill our fish. but on the other hand im not getting a stomach ulcer from it.

 

[ReefArtist]

Man this is surprising, how many reefers that take chances with their fish and their complete tanks. If you start your tank from scratch and everything is quarantined how can it have ICK? I’m not trying to be argumentative just logical. If all fish are quarantined for at least a month before adding them, the ICK goes through two or three cycles (treating quarantine tank for ICK regardless) how would the tank have ICK? From what I understand ICK needs a host and if none is provided it dies.
Once a display tank has ICK it is my understanding all ICK hosts must be removed for at least a month and they will die in the display tank. The fish that had to be removed would be treated in the quarantine tank. When you put them back all ICK “should” have died. I’m not sure if this is theory or fact â€"œ just what I’ve read.
I made this mistake with the first guys I put into my tank â€"œ I went to John in Oldsmar and found out that it wasn’t ICK (just looked like it) and was able to treat them in the quarantine tank. It was close and I will never make that mistake again with my buddies. I’ve had freshwater fish for years and they are easy to treat for the most part (I keep mainly fish) â€"œ reef tanks are a completely different story.
I really think the UV’s should be used as a secondary defense not first line of defense. Most of these fish have not been in 100g + tanks at the LFS, so one more month in QT will not hurt them, but I know it hurts us more then it hurts them until â€"œ ICK appears.

If there’s anything I can do to help â€"œ let me know. I do have a 20g right now that at this time I’m not going to be using until January.

 

[ReefArtist]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8703734#post8703734 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gimplar
If your having an ich problem still, talk to john at FAOIS, i did exactly what he said and ive been ich free since mylast occurance which was about 3 months or so ago.

I don't think John would like us all calling him - please share. If you have a solution and it's worked I think we all could try it

 

[poknsnok]

i dont think John would mind anyone calling but I believe anyone adding fish to their display without QT first is asking for ich..

 

[W Ellis]

I had an ich outbreak when i first got my tank up and running and John recommended i quarantine what fish made it and treat them with a combination of Formaline and copper safe.

Ich can be dormant for longer than a month sometimes possibly 6-8 weeks. Ich can come in on liverock. IMO if you want to add new fish, quarantine them, make sure they are healthy, run a UV sterilizer, and make sure you have good water quality. Ich attacks fish that are stressed or not healthy.

 

[ReefArtist]

Yeah, John and I were talking about it when my fish were sick and that was mainly the treatment - maybe additional medicated food. We also talked about UV sterilizer and that a lot of people feel they don't work but that he feels they are mainly not using the right UV unit. Kind of on the lines that the 8 watts really don't do anything and that's where they get the bad name. I guess it's "you get what you pay for" and know what you need before putting down the bucks. All this talk about ICK has me searching for UV units again.