What do people with large tanks do when Ich is present?

[guyguerra]

Brad, did you make any changes in your tank after the first breakout? I'm asking to learn what might have caused it to return and be worse than the first time. Were all the water parameters the same?
Kazza24, I'll jump off topic for a second, but want to focus on results of tanks that can't be broken down. UV will most definitely kill Ich. The problem is that the Ich will need to run thru the UV chamber, and the second problem is that it will also kill any pods or good bacteria also. I suspect that my 50 gallon tank was helped a lot since it's such a small tank and I have a large UV turning over the water multiple times per day. My 230 is too large to expect much from UV, thou I do have a 57 watter on it. I'm considering chopping another large UV in my closed loop to increase the amount that is sterilized this way. I think UV and Ozone will definitely help, along with cleaner fish and shrimp and good husbandry.

Back to "what happens to tanks that have had ich but couldn't be broken down". So far, my 50 gallon is still showing no signs of ich, and the 230 looks good right now. I think I have it beat in the 50 gallon, and am starting a strong fight in the 230 to hopefully finish it off. I posted this same question on the Fish Disease forum, and there are a lot my replies and, since the forum has more visitors, there is more information there. Here's the link:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=820537&goto=newpost
Thanks, Guy

 

[Kip]

have only skimmed this thread, but will offer my .02c

when the fish in my display got crypto, i couldnt remove and QT them all... so i hypo'd the display. I had to pull all of the corals and inverts out and house them in a fishless system for 6wks. I took the display down to 14ppt and kept it there over a month. This got the ich outta the system and the corals in a fallow environment "sterilized" them as well. All new fish are now QT'd and hypo'd before entering the display. I havent seen crypto in the display since the first treatment.

problems to consider:
- i was dealing with stonies and moving them into a new environment killed some of them and others browned out.

- the lowered salinity killed the life in the rock and caused about a week-long cycle

-over the course of a month or so organics built up in the system and started some line erosion on some of my fish (skimmer doesnt work well in hypo) both this and the last can be avoided by doing large, frequent water changes

-this refers to die-off, but most of the coraline algae, pods, worms, sponges, etc, etc, etc died during this time. So basically all of that money i spent on nice, marshall island rock was wasted. (well, i still have the nice shapes... and it has since been repopulated)

-when i moved the corals back into the tank after salinity was normalized... i lost even further. the display tank environment wasnt suitable for delicate corals right away.

moral of the story... i feel you can have a crypto-less system. it is a lot of work at first, but after you get by that... if you keep to a strict QT/hypo regimen for all of your new acquisitions.... then life will be much better

(i just typed all of this b/w phone calls at work... hope it made sense)

 

[ricks]

You guys wrote so much I'm speachless...

 

[Ixthys]

I feel your pain, but I don't understand why you can't catch your fish. I understand that it will take some time, but it is possible.

Calfo posted a thread (might search his old forum) with numerous ways to catch fish without tearing down big tanks. These included everything from acrylic fish traps, inverted bottles, and even barbless hooks (I'm not advocating this last one!).

I have a 35 hex stocked with corals, that I refused to tear down to catch the fish. I caught several of them by placing an acrylic breeder box with suction cup just underneath where I feed them every night. They would swim over the box to get the food, then make their descent into the box.

Of course, 2 of them wouldn't fall for that, so I made a box out of acrylic with a sliding trap door, and a tube to shoot food down into the box. Within 5 minutes I caught the other 2.

I guess my only point is that with patience and creativity you can outsmart them and not hurt your corals/rockwork.

 

[ricks]

I have tried everything... Maybe my fish are just to smart to trap. In a 500 gallon with 650-700# of live rock, it's dang near impossible.. I used to have ick outbreaks on my PBT. Would come and go, think it's on about 30 day cycle. I added ozone, took care of the problem. That was 3 years ago and no reinfections. Now I run very low amounts of ozone into the system and it's only on during the day in my tank. my redox stays between 400- 450 range. Also run carbon 24/7.....

 

[KEEPERZ]

Healthy fish can/will fight off disease just like you fighting off the common cold.

Just my .02...FWIW

I AGREE WITH THIS TAKE 100%- IF THE FISH EATS,MIX HIS FOOD WITH "ZOE" AND HE WILL BE GOLDEN. IF THE FISH DOESN'T EAT HE IS AS GOOD AS DEAD IN 3 DAYS MOST LIKELY. ALL FISH GET STRESSED BUT IT'S THE ONES THAT EAT THAT CAN FIGHT OFF CRYP/ICH-

 

[mmgm]

I followed all the rules and QTd all fish for 6 weeks before placing into my system. Then one day my Hippo comes down with a bad case of ich...(Go Figure) I lost about three fish and then I put in a UV system.....

Ich is now gone and has never returned. My Hippo is fine.... (Beleive me this guy was a goner when I put the UV system in)

With all this hype and debate about Reef Safe medications.... the answer is really

1. Prevention and Quarenteen
2. A good UV system if your reef is infected.....

Here are some pics of my system..... It's tied into my Protien skimmer (MTC 3000)

Enjoy.....

another view

one more

 

[guyguerra]

It's now been three weeks and all is well. My friends who own the LFS stopped over two nights ago. They didn't notice any signs of Ich. (I've still been using garlic, my 57 watt UV and my ozone. They also looked at the sailfin in my QT. I haven't seen ich in my QT since march 17th. All I used was No Sick Fish and garlic. After the treatment week was over I turned my UV back on. They agreed with me that there was no visible sign of ich and that the fish looked very healthy. They have had their eyes on my QT to see if No Sick Fish works, so they know the history of the three fish that are in there. They felt that the sailfin was ready to move into the 230, so we did. All the fish are doing great. I expected a problem when we put the sailfish in the big tank, and was wrestling with the decision. The main tank hasn't shown any spots for more than 3 weeks and the QT hasn't shown a spot in over 6 weeks.
Here's how it went:

I used NSF on the QT first, and it seemed to work, but maybe it had nothing to do with it, but the ich went away. These fish were scratching and a few of them died. Once I stopped using NSF I turned the UV which is oversized for this tank. I never saw a spot again.

I saw a couple of spots on my clowns. I don't know how I got it, but I did. I took the same approach and used NSF and garlic. After a week I turned the 57 watt UV and ozone back on. The clown still had on spot that I could see, but it dropped off. I haven't seen anything in three weeks.

We added the sailfin 2 days ago, and everyone is doing well. I always run my UV and ozone, along with a carbon reactor, Rowaphos reactor and sock filters. I do water changes every Saturday. I'll post again in a few weeks to announce what happens, but I am optimistic. I believe if I would have started pulling out 250 pounds of rock, 60 corals, mandarin fish, clams and inverts, I would have quite a few dead fish and coral. My judgement is that extra large tanks cannot be torn down, and good husbandry will keep the fish healthy. We'll see.

Disclaimer, I am not stating that I know that NSF works, it might not, and all the other things gave the fish strength. Half of these fish have been in my tank for over a year, and 4 of them for 2 years. I believe that is part of what helped them too.

Thanks for all the input so far. We all need to learn what to do when we encounter Ich, and I believe ALL of us will. I thought I was above the masses by keeping my tank ich free. Didn't work well, did it? It's human nature to say that you are different, or better, and that you will never get ich because you QT everything. That might float for a while, but eventually, like the grim reaper and taxes, you will encounter it. Knowledge of all the options is needed. To picture walking in another mans shoes is also. I state emphatically, you will not get these fish out of my tank until you pull all the rock and corals. Then, where would you put all these fish. My tank is considered full with what I have. My QT is less that 1/4 of the size. And what would you feed the mandarin?

 

[guyguerra]

Heres a picture of my tank. I put the picture here just to show how damaging it would be to try to pull the fish out. The Gorgonia on the left would certainly die if the tank is put into buckets. Look at how many holes there are in the rock. I purposely laid the rock so that there are a lot of holes, and kept the rock in the center of the tank, so that the backside of the rock is long and open for swimming just like the front. The acroporas are all glued to the rock. The leather coral has attached itself to the rock. If you pull on more than 1 piece of rock there will be an avalanche. It's a 12345 to reach to the bottom of the tank if a coral falls, which is why I finally glued them. And a few times when a coral fell, I caused an avalanche trying to reach it. That's a scary thing when you don't know if a fish is under the avalanche, or a good coral. The top of the tank is also a factor. Picture this. The maker (Aquariums for you) put in 3 8" wide glass braces that run from front to the back. There are 3 separate glass lids, which are 17" wide. You cant take a net and run down the length of the tank. Every 17" you will run into another 8" horizontal glass beam. To make matter worse, I had them make the tank deeper than usual. It's 26 inches deep, and the stand is tall to accommodate my skimmer. I have to use a small step to feed them. To reach the bottom you would need to climb 3 steps on a ladder.
So, where a lot of people would say to just take the fish out, circumstances are different for all of us. If this tank was smaller, and the corals not so dense, I probably would pull them, but with this tank it is not an option.
Thats my story, I'm sticking to it.

 

[foob]

In summary,

1. There are 2 scientifically tested methods against infected fish - Copper and Hypo. They can only be used in a fish only system since they kill basically everything else.

2. There is 1 scientifically tested method to remove ich in a tank - Have no fish for at least 4 weeks (preferably 6 to be sure)

3. The cost of removing the fish (or everything else) in a huge tank is prohibitive, then other empirical methods should be employed

i. feed garlic/ginger to improve fish immunity (no evidence it hurts the fish/other livestock and it seems to encourage feeding)

ii. UV/ozone to kill the parasite in free swimming stage (obviously can't kill 100%, but can prevent buildup of parasite that may overwhelm the fish). Negative aspect is that UV/ozone will kill other organisms. Whether that will affect the health of the system is not obvious.

 

[mmgm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7222723#post7222723 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by foob


ii. UV/ozone to kill the parasite in free swimming stage (obviously can't kill 100%, but can prevent buildup of parasite that may overwhelm the fish). Negative aspect is that UV/ozone will kill other organisms. Whether that will affect the health of the system is not obvious.

UV will not kill your coral and can be considered reef safe. As an option to manage ich in a reef tank this approach far exceeds the use of medications that claim to be reef safe. Not to mention this approach really works and is effective when you cannot remove your fish from your tank. I have over 30 fish in my reef and in order for me to remove all these fish would entail taking apart the cabinetry surrounding my tank and disassembly of lighting over the tank.... Just not an option.....

 

[foob]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7222780#post7222780 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mmgm
UV will not kill your coral and can be considered reef safe. As an option to manage ich in a reef tank this approach far exceeds the use of medications that claim to be reef safe. Not to mention this approach really works and is effective when you cannot remove your fish from your tank. I have over 30 fish in my reef and in order for me to remove all these fish would entail taking apart the cabinetry surrounding my tank and disassembly of lighting over the tank.... Just not an option.....

Wasn't saying it would kill corals. Just that it would kill other simple organisms that enter the UV, like maybe bacteria, algae and plankton. This would decrease the amount of food present for corals and other filter feeders.

I'm not sure how detrimental that is though, since we don't have all the answers.

 

[guyguerra]

What I would like to see is the continuation of posts by people that have had Ich in large systems so that we can see how the tanks faired over a long period of time. That's the question for this thread, to learn what has happened in large systems that can't be treated. I think most of us have a good background on ich, what kills it, the life cycles of it and so on, but I haven't seen a thread investigate what happens over the long haul once the tank has it. From what I gather from some of the posts put here by people that have seen it in their systems, it looks like it doesn't wipe out entire tanks, killing all of the fish. I never thought of UV as a realistic approach to ich, but it, in conjunction with water quality and good care of your fish will have an impact. It also seems like the ones that have had it know it's still there and from time to time they will see a few spots, but it stays under control. One thought, and the reason I posted the thread in this section is that in a larger area ich might not be able to colonize enough to get a foothold, where in a small tank it has a better chance. Can some other people tell us what has happened in their tanks with ich?

 

[foob]

I had a 160g with only 3 fish. There was ich on a tang, I ignored it and it never developed into a serious outbreak. Disappeared and never reappeared for a year never seen it. Tore down the tank after that.

Never used UV or garlic. Just good water quality. No water changes too.

 

[guyguerra]

That's very helpful to know. Makes you wonder weather more fish die from the treatment than the cause.

 

[imsqueak]

minced garlic soaked nori sheets & pellets has done wonders for me. I've got an issue with my temp controller on my chiller. Tank's been down to 62, up to 85, down to 68, up to 82, in the past 2 wks. I lost several fish and coral on the 62 drop but I've been soaking nuri and pellets in garlic & tank water and havent seen a sign of ick, and these fish are stressed! Well, I assume so, but they act as normal as they did a month ago.

Someone mentioned catching a fish by hook. I had to do that. I flyfish occassionally so I tied on one that looked like a mysis (mashed the barb down). Fed the tank mysis. Dropped the fly in and pulled out a 4" black damsel within 1 minute. Depending on the fly size, it should work for cromis and such with a little work, but for a 2"+ fish you can get them out for about $1 and a couple minutes time. I bass fish too, catch and release all of them. I have no personal or ethical issuse with this but if you do, fine, dont do it. I'm just giving my $0.02 and dont want any wars with PETA.

 

[taflaw]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7223996#post7223996 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by guyguerra
That's very helpful to know. Makes you wonder weather more fish die from the treatment than the cause.

I was wondering the same thing. Copper treatment is very deadly and Hyposalinity is not recommended for all fish either. Neither "proven" treatment option can be used in the presence of elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) or invertebrates and so treatment should be performed in a quarantine or hospital tank. . I would not be surprised if copper overdose is the contributing cause of fish loss with novice and beginners who use it to treat Ich.

For large tanks with infected fish still eating well, I would try Ozone and UV first before moving the fish to a quarantine tank.

 

[taflaw]

How are your fish doing now, guyguerra? Hopefully you can beat the Ich.

 

[guyguerra]

taflaw, I don't think I've seen any Ich on my main tank for several weeks. My 50 gallon tank is perfect. That tank had a lot more ich than the 230. The three fish that made it look perfect, and have for weeks. I had one of my friends (he manages the LFS) and he gave me the "stamp of approval", so we moved the Sailfin into the 230. The acclimation has gone good so far. My fear now is fin rot and blotches on my Foxface. My Kole tang has blotches, but he does that every few weeks. I have a thread I just posted with pictures asking for advice. I really don't feel good about what I'm seeing, and am worried that I might loose a fish that I've had for 1 1/2 years. We'll see. I shut my ozone off, just in case that might be a factor. I added it to the system about a month ago. Before that, my fish were in perfect condition. This can be a tough hobby some times. I'll wait a week and see if the fish improve.
Imsqueak, did you have ich in your tank at some time before the chiller problem? If so, it would seem like you beat it because of just what you said, they had to be stressed.

 

[Psionicdragon]

I hypoed my 300 when it had a major ick outbreak; however, I don't think I hypo'd it long enough because ick was still present.

But after a month, it disappear. I added new fishs recently and ick has reappear. Its covering my Powder Blue and some on my Clown Tang. Something is up with the Sohal, could be ick. I don't know since it doesn't come out anymore.

I run an ozone, but I guess its either not working or it works but not well enough. (I can't find help on the Gen-x one because it smells really bad after 2 weeks of operation even with tons of carbon in place.

I added a 9 watt UV, which was basically useless as it is too small.
In the same situation, it is too hard to pull everything out without losing some corals. either way, its a lose lose situation, but situations that can eliminate the ick.

I did QT my fish with copper and they didn't show any signs of ick in the tank. The sohal wouldn't eat anymore after Copper was introduced though.