Who has had ich and........

[JSeymour]

It could have been just festering in the gills I guess, but not seeing one spot or blemish from a spot for two months in full strength saltwater, with a tank transfer inbetween, I think the chances of that are very low.

I'm pretty sure it was the snails, which should have been "clean".

Live and learn.

One more quaranteen tank, ugh. I need a rack.

 

[sea of cortez]

I tried the ride it out approach but after 1 of my potters died I started treating with Garlic in the food and in the water, that did seem to help a little then I added No ich also. It didnt seem to hurt my corals (the feather dusters and RBT would shrink up right after a treatment) but I swear that stuff seemed to make the out break worst. I used the whole 64 oz as directed during that time I lost another potter, a flame, 3 blue tangs, mated pair of neon gobies, 1 chromis, 1 clown gobie, 3 twin spot gobies, another neon gobie (this is the the one I should have QT'D he had one spot on him the day after I put him in the display, one spot and one month was all it took to kill all these fish)
I learned my lesson in the last week I have set up 2 QT's that are ready to be used as hospital tanks for the rest of the fish and QT's after

 

[deep_sea_Dennis]

I think I have tried every solution to fighting ich even some snake oil.......from 20 years experience the best advice I can give is to QT EVERYTHING I bought some snails added them right to a tank that had the same fish for 5 years never had ich or no signs of any disease about a week later a massive ich outbreak....I know snails cant have ich themselves but some must have been stuck to their shells I had to tear down the tank after I started loosing fish I let it set empty for 6 months. I prefer hypo to copper but hypo must be down very carefully I hypo for 8 to 10 weeks then bring back to 1.023 over a course of 2 weeks with a saltwater drip I now QT EVERYTHING snails, shrimps crabs even plants and corals and not have had ich or disease for years....

 

[Stuart60611]

I just posted this in another thread, but the quinine based drugs, and particularly chloroquine phosphate, are also an alternatives to deal with crypt. There are some problems and benefits from using the quinine drugs, but I do believe that they have been proven effective and are used at the hobby and public aquaria level regularly and with success. Dr. Michael Stafford, consulting veterinarian for the American National Fish and Wildlife Zooquarium, recommends this treatment and expressly states that treating cryptocaryon with copper and formalin is "outdated". The Marine Fish Health and Feeding Handbook (2008) (pg. 146-147). Also, Rich Terrell of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG successfully uses this treatment. Id. Moreover, Bob Goemann and Bob Fenner of wetwebmedia, two very respected people in the hobby, tout this as the prefered treatment for cryptocaryon. Below is a link to a thread that I started to investigate a rather unconventional use of chlroquine phosphate, but within the thread are links to a variety of useful information concerning using this drug to treat crypt.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1891371

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

To QT or not QT

To QT or not QT

RBU more than half those medications shouldn't be on the market to begin with. I'm a believer on letting nature take it's course. If you do have anything extremely wrong which you shouldn't if you have good water quality and feeding healthy foods, then you can treat the DT with copper of course if it's a fish only and I think that's what you have. People usually panic and go to extremes like your doing. IMO, if your fish shows some type of sign take him out of the DT and treat him in the QT. It would make your life so much easier if you bought a fish, put him in the tank, and let it be!! Think about it. :idea: I know you buy very nice expensive fish, but treating them with all these harmful medications isn't the best course of action. Yes, certain medications do more harm than good, especially considering, like copper, it's very hard to get the accurate dose and very easily you can overdose! I hate looking at fish in QT tanks anyhow. They're small and it's not natural. Let um' swim and do their thing...good luck man!

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

The doing nothing thing may seem to work for some but it always comes back to haunt you later. No one's tank is perfect forever. All it takes is one stressful event or one wrong fish addition to cause problems and/or fish loss. IMO you should be feed garlic and selcon to keep your fish healthy but its not an ich cure.

That's silly to say. For example check out these tank, dude never QT tanks and I'm sure they have some more insight than you.

http://www.youtube.com/user/stuartbertram#p/a/u/1/u0vJsX9GuXM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLRubZGWXiY

Do you think these guys have time to sit around for weeks and weeks to QT fish...didn't think so!

I've talked to both personally..

 

[RBU1]

No FOWLR for me....I am going to see what happens with the black tang. Hopefully I can just let him be and see what happens. Hopefully he stays clean.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Thats interesting. I was always told never to mix hypo and copper.

So there is really nothing you can do as a quick relief for a fish with ick. I was told FW dips do nothing either...

Agreed, to much shock to the fish and will most likely die. IMO

If you drop the salinity slightly then it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Thinking I could treat ick with formalin cost me a ~$1000 pair of latezonatus clowns.
If that's the route you want to go, I wish you the best of luck.

Try reading this. It's from a relatively well known and trusted source.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ichartmar.htm

Why would you buy fish that expensive in the first place. That's ridiculous! :fun2:

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

RBU I think you're weakening your fishes immune system if you keep treating them how you've been. Maybe an experienced person could treat their fish with, copper/formalin, but even then so many things can go wrong. I see all these threads you have and think you should sit back and enjoy your fish tank my man!

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

No FOWLR for me....I am going to see what happens with the black tang. Hopefully I can just let him be and see what happens. Hopefully he stays clean.

That's good to hear! :bounce1:

Damn that tank looks awesome! How big is that baby, 500g!? It looks like an 8ft tank! Very nice. I'm upgrading soon, can't wait. Acrylic or glass?

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

No FOWLR for me....I am going to see what happens with the black tang. Hopefully I can just let him be and see what happens. Hopefully he stays clean.

If you put him in your DT and he shows some signs of ich don't panick and I guarantee he will be fine. I've seen my powderblue and blue hippo have spots of ich, but I feed them good and it will quickly go away within a few days. Good water quality and healthy feeding goes a long way. Try soaking your foods; nori, flakes, mysis in garlic/selcon. This will help boost there immunity and you'll see a complete reversal. Best of luck!

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

I spoke to a person this morning that I trust in this hobby. I explained to him how I thought I was doing everything right and to still get ich just really frustrates the heck out of me....He feels that because I have been Qting the fish and getting them stronger they stand a good chance of fighting it off.....I can tell you I am not tearing that 300 down again to remove all the fish for a THIRD time!!!!!! From now on whatever happens, happens....I will still QT but don't think I will treat unless they need it. During my other QT periods I was treating everything with Cuprmaine and PraziPro.

Good for you!

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

OK here are my most recent pictures of the crosshatch in my main tank. The first shot showing his head. He has some indentations that from a fellow RC members thoughts its wounds from rubbing his head on the PVC while in QT. But the other white spots you see I think with great certainty are ich....

THe second photo I took when I got home from work yesterday....The white patch I have no idea what it could be...My assumption is an injury from the rock in the tank...But the way my luck is going who knows!!!!!

Very common for trigger fish and I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Dimensions on this 300 gallon beauty? Did you make the stand yourself? Very appealing.

 

[steelhead77]

OK! I am so glad to have found this thread. Finally some like minded individuals with some sanity on this subject. Here's my Purple Tang:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/steelhead77/3526844642/" title="Prince_Ich2 by steelhead77, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3526844642_841f746b6a.jpg" width="500" height="343" alt="Prince_Ich2" /></a>

This pic was taken almost two years ago and he is still going strong today. I did not treat him or the tank with anything other than UV. At the time I had about 6 other fish in the tank. None of those fish came down with ich and I have been thru 2 tank upgrades since this pic was taken. I have since added about another 9 fish and none have come down with ich. I have never QT'd a fish as I believe this creates more stress for the fish and feel it's better to get them in a stress free environment as quickly as possible. I think that my tank is either completely ich free or my fish have built up immunity due to good water params and good feeding. I strongly believe it is wrong to tell newbies in this hobby that they need to tear down their tank and chase a sick fish around so that they can stick it in a QT tank 1/4-1/3 the size of the DT. My feeling is that as long as the fish is still eating and swimming as normal, leave it alone and see what happens. You cannot believe the flaming I have received for taking this position.

 

[ArtemisGoldfish]

Shawna won the thread.

You people and i'm not directing this at Bill, who want to assert survival of the fittest tactics and think you're on to something then for all of our sakes establish guidelines and be very specific of all details of your systems and practices - i.e., include vital information such as: LxWxH, size of display tank, % of open swimming space, total # of gallons, numbers, size and species of fish along with dates of purchase/release into your display tank, inverts present and their numbers, plus number of tank set ups in the household and frequency of new fish, introductions of live food sources e.g. lv brine shrimp, clams, mussels etc., dates and frequency (i'm sure i missed a few). "Maybe", then we can get a baseline pattern of your success and failures. That is if you've enough years of long term success to back up any of your claims. And please spare me the rational, because i disagree doesn't mean i don't get it, i'd like to see this move up a level.
And again well i can't promise i'll participate further, at least we'll be getting somewhere past the he said she said therefor it must be mentality.

One of the best things I've read in this entire sub-forum. A pint to you for that one. Hopefully people can identify with this for both scientific and ethical validity.

what is everyone's thoughts on cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasse, do they have any factor in the ich equation?

It's physically impossible for either to remove the parasite from the fish as they burrow into (and sometimes past) the epithealial layers meaning that a shrimp would have to puncture the fish. Same with the wrasse and you would also subject the wrasse to Crypto.


RBU- The fallow approach is 99.9% effect in all but laboratory conditions. If we go past the possibility of user related error then you are the unlucky recipient of a genetic abnormality in your reef tank.

I still assert the point that everything you are going to put in your tank must be quarantined.

 

[reefWW96]

Hi, when i started my tank up about 8 months ago. I was getting ich like crazy. my yellow tang i bought had brought it in. i took him out, quarintined him and put him back inthe display and he was fine. so, about 4 weeks later. all the fish in my main tank has ich. (sixline, yellow tang, tomato clown) I bought a chiller, and that seemed to help with the temperature fluctuations. but i also started feeding the nori algae daily instead of weekly. The tang never got ich again. The sixline still had some and I couldnt get rid of it. I bought Dr G's antiparasite food and that did it. That was all around 5 months ago. currently, i have a yellow tang, sixline wrasse, ocellaris clown,banana wrasse, mandarin, and longnose hawkfish. All are doing fine and none have ich. I believe that diet is much more than half of a fishes immune system.

 

[Stuart60611]

I think a distinction needs to be made between quarantining fish before they are added to the display and removing fish from the display to quarantine once the fish in the display shows signs of ich or another parasite. As to the prior, I feel that there can be no reasonable debate on the subject because all recognized authorities recommend quarantine. I just posted this in a another thread, but I thought it important to add here also (since this thread has so many views) for those who may not see it in the other thread.

Let me put this way. Name a single recognized authority or cite to a single published article or book which does not strongly recommend quarantine of every fish. You cannot because they do not exist.

Conversely, I can cite to more recognized authoriites, articles, and books which all unanimously recommend the quarantine of every fish than can be posted in a single message on RC.

Likewise, name a single public aquarium or zoo which does not quarantine every fish. You cannot because they all do.

What does this demonstrate? It demonstrates that every recognized authority in this hobby recommend the quarantine of every fish. For those who disagree, I guess you know more than every recognized authority, published article, book, public aquarium, or zoo in the world.

Moreover, I strongly suggest that those who are recommending to others not to quarantine seriously consider the ramifications of their advice. It is one thing if you choose to knowingly take a risk and not quarantine your fish. It is another matter when you advise someone else not to quarantine their fish, particularlly when you do so in a misleading way like stating that experience has shown that quarantine is more detrimental to fish than not quarantining or that quarantine is too difficult or costly to accomplish. The distinction here is you are causing a less experienced hobbyiest to risk the very lives of their pets under false pretenses, particulally when all (and not just some) of the authoritative data points to quarantining fish. I find such behavior immoral and wrong.

 

[map95003]

I do believe in QT'ing before adding livestock to your main tank. However, from my experience, even if you QT all fish you could still introduce ich to your tank if you DON'T QT all snails, crabs, shrimps, corals...pods. It's not that these creatures carry ich, but the water they are in may have ich.

I've QT'd my fish in the beginning and still ended up with ich, probably from snails/crabs I've added that I didn't QT....so (and I know I'm gonna get a lot of heat for this), I decided since I don't have the means of QT'ing everything, it doesn't make much sence to just QT just fish....so I stopped doing that. It's been over a yr since I had ich in my tank (knocking on wood), I feed well and try to use garlic every once in a while.