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

[Kungpaoshizi]

Elevating temp to 86 works wonders...
I think it's, 86 ich can't attach to fish and 89 ich dies (eggs too)
Otherwise I've heard hypo salinity works as well.
I would consider both methods "natural" /shrug
I'm sure there's places in the ocean you could find both of those scenarios

 

[RBU1]

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!!!!!

 

[WDLV]

Elevating temp to 86 works wonders...
I think it's, 86 ich can't attach to fish and 89 ich dies (eggs too)
Otherwise I've heard hypo salinity works as well.
I would consider both methods "natural" /shrug
I'm sure there's places in the ocean you could find both of those scenarios

Now that's news to me. Got any links?

 

[RBU1]

Here is a pic of my hybrid blue angel that went thru 10 weeks of QT.....4 weeks of Cuprmaine at .5 and 2 PraziPro treatments....

He has been in the main tank for about 2 months and has not had a spot on him. He did have some white patches on his fins when I put him in the main tank but fellow reefers felt they were scares from the flukes.....

 

[WDLV]

At this point in the game I would leave it for a couple days and see how it goes. Go with some medicated foods and if there's any change for the worse it'll be time to make a decision.

 

[Kungpaoshizi]

this is what I followed after finding the same generalities in other write-ups..
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/hospital/fwich/
I didn't follow the salt dosing, just the temp, and kept it at 86 for a total of 15 days I think it was?
This was when I was in the mid brackish region, so it was FW ich and I'm sure the salt had something to do with it, but it seems the tempature/lifecycle breakdown remains true.
I would imagine raising temps may be the best for a reef/fish tank?
But I guess it would depend upon how well the inhabitants handle 86 degrees.
Anyone know if corals etc can handle 86 for a 2 week period?

 

[RBU1]

I would not want to add any more stress to the situation. Its bad enough on the crosshatch that I am in the 78 degree range. They are a deepwater fish and ideally would prefer a cooler temp. My plan is to feed well and keep my water quality good. Try to keep things as good as possible and hope for the best.

 

[WDLV]

I don't think what will work for FW ick will necessairly work (reliably) with SW ick. They are two different diseases that look the same while they are attached to the fish.

 

[RBU1]

Home from work....Maybe a little improvement from yesterday....still eating rather aggressive.....Hopefully a positive sign no other fish showing any spots.

 

[Monster00101]

The temp change wont work on saltwater ich. But it works great on freshwater.

 

[Ninjapotamus]

2 yellow tangs/blue hippo/powderblue/powderbrown tangs all had signs of ich. put them all in quarentene and treated with cupramine. it seemed to help the ich but the fish got sick and stopped eating. didnt totally eliminate the ich either. powder brown stopped eating and just up and died.

decided it wasnt worth it and put them all in a newly setup 110 gallon display tank. Did frequent water changes and also ran UV/micron filtration. 5 months later all tangs are fat and healthy. blue hippo tang has a spot of ich once in a while but then it goes away. others appear to be clean.

 

[Untamed12]

Getting back to the origin of this thread....

I add myself to the list of people whose fish have ich...all the time...and live with it. It seems that my achilles and ABT are the only ones to show symptoms, which they show to various degrees all the time. My yellow tang, Nasos, clowns, foxface, wrasse, blue throat trigger and goby seem completely immune to it.

It has been like that for over three years now. I hear that it might burn itself out, but that hasn't happened yet.

So...I'm of the opinion that ich is not an automatic death sentence for any fish. It may not be the right course of action for everyone or every fish..but it seems to have been correct for me and my fish.

 

[ptr13]

I really feel that tangs are ick magnets,I have taken the approach of not qt the rest of my tank,only the ones that are breathing heavily and need special attention. I am just using hypo on the other fishes that are really covered with white spots but the rest of my display,been feeding them ocean nutrition seaweed with garlic,they love it. My tangs and wrasses go crazy at least three times a day on each sheet by 3 inch by 2 inch on a veggie clip. I am also discovering that my salinity was a bit high,another reason they were stressed,bought a refractometer today and discovered it was at .030,wow. So I had to lower it slowly to .027 and my goal is to reach .024 and .025 by next week,asked vivid aquarium about it and they stated that it may be a contributing factor and a good reason too that salinity should be lower so I could save on salt on a big system at 305 gallon total water volume. I also felt that everything was not in place in this latest upgrade from a 125 to a 225,my biological filtration was not up to par so I hope to fix the problem with a 58 gallon I turned into a plenum/refugium to stabilize the whole tank. I hope that ick will go away and I have a few more weeks left on its cycle which is 8 weeks,giving it two just to make sure no one else gets sick because ick will be still on the rocks and sand. So far the blue,sailfin and yellow tang are recovering with less spots everyday,gladly that wrasses are not ick magnets,also running uv sterilizer to cut the cycle down of the disease and hoping that increasing water quality will help cure everyone.

 

[marc price]

+1 more.

If I were more of a coral-holic I might feel differently but for me corals are more for decoration than anything else. Some of my fish are so rare that I would crash the system and lose every coral in it before I would even consider letting them die. I don't know your methods and will not claim to have read every line in this thread but if you're not quarrantining everything wet you will always run a greater risk of introducing a pathogen.

There is something to be said for doing everything you can to boost a fish's immune system and provide a stress free environment but this is IMO something that should be done hand in hand with proper quarrantine. The world's public aquariums don't utilize these procedures for nothing.

Well said Walt!

 

[marc price]

It has been like that for over three years now. I hear that it might burn itself out, but that hasn't happened yet.

I'm curious, have you not added any fish, inverts and live foods for a year during the three year period?
Afaik, the theory is that it weakens to the point of the life cycle breaking down if no other strain of ich is present for a period of roughly ten months after the outbreak. Again i haven't read of long term studies putting it to the test, and certainly aren't about to call one case conclusive prof one way or the other.

 

[RBU1]

+1 more.

If I were more of a coral-holic I might feel differently but for me corals are more for decoration than anything else. Some of my fish are so rare that I would crash the system and lose every coral in it before I would even consider letting them die. I don't know your methods and will not claim to have read every line in this thread but if you're not quarrantining everything wet you will always run a greater risk of introducing a pathogen.

There is something to be said for doing everything you can to boost a fish's immune system and provide a stress free environment but this is IMO something that should be done hand in hand with proper quarrantine. The world's public aquariums don't utilize these procedures for nothing.

Yes it was well said....However you know Marc, I have been following the QT process and treatment process to a "T".....So I was doing a "proper" QT and still have an issue....Maybe there is something underlying we are missing.....Who knows....Nature does some mysterious things...I know you feel strongly about ich is not always present you have to introduce it. Well maybe there is a way ich is always present....WHO KNOWS.....at this point I give up!!!! I will let nature take its course, and as mentioned before I will continue to QT fish but will not treat. My hope is to built up the strength of the fish while in QT to help them fight off what might be in my main tank.

 

[WDLV]

I get your frustration. No one process is perfect and there is always the possibility of something slipping by. Particularly with regard to those paracites that can attach to the gills of the fish and lie more or less dormant or those that live in the gut. I personally do not use meds unless absolutely necessary but I almost always have new introductions go through hypo as part of their quarrantine.
All in all you sound like you're doing everything you can. The only other thing I will say (because I didn't see it posted anywhere) was that quarrantine is not a set 30,60 or 90 days. If your fish show signs of a disease they need to be essentially re-quarrantined for the entire duration starting the day that they are without symptoms. A lot of people do not have the determination to do that. I am sometimes one of them but I have also had fish in quarrantine for 6 to 12 months. A. nigripes is just such an example.

I really don't think ick is always present. Its life cycle has been shown not to live more than 50-some days. So, at 60 days you should be in the clear. Particularly if you have been treating with cupramine. The problem we have is that we as hobbyists have a different definition of what it means to be ick free. We're only looking at the exterior of the fish because we generally don't have the equipment or the know how to look at the fish's gills.

I personally have not had to deal with an "outbreak" in about 2-3 years, but most of my animals have been in separate systems that entire time. You don't have that luxury.

I've rambled on long enough. The point was supposed to be that I think you're doing the best you can and to tell you to just stick with whatever your plan of action happens to be. We're usually in the most danger when we make rash decisions that are off course with our game plans.


Good luck!

 

[RBU1]

Thanks Walt.
I understand and will do my best to stick with my plan. Even though my main tank is now infected and the thought will always be in the back of my head, I guess I just have to live with it and hope my fish can fight thru it.

 

[sedor]

I have let nature take its course with ich a few times and it always works! I'm not going to give my .02 on the matter because it seems like many others have taken care of that, but I have been advocating not treating ich for some time and I still feel strongly about it.

 

[RBU1]

I have let nature take its course with ich a few times and it always works! I'm not going to give my .02 on the matter because it seems like many others have taken care of that, but I have been advocating not treating ich for some time and I still feel strongly about it.

I hope your right Sedor......I will keep everyone posted.....