Will cleaner shrimp eat ich off my fish?

[xenon]

Well it's official.. my Powder Blue Tang has ich for sure now.

I also wanna know what I need to feed them.

My tank is pretty nutrient poor since it's a bare bottom with lots of flow (50x) to keep my bottom clean.

 

[greenbean36191]

No.

 

[AquaReeferMan]

Nope they will not eat it. At most they might pick it off. Didnt you QT the PBT? Your best bet is to remove the fish and treat it with hypo and leave your tank fallow for 6 weeks. Sorry to hear about that, I know you just got the thing.

 

[mattsilvester]

Ich (or at least the white spots that you see) are merely scars, as such, and not the parasite that infects the fish. In short, micro scopic parasites burrow into the fishes skin, there it grows until it is big enough to "split" into 100 so. As it burrows its way back out, the white spots appear.

They are like chicken pox - once the "pox" appear the infection is well set in, and curing the "pox" does not cure the infection.

Correct if I'm wrong here.

Matt

 

[AquaReeferMan]

Nope that is correct. Heres a link to further understand the life cycle of the ich parasite.

Part 1
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php
Part 2
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.php