You could look at it like the guy next to you who just ate a pile of garlic.....youd leave him alone too. :lol:

Actually i dont believe it does anything but stimulate appetite.

Alot of fish that get ich, dont die from ich, but die as a result from not eating during the illness, becoming even more suseptable to re-infection in following life cycles of the parasite.

Out of all the treatments ive tried in the past, none have been as successful as just making sure a good diet is maintained and varied.

Marc.

OK to dig up an old thread, my Hippo Tang has a few spots of ich now, because I quarantined him for too short a time. He looks healthy aside from the spots of ich on him.

He is in a reef tank with a Yellow Tang and two ocellaris clowns, none of the other fish have any spots on them.

Anyway looking at everyone's advice I have elected to ride it out with attention to diet and water conditions. I could move all 4 fish into quarantine and treat them but this would be a tremendous hassle.

The worst case scenario is I lose all four fish and leave the tank fallow for two months after that.

I believe the folks who say that offering good conditions will enable the fish to fight off a mild to moderate case of ich.

Now that we have had pages, and pages of theories, explanations and possible insults.(I really don't believe that), I would like to add more mystery to the equation. I have had a small cowfish for exactly TWO MONTHS. He has been by himself in a 15 gallon tank, which has been set up for many months. A few days ago I purchased a RBTA, and put it in that tank for a few days. A couple of days ago I noticed the fish had white spots all over including the eyes. For now I am not treating him, as he shows no discomfort. The anemone has now been moved to my larger tank. does anyone want to try an explanation :question: , as this goes beyond anything I know about Ich.

Sounds to me that there might have been free-swimming ich in the water the RBTA came in. Only explanation I can think of.

Sorry to hear about your ich :sad:

IMO, get a neon goby.

:mrgreen:

This is a follow up on my last post. The day after I made that post, I began a KickIck regimen. The fish was in a 15 gallon tank by itself, and some Peppermint shrimp. I removed the shrimp, and began treatment. I used the full dosage for a 25 gallon tank. I followed the instructions exactly by going the full course of treatment.
The fish is clear now, which is a week after the last treatment. So, although some people say the product is useless my findings are that it does work. :biggrin:

:lol: Wait a couple more weeks after treatment is finished and you'll know exactly what everyone is talking about.

I had the same thing, worked for a bit. Which I think it helped control more than anything. But later it came right back.

Keep us updated.

Alright Lee, I will watch it for a week or two, and see what happens. I have to say, however, that after watching this for awhile, I have some serious doubts about what the "experts" say about the life cycle of Ich. The whole idea of encysting, and then breaking out of the cysts a couple of days later goes against nature. The whole idea behind forming cysts is for long term survival. I have a horrible feeling that Ich cysts are in tanks for a long time (if not always)

It has now been 2 1/2 weeks since the last treatment, and the fish is still ich free. :biggrin:

The real test will be that they will be ich-free after the new year.

And speaking about ich, I bought a chevron butterfly almost three weeks ago. Middle of last week, this fish came down with ich :eek: None of my other fish have it, but the butterfly was getting worse by the day. Two days into it having ich, I decided to step up the amount of Garlic Xtreme in the food by about 4 times normal . Also began feeding every two-three hours, so the butterfly would not be eating so freely from the flora and fauna in the tank and getting good strong doses of garlic instead. It's been three days now, and the fish has no signs of ich on its tail or pec fins where it was most visible.

Am going to continue feeding the extra, extra garlic food 3-4 times a day for the next few weeks to make sure any ich that may be lingering will not reinfest the fish. Hope this works. Will keep you updated.

Well, two days have passed and there is ich only on one pec fin. Have been feeding 4-5 times a day and the butterfly eats like he hasn't been fed in days. Was hoping the ich would have stayed off this fish, but it looks like the garlic is not having the general effect of keeping ich off :sad:

On the other hand, none of the other fish are affected and the butterfly seems to be gaining weight, swimming around like usual and generally doing well despite the ich.

Will continue feeding 4-5 times daily for awhile, especially in 2-3 weeks when the new batch of ich develop into the on-the-fish stage of their life cycles.

OK my Hippo Tang has had ich on and off for a month now despite optimum water conditions and undercrowding.

Just one to three spots at a time, on and off, the fish doesn't look sick at all.

I don't believe in the garlic thing because I am not an "alternative medicine" type. However I am going to try it anyway just for the hell of it.

I feed a mixture of flake, pellet, mysis, home-made frozen food, and sheets of nori. I don't have time to grind up cloves of garlic. Where is the best place to get some garlic extract/garlic juice to soak my food in?

LFS or J&L (got mine at J&L).

health food stores usually have it.

I have to agree with Bob...I've had two bad bouts of ick in the past 2.5 years and used kickick both times. Both times it worked and it didn't come back. I also know that both times it came in on newly introduced fish. I guess some things work for some people and not for others. I do know that if it happens again I'll do the same thing.

I have to say I disagree with this one. While a weakened immune system may have contributed to catching a cold or flu virus, the virus still must be present in order for you to catch it.

Why do eskimos hardly get colds? It's because it's so damn cold up there that the viruses don't normally survive. But if someone infected brings it up to them, they would definitely get sick, not because they are in the cold all the time.

Also, why do you think Wal-Mart pharmacy uses their computers to gather information on how to forecast where the flu epidemic is currently, and how fast it moves? Is it because people in the say the east are running themselves down? No, it's because the virus is spreading.

Just my 2 bits, I'll step down now :)

Absolutely correct. There was a study done some years ago on British military personnel. They were kept in freezing cold rooms wearing water soaked clothes. they did not catch colds.

But I think we are hijacking this thread.

Both factors (stress and presence of an infectious agent) are important in the spread of any communicable disease IMHO.

Ich was last seen on the pec fins of my chevron butterfly on Dec 22. This morning, I notice ich has returned to the butterfly's pec fins. The ich is large already, so I suspect it's been there at least a day or two :evil: The other three fish in this tank (120g), a blue sided fairy wrasse, a flame back dwarf angel and a green chromis have not ever shown signs of ich.

For the past 3-4 weeks, food has been PE mysis soaked with LOTS of Garlic Xtreme and Zoe. To ward off reinfection of ich, the fish have generally been fed at 8 am, 11 am, 2 pm, 4 pm and 7 pm, and sometimes more often.

Also, during the time of the over-generous feeding schedule, the butterfly has noticeably gained weight, and looks and acts to be in very good health. So, dang it, why is it getting ich while the other fish are not?

Am going to feed every two hours from now on to see if that has any effect on the ich.

Ich trouble?


http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/tt/index.htm
Try product #5 (evil laugh here)

If I wasn't so concerned about my fish, I'd be ROTFLMAO. But that is pretty funny, all the same :lol:

ich ICK!!!
 

Hi, my hippo tang (2 weeks since I got it) showed up with a few spots last week , fed it crushed garlic soaked food, and the spots were gone in less than 48 hours. Yesterday added 2 cleaner shrimp and 3 chromis and within a couple hours the tang had over a dozen spots. Tang is eating normally and behaving normally other than the spots. The chromis and 2 percs I have in the tank do not have spots. PLan to continue more frequent feeding with garlic soaked food; any further sugggestions would be greatly appreciated, will try to put up photo later, am new at this!

http://www.reefs.org/library/article...tes-jorge.html

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/index/ and look for News from the Warfront with Cryptocaryon irritans Part One of Five

More reading then you'll want to to.

I don't think I'm going to debate it but hyposalinity IMO is the only way to truley kill off ich

Hope this helps coolbreezebc did you read this whole thread lots of info.

Dave