So confused..ich or not??? Help
 

This morning I noticed white spots on one of my new clowns, looked up what it could be and came up with ich. The clowns as well as my starry blenny scrape /flick against the rocks and sand. All day I'm in a panic, what to do, try to catch all the fish, stick em a hospital tank? I called the lfs and was told to try garlic and selcom, picked it up along with some tools for rinsing and mixing up some food. Get home and spots are gone from clown, not moved but gone. Fish ate this morning, haven't fed yet tonight. Now my coral beauty has white spots that look like bubbles all over it. I turned up my protein skimmer to help with my phosphates (0.25), just tested and everything is where it should be. Do I have something going on?? I'm going away mid week and am so worried. I'm changing the water tonight and all filters, carbon etc (monthly change is due). Thoughts?? Thanks

Just went through similar when I upgraded. All fish had whit spots and were faurly stressed. But the next day they were all cleared up. I passed it off as sand and scrapes from hiding in the rock and sand.

Thanks I hope this is all it is! Going to give them the garlic and selcon anyway with their food, it can only help right? Ive been so worried all day. Before any new fish, a qt tank will be set up...but I'm fully stocked now anyway :lol:

Good idea just in case. Soak dry food in the garlic extract (Garlic Extreme) Dry because it soaks up the extract. Feed only garlic soaked food and feed often. Add Selcon from time to time.

I've mixed up a batch to last a few days, going away mid week and my daughter will have to feed. I don't have any dry food, just frozen, but I rinsed then used fresh garlic and added the selcon. Im just not sure about my coral beauty, but she's eating and moving around lots, less shy as well.

I am pretty sure it's ich,my coral beauty looks like shes dying, kinda swimming, nose up and sideways. She normally stays in the back behind the rock, but she's in the centre of the tank out front covered in white dots. My blue chromis then started smacking her with it's tail and she really didn't respond. I don't know what to do, I'm pretty sure my flame angel has some on it's tail, the blenny keeps hitting the sand and one clown now won't come out of the nem. I know trying to catch the all would be stressful to put them in a qt tank but this is horrible to watch. Any suggestions?

Protein skimmers do not remove phosphates nor is it their function to do so. Protein skimmers help to remove dissolved organics (fish poo, amino acids, etc). Protein skimmers will remove organic waste products that may contain phosphorus but phosphorus is not exactly phosphate. Technically, phosphorus is an element (P), and phosphate is a molecular anion (PO4_3-), part of phosphoric acid (H3PO4). Also, our aquarium test kits can only test for inorganic phosphates.

A better way to reduce phosphates is to run Granulated Ferric Oxide (GFO) in a media reactor. Mostly all local fish stores will sell some form of GFO (rowaPhos, etc).

I actually picked some up yesterday and added to the filter tonight. The phosphates have stayed at .025 since I started testing a few weeks ago but has likely been an issue for a while. I actually added phos-pad to the filter. Will see how this works.

fresh garlic works better, put it in a blender and pour off the juice

I'm using fresh garlic with the selcon. Setting up a qt going to get the coral beauty in it and treat, she's the worst but may have to treat one of the clowns as well. We think the others will get better with the food.

Go buy some Rowaphos and put it in the little micron bag that it comes with and drop that in your filter as well as the carbon.

Note: rinse it well first with RO water until no more colour bleeds out of it.

I have used herbtana in the past with good results. I believe red coral carries it

I bought herbtana tonight and read another post that the person used it and next day all fish except one were dead. I also bought ich attack, but don't know whether or not to put either of these in my tank. My bf and I are now fighting over this bec I think trying to catch one fish is going to stress the others and make things worse. We've got the qt set up and added an instant reef something so it can take a fish but it was me chasing 2 fish last week that caused this, he thinks they look fine, but my male clown won't come out of the nem and is breathing heavy. I don't know what the best thing to do is!!!

The ich is in the tank though and really u will have to remove all or none fish. I have used ick attack and it took Alot of bottles before it cleared. Fish always have parasite and if you stress them
Out buy chasing with a net it's more harm than good. Water changes. Garlic. Selcom and something like ick attack. Herbtana. Or vital immune is a good choice. Also. I used metroplex it's a powder you put in the food which really helped for me it's a antibiotic of sorts. Just make sure you soak food overnight so it absorbs all.

If there are fish in the tank than the ich will never be gone as it used the fish to reproduce. So best is to treat the tank entire and keep it as low stress as possible.

Well I've just dosed with the herbtana and no ones gone in the qt. We are heading out of town and if things don't look any better when we get back, will remove all fish and try hypo. My daughter can look after tank while we are gone to continue treatment. Here's hoping!!

Corals are not liking this.....oh my....

Well first dose seems to have gone well and everyone is doing ok. Corals did not like this treatment but all are open and look good this morning. The anenome looked the worst, it's tentacles got really thin and it's body puffed up but today looks good. The snails completely retracted into their shells, actually could hear and see them falling into rock and sand, but they are back to grazing as well. No change with the fish, actually noticed spots on my flame angles body which I hadn't seen before. That said, everyone came out to eat. Mixing up a new batch of food, feeding them smaller portions more often. I hope we can get this under control!

Just remember you don't need to see it for the fish to have it. It will infest there gills first which is the heavy breathing you

I can see it on everyone except the cardinals and the chromis. I'm sure that this is a massive outbreak and have no doubt all fish are affected. If I was not going away tomorrow, I would break down my tank to catch everything, put in the qt and hypo them but bec I'm leaving and my daughter is not comfortable with the maintenance, this is the best I can do. I will run the full 10 day treatment and see how things are from there. There are no plans to add any more fish to this tank and will be a long time before adding any corals, but we are set up going forward. Deep breath...

Soak their food in Selcon or Garlic extract.

Soaking food in both selcon and garlic.

Well it's a sad day, my coral beauty didn't make it, found her dead this morning. She stopped eating yesterday, I watched her try to catch food but couldn't get to it. All the other fish are still showing great appetites and not any signs of problems yet even though they have I h on them as well. Today is the third day of treatment, hopefully it is making a difference.

Unless you want to remove them to a QT tank and treat with copper, then garlic and Selcon are your best bet.

I tried a couple of 'reef safe' meds but with little to no noticeable effect.

I have been told that fresh water dips can help remove some parasites too.

The selcon garlic and herbtana seem to helping. One of my clowns barely came out of it's nem yesterday, but today is swimming all over. My blenny is also moving around more today and picking at the algae, yesterday he just sat on a rock up by one of the power heads, was still eating when I fed the tank but that's it. so there appears to be a bit of improvement. I tried to catch the coral beauty last night when she finally came out to try to do a fw dip, then place her in the qt tank as she was by far the worse, but I couldn't get her. I did set up a qt this week but felt the stress of taking my tank apart to catch everyone was going to be more stressful and cause more harm than good. Not out of the woods yet but I think things look a bit better today! Will keep updating this thread.

Doing frequent water changes is also advisable. Pristine water will help the fish heal and it will help to remove free swimming parasites from the water column. Do a FW dip on anyone you can catch.

The visible ich parasites will disappear and re-appear on the fish's skin as it follows it's life cycle. Once you have gone 10-14 days without any spots you should be fine.

Ahh, I wasn't sure if I should do any water changes while treating. I did one on Sunday, will get one set up to do tomorrow. I usually do 10 gl on my 55 gl tank, is that enough as I don't have a big enough container to do a larger one.

I still see spots on them, but the clowns and blenny are flashing less. Also, can I treat with the herbtana every 12 hours or just once a day? Instructions say daily so I've been doing at the same time each night, an hour before lights out so they are swimming less.

Thanks for the input!

If you have a UV sterilizer it would help prevent future breakouts.

I don't have one at the moment but will pick one up before treatment is complete. It would have to be turned off during treatment anyway, I need more salt so will probably head out in the next day or so to pick one up - any recommendations on a decent one? I was at Pisces earlier this week and they have one for around $160, plus the pump and lines, not sure on brand.

Check how many watts it is. You don't want one too big or it will kill all bacteria. One too small does nothing.

Thanks! I will check out options and add one to the tank. Going to treat for additional 2 weeks once spots gone, have a feeling tank is going to be a mess after with protein skimmer off and extra feeding.

Why is the skimmer off?

Treatment instructions say to turn it off and pull carbon out of filter.

Most Reef safe treatments, in my experience, do not work.

You have two options.

1) Quarantine the sick fish and treat with Cupramine.

2) Soak food in garlic and selcon while providing pristine water conditions hoping it will blow over.

Personally I soaked the food and added a UV sterilizer. Ich is like the common cold. All tanks have their own form of it. Untreated, over time some fish get used to it while the touchier fish die.

I've had an 18 W UV sterilizer on my 120 gallon for 4 months. My blue regal tang used to be covered in ich sometimes and sometimes only have a couple of spots. Since adding the UV I don't see a single solitary spot. It doesn't cure ich but it prevents re-infection.

If you keep the skimmer off, keep an eye on your water parameters and do water changes as necessary.

Great suggestions! I'm doing option 2 on your list with the herbtana. The treatments have had mixed reviews, some say it works, some say it doesn't. Some say hypo some say copper (which i also bought this week) but bec these require removal I chose the treatment. This outbreak visibly affected 5 of my 8 fish, the others I simply can't tell. I have water mixing now and will change first thing tomorrow morning.
Im going to finish the recommended treatment time (10 days) and move forward from there, uv sterilizer included-I've heard this works, I do not want to go through this again so with a qt now set up, a uv sterilizer on the tank hopefully this is the last time I see ich on my fish! I did turn my skimmer back on on low, will retest all parameters today, as of Sunday, only issue was phosphates, but I'm dealing with that. Tested yesterday and it's still at 0.25.
Also will qt fish before they go into tank, but unless this wipes everything out, no new fish for a long time.

If you do not do a proper treatment, you will always have ich in your tank. It's going to come and go and any new addition that will be stressed might trigger a new outburst of ick.

The best is to remove all of your fish and treat them all, then leave your main tank without fish for 6 weeks or so. That's the only way you are going to be free of ich, or you will have to endure this every now and then.

If you ever use Cupramine, make sure you do not use any water treatment like Prime as it will bind with the amine in Cupramine and release the copper into a toxic form.

Another treatment could be Seachem paraguard and it's quite safe but not for the coral or invert. To be done in a quarantine tank. But at least you could have some liverock in there and have a decent water quality. With copper you cannot put any liverock and ammonia can build up quite fast so this must be checked each day, preferably twice a day.

I realize this leaves the ich in the tank. I've already said why I close this method, I feel it's the best choice right now. The fish are already sick, stressing them more is not going to help right now.

To top it off, my nem has decided to relocate, all power heads are covered but this is restricting water flow. Anyone has a suggestion on a good netting product? Tried a fish net and now have nylons covering them.

Sorry about your Coral Beauty, the garlic keeps them eating and boosts their ammune system, keep your skimmer running, add garlic right to the tank as well as the food, make the tank smell like garlic. I went through this about a month ago, no losses, you can get through this!
And yes, reef safe remedies do not work.

Thanks, I liked the cb a lot but she was def the sickest. I dont know when it started to affect her so treating and feeding was probably too late. The skimmer is back on. One more feeding tonight, still going to treat, it doesn't hurt to continue to try. Glad to hear you made it through with no losses!

Thanks, we have 20 fish, all had it to some degree, yellow tang was completely covered and royal gramma had spots in its mouth, did the fresh garlic for a week, whole house smelled, absolutely no sign of it now and I think Tang looks better now than ever. Good Luck.

Yep, my tank smells as well, using 1/2 clove per batch of food I've been mixing up. Thankfully I'm off for a few days so can really keep an eye on things!