New Reef Ich Problem
 

I have recently started up my first reef tank, a 33 gallon tank with 25-30 pounds of live rock and I'm already having some issues. :neutral:
I recently had a clownfish die (one of two) due to ick. At the time I didnt realize that it was in fact ick, and that ick in a reef tank is a very big problem. Now my other clown is infected along with my engineer goby. There is also two green chromis and a pink spotted goby who still look healthy. I was recommended Herbtana by microbe lift to treat my tank and I started treatment on the 13th. My tank now smells good :razz: and I am waiting on the results.
Hopfully this treatment works but I want some oppinions on the use of quarantine tanks.
-Do you quarantine new fish or corals?
-If you had an ich outbreak in your display what would you do?
-If not using a quarantine how would sick fish be dealt with and how would sickness controlled?

Hopefully I can get some insight into what others are doing with their tanks :wink:

Another question I had was, is a hospital tank (removing fish from the display after they get sick) effective enough at preventing an ick outbreak?

I voted always.
I did not do this before, but after my last outbreak, and in reading the recent horror story on here, I will now do this.
Certainly do not want all my fish to die.
So everything is going into the QT and fish will get a hypo-salinity treatment

I voted never. I'm a horror story, all my fish died...

Nothing goes into my tank without going threw a month min QT and all the corals are dipped then observed for a week

I never used to but with all the greif it saves Its worth it to qt. ick is minor when you compare it to velvet. One case wipes out the entire thank and thousands of dollars down the drain if you have expensive fish. The best way to get rid of your current issues is to remove ALL your fish and treat them. Removing one will do nothing.

This probably won't sound right..., but I think it was good that Brad and a few other highly experienced reefers recently had this problem. When a newbie has ich or velvet break out, people are sympathetic, but I'm sure many just think it was due to inexperience and less than perfect tank conditions. And they go on thinking it won't happen to them, if they practice good reef husbandry. Well, as we now know, it can happen to anybody.

I don't want to sound like the Tang or Copperband police, but I do think good quarantine practice is an important part of our reef keeping hobby. You might get away without it 8 out of 10 times, and it's true that healthy unstressed fish have a better chance fighting it (ich, that is). But the consequences can be huge, so why take the chance.

I also have a 33 gal reef and developed an ich outbreak about 3 mnths after I started. I tried different 'reef safe' meds with little to no effects.

I fed garlic and selcon regularly and let it run its course.

If I had a larger tank I would definitely QT any new fish and/or corals

I voted never, but I might change my mind if I came across velvet. Ick always seems to just run it's course.

Honestly, I think it happens more often that people say. It's a bit embarrassing, you know, I've been doing this stuff a long time and damn, I know what I'm doing. I know a sick fish from a healthy fish, blah blah blah. And that worked for a lot of years. Ich schmich, not worried about a little ich, one little bit. But....velvet is a different story. Pretty much by the time you admit you might have a problem, your fish are dead.
Now, I'll still likely not use a Q tank, but I will collect all my must have fish at once, treat in the tank while it's up and that's that. I suppose if I come across a free Achilles one day, I might think about quarantining, and will keep a foam block in the sump just in case one day I need it. That alone would have saved most of my fish, IMO.

I have been doing this along time, and yes i just had a bout of ich, just five days ago-who hasn't.
I made a big newbie mistake and turned off the two koralias in my reef for two nights, thinking my hob filter would provide enough oxygen-NOT!

I lost four fish due to a stupid mistake:redface:, and yes I'm embarrassed to say the least.

Two small fish made it through but I'm almost certain that they wouldn't have if it wasn't for Kents Garlic Xtreme. I have used this product before and I believe the natural benefits of boosting the fishes immune systems with this product is amazing. After five days of loosing four fish I'm 99% sure these other two fish will survive the outbreak.

It's not a cure for all fish health problems due to reef keeper error, but it has helped save some of my fish some of the time:biggrin:

I'm curious as to whether you have ich or, worse, velvet. Ich doesn't always kill so fast. Care to post a pic of your infected fish? Maybe one of us could confirm it for you.

What would a foam block do ?

It gives you the bacteria to put in your QT

Zactly. A huge factor in my fish loss was not having a mature biological filter to use on the treatment tank. Huge NH4 spike caused damage to the gills of most of the fish, which when sick, made it impossible to recover. A foam block fully matured would have avoided that.

I'd like to read up more on that got a link ?

On what, exactly?

Just trying to wrap my head around a foam block in the sump. I'll google it

Oh, simple. Essentially I'm using a foam filter block from an aquaclear filter. I drop that in the sump in an area of flow, and over a few weeks, it becomes colonized with nitrifying bacteria. Some people use round foam filters, bio-balls, excess LR rubble. any material with a large surface area that can hold a lot of bacteria.
Then, in my case, should I need to set up a Q tank or treatment tank, I can add the foam block to my aquaclear and presto, a fully mature (cycled) filter to remove NH4 and NO2 from the tank.
Some foam filters are air driven, some fit in canisters, etc
And it's in the sump just to keep it out of site. You could float it around in your tank :) It's not specifically a sump thing...

Duh !! Got it now

I talked to an experienced reefer today who told me that he does not quarantine any fish before putting them in but instead adds herbtana as a preventative measure.
Its interesting how everyone has their own methods to treat and prevent illness.
The method I think im going to use is as follows; dose herbtana when fish are added as a precaution or when signs of sickness are shown, and any fish with more severe symptoms will be quarantined and treated accordingly to bring them back up to heath. If my tank was bigger and more costly I would not hesitate to quarantine everything.

On a good note it looks like my clown no longer has ich, just a secondary bacterial infection. :neutral:
Im not going to post any pictures tonight but im positive its ich. The bumps on the engineer goby are qute large and pronounced.

After having my tank hit with velvet, and seeing how the over the counter meds did nothing, I'm not sure that's a real good idea :) Adding herbs is kinda like my method of praying to reef gods. Might give you a warm fuzzy feeling, but doesn't help protect your reef.
Like I said in another post, ich is not something I'd worry about very much, and if it happens, I feed garlic. That's always worked for me. But velvet? Unless you're going to feed radioactive garlic, you will need to treat outside the reef with real medication. Copper or CP. Neither are reef safe, and trust me, it's better to not have put the fish in the display than to try and get it out later...

Yeah I understand. At best it's a weak medication. I guess I'm trying to justify not having to quarantine fish before I put them in my display. So during this quarantine period (how long?) what other than external parisites get killed and what can be completely eradicated from your display?
I heard cupramine is the best copper, but what is cp? Any other meds anyone would reccomend?

CP is chloroquine phophate, said to work against ich, velvet and brooklynella. I've just heard about and used it recently, and I'm happy with the results. I know that it's fun to come up with reasons not to run a q tank, I did for 12+ years. It always worked, until it didn't. I lost about $1000 worth of fish in a week over adding a fish I didn't really want in the first place, but made an impulse purchase. I will not do that again. Once I've added my new treated fish, I will not add another fish without treating it first. This will likely mean not adding another fish, since I really don't want to quarantine. But if I find a must have fish, I will.

Rarely and never should be separate.

I never use one. Been lucky I guess. Although my coral beauty developed ich shortly after adding her, but it never spread and she beat it.

Neon goby and cleaner shrimp. ;)

I think with velvet it is not really a matter of "if", but rather a matter of "when" it will happen. One could be lucky for years and years and as we saw recently, disaster strike.

These things can be prevented.

Now I wonder if a peroxyde dip and then putting the affected fish into a clean fresh tank with good cured liverock could have saved the velvet infested fish?

I got a really bad strike of discus plague after introducing some new discus to my stock (no quarantine!). They were all dying within about 10 hours later, so I did an extreme mesure and did a permanganate bath for 4 hours (strong oxydizer) and transfered all the fish into a clean tank. I did that each day and the fish all survived...did not lose a single one. At some point my prized show melon female was on its side floating on top of the water and I thought she was dead (not breathing). After the PP bath she revived and she spawned 6 weeks later.

Discus plague is a fast acting bacteria, and is can kill as fast as velvet, even faster.

I guess with velvet getting rid of the parasite fast (really fast) is a must.

I wish I could have a way to mesure precisely 50ppm of peroxyde. Anyone have an idea what concentration would need to be used with 3% peroxide to get 50ppm?

Also anyone ever tried permaganate potassium in saltwater?

Well looks like I will be quarantining all my fish from now on. Thanks for everyone's input.
So how long should fish be quarantined for? Does anyone medicate for prevention?

I QT any new fish at least 2 months, and put them through the hyposalinity (no chemicals for me) routine, whether they look sick or not. That also gives them time to get feeding well, and be healthy and strong when introduced to my display tank. I use display tank water at the end when raising the salinity, and that gets them acclimatized prior to the move.

now that's going to be efficient against velvet for sure...

herbatamachin won't do anything against marine velvet. It's a total waste of money. At least if you're going to do that, use some real medicine as a dip first, like formaline dip or Seachem Paraguard one hour dip, not snake oil.

Once you will notice sign of sickness, all the fish might be dead 24 hours later.

You don't quarantine after the fish are sick...you treat after the fish are sick..you quarantine BEFORE you put them in your tank so not all your fish become infected if one come out with velvet.

I have never quarantined anything for over 4 years and have been lucky, but luck runs out. My skimmer pump blew up over night while I was sleeping, tripping the breaker. 8 hours later without any power all the fish have ich and look close to death. Such a sick feeling. Lost 3 fish so far and the rest are bouncing back. Its been a month since this happened. System is a 210 gallon mixed reef.

I did NOT QT before and after my recent DISASTER, I will QT everything before even thinking put anything new in my DT. I lost more than half of my fish population to ick. did not act fast enough when I saw the first signs of it on some fish. A week later many of them were dropping like flies. Its a disturbing feeling knowing that because of my stupidity of not wating to QT because of was too "hard" I lost half of my fish to ick. I did treat my tank with herbatana with somewhat good results, I think that saved one of my hippo tangs that it was almost covered it of that nasty stuff but I lot others died anyways. Now I'm treating with UV lights and its making wonders, ick has retreat it and remaining fish look way better now. QT QT QT QT QT from now on.