ich help
 

well all my fish has ich, what should i do, i don't want to break the aquascape, i got few corals and one clam... any reef safe ich treatment? i know J&L has Hikari Ich-X Saltwater Treatment, and it says it's reef safe, but i don't know about that!!!!

Do not treat the DT! As far as I know none of the treatments are invert and coral safe

Some say ride it out and ensure the tank is as stress free as possible. Others say remove and treat with hypo, tank transfer or copper.

I recently had an ich outbreak and moved all the fish to a hospital tank to treat. Unfortunately for me the stress of catching them was too much for them... only 1 of the 4 fish survived.

I am running the DT fallow for 8 weeks to ensure its ich free (hopefully) and will adhere to a strict quarantine policy for new additions from now on.

To prevent the same thing from being posted yet again here's a link the latest thread involving a similar situation.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...&highlight=ich

And here's another 100 or so...
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sea...archid=2551652

I agree with manchild, ich is always present and fish are more
likely to get an outbreak if they are stressed

Sam here is what you need to do.
Go to a LFS and buy a product called Garlic Extreme
Take some dry food like nori or flakes and using the dropper squirt some of the garlic on the food and wait until the food is soaked. The reason you use dry food instead of frozen food is that more garlic soaks in.
Feed only dry food and feed much more and very often. The idea here is to get as much of the garlic into the fish. You can also
Continuing feeding for a few weeks after you see all the spot disappear.
Let me know if you have any questions

+1, I'm a believer in this as well. Just seems like a flaw in the life cycle theory. As long as they are eating they can fight it off on their own. I alternate garlic extreme,Selcon and Zeo Immun stabil throughout the week with or without ich breakout.

Which part of the life cycle of marine ich seems flaw to you?

while stocking my current tank i had a few fish develop ich after introducing. i use an oversized uv sterilizer, garlic soaked food and cleaner shrimp. works every time... never lost a fish.

velvet on the other hand.... not sooo much

12 weeks without fish in DT and ich still came back without new livestock added. So flaw could be from any part of the life stages. So from my personal experience there seems to be a flaw somewhere. Maybe different strains? But 12 weeks didn't eradicate them.

As others stated, just ride it out. If the fish are healthy, they will survive. Just feed them good food and keep the tank params and water quality good.

Did you Quarantine and medicate the new fish before you put it back in your display tank? If not, that would be where the ich came from

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How did you treat your fish for ick? if you did not do an appropriate treatment and simply removed them and put them in QT without treatment, then put them back into the tank, surely enough the ick would be back.

If you did treat them, maybe the treatment was not enough to kill it.

Treated with copper and and no sign of ich prior to returning to DT tank. But still showed up a month or 2 after returning to DT. :sad:

Lost a kole tang this morning from ich, was not doing very in dt, move him into qt, died in qt, hoping my chevron survives this ich bout in the dt

Lost my powder brown tang this morning:(

that appears to be a very quick succession of deaths! Sorry to hear about them.. It's possible that it isn't ich though. Marine Velvet for example traditionally kills fish much much quicker than Ich can, yet can appear like ich with white spots on the fish.

Both these fish along with the Chevron were in QT, with Cupramine for a couple of weeks before I placed in DT

It's been a little while, but if I recall correctly Cupramine treatment should last 3-4 weeks. The only time that the parasites are susceptible to the copper is when they are free swimming or attached to the fish. If they are in their cyst form laying in the substrate, the medication will have no impact on them. Again, this is why it is important to treat for the full 3-4 weeks.

I too am concerned that what I thought was ICH was actually MV. 3 of the 4 fish dies within 72 hours of being moved out of the DT. I assumed it was due to the extra stress caused with catching them, but I could be wrong.

As a precaution, I am letting the DT go fallow for 8-10 weeks. Week 4 is complete on Saturday, so Im almost halfway.

The lone survivor, a Occelaris Clown is doing well. Treated with cupramine for 3 weeks. It was touch and go for the first week or so of treatment. Not swimming much, and not eating. Now copper free, and looking healthy and very hungry. Feeding a mix of flake soaked in selcon and garlic and frozen mysis. Good color, and back to acting like a clown.

I plan to perform a couple tank transfers over the next 4 weeks with the clown to ensure no MV/ICH gets transferring back to the DT when its ready.

Amazing. That really not typical though.

Is it me or the ick parasites are getting stronger and meaner, more resistant?

Lost my Flame angle and Chevron tang this morning:(

Really sorry to hear that. QT all new fish for 6 weeks in the future and you won't have to go through this again.

Lost my female clown and Henicus this morning, so it's Marine Velvet:(

You can't say that unless you have a positive ID with a microscope. Marine velvet look very different from ich and does not produce the typical white dots.

Ich can kill as fast and as strong as marine velvet, make no mistake. Different strains of ick have different virulence.

I'm borrowing a fish trap from codfather, so I can transfer all the fish to QT and cupramine, and let the display go fallow for 2 months or more

I will suggest you to get a QT, add water from your DT and let it run. For trap your fishes get a fish trap from lfs or ask if any member can lend it to you...Put your fishes in the QT and mix on they food garlic, some people said that the garlic doesn't work...but it been working for me; you can use copper too. After 8 weeks your DT will have not any ich, as they die if there is not any fish...I hope that could help you.

I sure hate reading these threads. People just keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again.... Unfortunately, some of the advice isn't the best either.

I QT new fish for a total of 3 months (not 6 weeks) and use the hyposalinity method. Have been 100% successful with that. Not only does it ensure your fish are ich free, but they get a chance to eat well and get strong before being added to the DT where they might not get a very warm welcome initially from the resident inhabitants.

The trick is to have a fully cycled QT running all the time. If you try to set one up quickly and transfer sick fish from your DT, that very often does not work. Also, it is not good enough just to observe new fish in your QT without treatment for a few weeks or even 6 weeks. They still could be carrying ich without showing symptoms and infest your DT.

And 6 weeks fallow in your DT is not long enough. Go 3 months to be sure.

And yes, ich is deadly. Many people think they have MV when their fish die, but ich kills too. I know,... as I've been through all that in the past...

I have a 90 gallon and 50 gallon that are fully cycled, they both been running with carbon, to take the cupramine out, so I'm just making sure the temp and salinity are the same before I start the transfer. The 90 has been running since the end of Dec, the 50 gallon was started in Feb

2 dead purple dottybacks this afternoon:(

You have my sympathies, for sure. I've been there and know how it feels. Hopefully you will get past this, and with the lessons learned have better success in the future.

There is a lot more to having a proper QT than just being cycled and having the same salinity (that is probably the least important). I should have said mature QT, not just cycled. That means having sufficient bio filtering capacity to handle the extra feeding and fish waste in a smaller tank. I have a canister filter with a sponge filter running all the time. Prior to use and as part of ongoing maintenance, I also change the water in the QT using DT water from changing that water.

Then after placing the fish in the QT, multiple water changes (with RODI water) are used to bring down the salinity to 1.008 - 1.009 (use a refractometer). That of course freshens up the water, too. The fish need to be at that level for at least 6 weeks since the last time you saw any ich symptoms. Any shorter, and you just wasted your time. The complete cycle for me, lowering the salinity, keeping it there (usually 2 months) and then slowly raising it, takes me a full 3 months.

Here is a good article about hypo, including many of the other benefits to your fish.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/fish

Be carefull never to put copper in your display tank, and carbon will NOT remove copper! There is a product I think by Seachem that is supposed to remove copper but it is very hard to remove so never put that in your display or you will not be able to put any invertebrates, probably for a very very long time.

The danger with hyposalinity is this...if you put your fish right away in hyposalinity and it turns out to be marine velvet, then you must raise the salinity to treat with copper (it is not good to treat copper with hypo) and raising the salinity must be very very slow so marine velvet would wipe out your fish before you get the chance to have the right salinity to treat.

This is why a positive ID is important. If it is ick, then treat with hypo, if it is marine velvet treat with copper or preferably chloroquinine right away. Hyposalinity don't do a think for velvet.

For broklynella then it's Seachem Paraguard. In fact I would start my quarantine with full salinity and Paraguard, and only do hyposalinity when absolutely certain it's ick.

ick
 

well all my fish is still battling the ick problem..... :sad:

I agree avoid copper.

My understanding of MV is that it is very quick, and if you see it, you are probably too late to treat your fish. I believe it is also more rare, and most often it is mistaken for Ich.

I use hypo as a pro-active treatment as per this article, even if no signs of Ich are present. I had a situation one time where I also bought some shrimp along with new fish, and so didn't use hypo, just observed the fish in the QT for several weeks. They all looked good, so I transferred them into my DT. A few weeks later, Ich showed up in my DT, and soon I had a full blown outbreak. I fed my fish well (not much else you can do in your DT), but lost 2 of resident fish before the Ich subsided (I think the survivors can develop a short term immunity). Ironically non of the new fish died, but they obviously were carriers. I now assume any fish I get from anyone, LFS or private, carries Ich. It is certainly very common, no question about that.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/fish

I have never used Paraguard, so can't comment about that, other than what you can read on the internet.

I do have PraziPro, which I understand can be used together with hypo. Haven't tried it yet, but it is supposed to help get rid of other parasites like flukes and worms. Will do that next time I QT new fish.

That is good but I prefer to treat with Seachem Paraguard with normal salinity and if marine velvet would show up, I can treat right away without having to wait until the salinity is right (many days). I am afraid to use hyposalinity just as preventive in case MV would show up. I do have chloroquinine but for those who have to use copper it's not a good practice to do hypo without any sign. Also Paraguard will cure Broklynella which is often confused with marine velvet and can kill as fast. Hypo will not cure brooklynella or MV.

Usually 3 weeks in Paraguard is enough to kill ick if fish are carrier but do not show any sign.

Prazipro is good are a pro-active treatment as well, and it is reef safe (except xenia don,t like it but they survive).

If ID on time and treated on time, probably marine velvet is curable.

If the research on ich has shown anything, it's that there's way more variability within the C. irritans species than anyone ever knew. Cysts have been observed remaining dormant for 72 days and still producing infective stages in the laboratory before. That was one strain in one study. No one has identified the mechanism ich tomonts use to time their 'hatching', so I would very easily believe that some strains have an innate capacity to stay encysted even longer. I've seen it posted somewhere (maybe on RC?) that some people have had to fallow tanks for as long as 4 months to completely rid them of ich.

There's a posting from someone from Seachem in their product forums (I think it's in a thread regarding Paraguard) suggesting adding water from your QT system back to your display after you're 100% sure that ich has been eradicated from the QT system. Their logic is that the ich tomonts are sensitive to the presence of fish hormones, and that adding water from a fish system to your display will trigger the more stubborn cysts to hatch. It's never been tested in the published literature, but it's a really interesting idea.

ick
 

well lost my scorpas tank due to ick. :sad:
just went peacefully.. ick sucks..... this scorpas tang i had was 6 yrs old...

You're lucky, I had a kole, powder brown, chevron, 2 purple dottyback, 1 clown, 2 Heniochus so far this week:(

Lost a medium size Naso, 2 yellow tangs, and a clown fish, in the last 2 days:(

Are you sure it's not velvet?

Sounds like that to me.