Treating....<ick?> or <???>

[jassz]

Hi all. I'm not sure if I have a problem or not, so I'll just describe the situation and see what you think.

I bought/moved an established tank May1. It is 135g tank with a 40 g sump. It contained some live rock, some base rock, a White tailed trigger, a picasso trigger, a lionfish, a wolf eel, a valentini puffer (and another puffer who seemed unhealthy from the start and died a few weeks later, condition not related to the current problem).

Everyone else has a healthy appetite and they all get along reasonably well except the two triggers occasionally 'argue' at feeding time, and the lion fish occasionally chases the white tailed trigger out of 'his' spot.

From the very beginning, the white tailed trigger would bash his body up against the rocks and side of the tank as he was swimming by. The picasso trigger does it a bit too, but not as much. I wasn't sure if he was itchy, or if he was trying to roust out some food to nibble on. I couldn't find out if this was normal behavior for triggers, but as he seemed healthy I let it pass. But, now he is doing it more and more. So much so that his scales are starting to look roughed up from the bashing on the rocks. I kept watching for spots but saw none, and I figured it would be pretty visible on a dark brown fish. But maybe he successfully knocked them off? Anyway, about a week ago I decided I saw a few white spots on the lionfish, and treated the whole tank for 3 days with something called Anti Ick. I thought the spots disappeared from the lionfish, but now... sometimes I see them and sometimes I don't. Do they fall off??? The triggerfish is definitely looking even more roughed up. I've been trying to get a pic, but so far they all look unclear.

Should I try another course of Anti Ick? Should I try moving Bambi (the white tail) so a separate tank? The whole tank needs to be treated anyway, right? What about the live rock?

If it is Ick, where did it come from? I didn't introduce any new fish, and I don't feed live food.

BTW, weekly I replaced about 10 gallons of water. My pH is around 7.8, SG 1.022, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate negative. Occasionally I get a trace amount of nitrite or nitrate, but ammonia has always been negative.

Thanks,
jassz

[Snaz]

Others might know better but I feel ich is just normal flora found in a fish tank like nitrosomas and nitrobacter. It just kinda floats around until it find something to host, in our cases fish that are stressed.

I don't personally believe you can let a tank sit empty for "x" weeks and be free of ich forever.

Ich is very small very distinct round dots, always the same shape and size. A couple of dots during a stressfull time is not worth the added stress of netting and quarantine in my opinion but is a sign to get a quarantine tank running in case the ich gets worse.

[belzebuth]

If you have purchased an established tank the ick probably came with it.

Don't add the medication to the tank if you have live rock, live sand,corals and invertebrates. The ick medication is lethal for Corals and invertebrates, it will aslo kill the good bacteria in your substrate and live rock.

I have ick in my tank, I know it is present....My fish seem to be resistant to it. They are happy and well fed. If something is stressing them they will show signs of ick. I have to agree with Snaz about the quarantine, it is sometime so stressing that the fish end up dying.

Do you soak the food in Garlic and Selcon? What is your nitrite level?

[jassz]

I soak their food in Selcon about 3-4 times a week. Garlic, no. I feed a mix of silversides, prawns with shell, blue crab and smelts. Occassionally I give the triggers an algae wafer because they seem to like it so.

So far I seem to have 'gotten away' with treating the tank for ick the first time, though some of the green growth on the rocks did die back a bit. The hermit crabs and cowrie snail are still alive too, so no harm done it seems. Though maybe no good. Would something like Melafix do any good?

I just checked the nitrite again (because you asked), and it is negative. Which is what is almost always is.

He's quite a voracious eater, I wonder if he's stressed because I'm not feeding him enough? Although if I fee HIM more than once a day I have to feed everyone more than once.

[Snaz]

Medicating main display tank is worse than not medicating at all in my opinion. If your going to medicate you MUST do it in a seperate tank, do not let anyone tell you otherwise, especially an LFS.

[aussiecoral]

ich is always present in the tank which i believe is true. I use to have lineatus wrasse that had ich come and gone everyday. I use garlic guard and deep the frozen food for straight 2 weeks and this thing really work. You will see the affect in a day or 2 that ich will disappear since ich doesn't like garlic, don't stop feeding them with garlic once you have seen the ich is gone, keep on feeding them straight for 2 weeks then you will never see ich again unless your parameter is bad. Good luck

[belzebuth]

You could soak his food in garlic. I use Kent Garlic Xtreme.

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...duct_ID=k-gx01

What medication did you use?

[i have crabs]

sounds like ich or a similar parasite,
google saltwater ich there are lots of articles to read, its a parasite and was probably in the tank and on the fish when you got them, most treatments that are reef safe are garbage asfar as im concerned, you can take lots of different actions a couple common routs are
1. do nothing hope it goes back under control, problem is ich is still in the tank waiting for another chance to take over,
2. feed with garlic, add reefsafe ich snake oil treatments buy cleaner shrimp/fish, problem is you will still end up with ich in your tank waiting to take over again someday but better chances of fish surviving than doing nothing,
3.buy a qt tank if you dont have one yet, big enough for all your fish to live in for 4-6 weeks,treat the fish with either hyposalinity or a copper based treatment for min. 2 weeks and leave your display fishless for 4-6 weeks, this will kill the ich parasites in the tank and on the fish and will now not have to worry anymore.
ich can be reintroduced into the tank by adding new fish that have not been treated properly, or in there egg like state on rocks or corals you buy,
having a place to keep new rock and corals for 3-7 days is ideal but most people dont do that step since the risk is small

[kien]

In my years of battling ich, the only thing that ever truly worked for me was to add lots of cleaner shrimp and to help the fish kick the ich themselves. As others have stated, ich is always there but it rears its ugly white heads when it finds a host that is weak and stressed out. Fish get weak and stressed out for many reasons. I usually get ich outbreaks when new fish are added. Even some of the existing population develop ich because they stress out about the new addition. Sometimes one or two fish get ich if I have left a water change for too long. Generally if they are healthy they will kick the ich themselves. The cleaner shrimp help them along by picking off their ich. I have 4 skunk cleaners and 4 blood red shrimp and all 8 of them have cleaning stations that the fish line up for when they get ich, or even if they are just itchy. With 8 shrimps, I also get a lot of shrimp spawning.. they are a busy bunch!

Anyway, that is my strategy and (thankfully!), even though I get ich now and then I have yet to lose anyone to ich (since adding my population of shrimps a couple of years ago.

K.

[jassz]

Thanks for all the suggestions. In the end, I did... nothing. I am quite baffled, as sometime it seems he has small white dots, and sometimes not. I don't know if it's the lighting, or if it's 'dust' that just settles there and leaves or what. But, as I lost most of the emerald green algae when I treated with the ick medicine, I'm reluctant to expose the rocks to anything else, even moving. Esp if I'm not sure it's necessary. There are no white dots on Bambi, but his scales do look roughed up from the bashing against the rocks (but whose to say that's caused by ick?).

Now, however, Fabio (the lionfish) has cloudy eyes. Both eyes. I researched this a bit, and it seems recommended treatment varies from antibiotics to epsom salts to melafix, and the causes seem just as varied. Since it seemed the least harmful to the rocks, I started a course of Melafix yesterday. It might help Bambi too. It says I'm supposed to treat for 7 days, and leave the protein skimmer off while I'm treating, which seems like a long time to be without the protein skimmer. I do have a Fluval filter running as well. Yesterday, before treating the tank and turning off the skimmer, the pH was 7.8, SG= 1.023 and ammonia, nitrate and nitrite all negative. Since I can't turn the protein skimmer on, what do I do if anything does come up positive? Water changes?

Oh, and the other thing that happened 2 days ago is that Olivander, the Valentini puffer, puffed himself for no apparent reason. I have never seen him puff, the prev owners said they had never seen him puff. It didn't appear that anyone else in the tank was paying any attention to him whatsoever. I just mention it because I have no idea if it is in any way related. Sign of stress? Appetites seem good for everyone, though Fabio didn't eat yesterday. Not that unusual though, as he often skips a day and then is ravenous the next day.