So confused..ich or not??? Help

[kien]

Originally Posted by Coralgurl

I turned up my protein skimmer to help with my phosphates (0.25)

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).

[Coralgurl]

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.

[Cal_stir]

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

[Coralgurl]

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.

[cwatkins]

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.

[Proteus]

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

[Coralgurl]

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!!!

[Proteus]

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.

[jtbadco]

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.

[Coralgurl]

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.