So confused..ich or not??? Help

[Gripenfelter]

Why is the skimmer off?

[Coralgurl]

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

[Gripenfelter]

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.

[Coralgurl]

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.

[daniella3d]

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.

[Coralgurl]

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.

[Cal_stir]

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.

[Coralgurl]

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!

[Cal_stir]

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.

[Coralgurl]

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!