New Reef Ich Problem

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by fabbroc

I have recently started up my first reef tank ...

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.

[fabbroc]

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.
Im not going to post any pictures tonight but im positive its ich. The bumps on the engineer goby are qute large and pronounced.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by fabbroc

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.

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...

[fabbroc]

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?

[Aquattro]

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.

[daniella3d]

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.

Originally Posted by fabbroc

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.
Im not going to post any pictures tonight but im positive its ich. The bumps on the engineer goby are qute large and pronounced.

[RSM]

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.

[Midway]

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.