Need ich advice

[halwake]

Originally Posted by S0K

Thank you all for taking the time to read and reply to my post

I think since the kole is eating and behaving normally I will leave him in the DT for now and continue feeding with garlic. If he gets worse however I will move him to a QT and if I see it drastically spreading to my other fish then I will consider moving all the fish to QT's for treatment and leave my DT fallow for 12 weeks. I really hope the latter won't be necessary...

Mark and halwake, you both said you had ich in your tanks before but it eventually subsided on its own. Does that mean it died off completely? Or the fish are just co-existing with it? I think I'm going to pick up a couple of cleaner shrimp this week and then I will not be adding any more livestock to the DT for a good 2-3 months after the last white dot is gone.

No fish show any signs of ich, no fish visit the cleaner shrimp ever. When I got ich the infected fish would go near the shrimp and it would try to climb onto the fish to clean it. It seemed like each fish would get a few specks then clear up. I imagine I may still have it in my system but I never see any signs at all. I did more damage trying to pull everyone out into a qt to treat then ich did. Get a cleaner shrimp, try the garlic in the food and give it some time. I bet it clears up on its own. Just make sure they are eating, don't appear distressed, and its not getting way worse. Again just my experience. If they start having trouble and you feel you should treat, I have had best luck with hypo salinity treatment. Again, I'm sure you will be fine, don't panic.

[mark]

Originally Posted by S0K

Mark and halwake, you both said you had ich in your tanks before but it eventually subsided on its own. Does that mean it died off completely? Or the fish are just co-existing with it? I think I'm going to pick up a couple of cleaner shrimp this week and then I will not be adding any more livestock to the DT for a good 2-3 months after the last white dot is gone.

Wasn't like a huge outbreak, only a couple of spots on the Purple and Regal tangs (which cleared after a few days), but not one white dot since.

[S0K]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

The cleaners may help with the exterior bits but nothing in the gills

2-3 months is not going to make a difference if the web info is correct
I know I haven't given you a chance to read my post yet, but it can take up to 11 cycles (months ?) for MI to die out

I looked into this online and looks like you're right - it's 11 months and yeah like you said that's only if I add nothing new during that time. I have 5 fish right now and I'm planning on adding 3-4 more before I'm "fully stocked" and that's a long time to wait!
Although it seems that fish can co-exist with the parasite I'm assuming it's probably annoying for them to deal with. Also I'm assuming every time I add a new fish even after QT the dots will reappear since the ich is living in the DT. I think I may just go the fallow path and invest the time now and instead of dealing with the heartache later lol.
I have another question now... instead of moving the fish to a QT (which I would have to buy because I only have 5 and 10 gal spare tanks) could I move the inverts (snails, shrimp, urchin) to my 29gal fowlr and just do hyposalinity on the DT?

On a side note the kole is still looking good and the dots have reduced. I'm sure it's ich and not velvet

[gregzz4]

If the kole only has dots, and doesn't look like it's been rolled in flour, then I'm pretty sure you're safe to assume it's not velvet

Sure you could do hypo in the DT with the inverts removed, but I'd recommend you remove the LR too, and you'll have to leave the LR fallow for I think 9 weeks
If you leave the LR in the DT during hypo you'll probably lose all the pods and such

[S0K]

Got it. I'm going to start the hypo tomorrow. Thanks everyone

[gregzz4]

Don't know if you caught it in any of the hypo stuff you've read, but there's a rumour that running 1.009 doesn't always kill it all
Therefore I run mine @ 1.008 and it's always served me well

[S0K]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

Don't know if you caught it in any of the hypo stuff you've read, but there's a rumour that running 1.009 doesn't always kill it all
Therefore I run mine @ 1.008 and it's always served me well

No I hadn't heard that, thanks for the tip!