So confused..ich or not??? Help

Coralgurl · #1 09-27-2011, 03:24 PM

I can see it on everyone except the cardinals and the chromis. I'm sure that this is a massive outbreak and have no doubt all fish are affected. If I was not going away tomorrow, I would break down my tank to catch everything, put in the qt and hypo them but bec I'm leaving and my daughter is not comfortable with the maintenance, this is the best I can do. I will run the full 10 day treatment and see how things are from there. There are no plans to add any more fish to this tank and will be a long time before adding any corals, but we are set up going forward. Deep breath...

Gripenfelter · #2 09-27-2011, 04:06 PM

Soak their food in Selcon or Garlic extract.

Coralgurl · #3 09-27-2011, 04:12 PM

Soaking food in both selcon and garlic.

Coralgurl · #4 09-28-2011, 03:40 PM

Well it's a sad day, my coral beauty didn't make it, found her dead this morning. She stopped eating yesterday, I watched her try to catch food but couldn't get to it. All the other fish are still showing great appetites and not any signs of problems yet even though they have I h on them as well. Today is the third day of treatment, hopefully it is making a difference.

Gripenfelter · #5 09-28-2011, 08:26 PM

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 · #6 09-28-2011, 08:50 PM

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 · #7 09-28-2011, 09:26 PM

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 · #8 09-28-2011, 09:50 PM

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 · #9 09-28-2011, 10:10 PM

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.