again with the ich-Diseases-3reef Forums

duke6188 · 01-25-2007, 04:00 PM

I have a blue hippo tang that has been a recent purchase from a very good vendor but has recently gotten ich due to over feeding on mine and my brothers fault i have set up a 10 gallon quarentine aquarium to treat cases like this but it seems as though hes passed it on to both of the clowns the yellow tang looks healthy and so does the coral beauty and porcupine puffer but the long horn cow has a little ich i have live rock and inverts in the tank is there some way to cure this with out having to take them all out and put them in the tiny tank to be treated is there a medacine i can use thats safe for the rock and inverts and stars i am feeding them misa shrimp krill brine and adding the garlic extreme drops the tangs dont seems to like the seaweed algae all that much so is there something else i should try the blue tang is scratching hinself against the rocks to knock them off everday he seems to get better then it comes back so i dont know what to do only the blue hippo tang 2 clowns and cow fish are noticable but maybe the others have it as well now they still all eat like pigs

monkey · 01-25-2007, 04:55 PM

your salinity may be high... what is it at?

duke6188 · 01-25-2007, 05:06 PM

1.023

usmc121581 · 01-25-2007, 05:28 PM

I have a purple tang that always gets ick. I do nothing about it and it clears up in about a day. But I also run a UV sterilizer. Have you tried feeding them zuccinny. My tangs love it.

rashr · 01-26-2007, 08:46 AM

Bottom line....once you get ich you keep ich unless you break down your tank and start new.....ich can not only come in on fish, but live rock, sand, and even inverts (not that inverts get it but they may have the cysts on their shells and such). I battle this too as does anyone that gets it, I tried UV sterilization...this works to reduce the ich but will not get rid of it....I have tried quarntining, but still get it from sand, rock and such.....the only thing I have been able to do is keep my salinity as stable as possible and temperature and pH as stable as possible and this keeps the tank happy and flare ups to a minimum.....if there truly is a was to eradicate ich I would love to hear it......that is with out tearing down my tank and or hurting my inverts and corals...

duke6188 · 01-26-2007, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rashr

Bottom line....once you get ich you keep ich unless you break down your tank and start new.....ich can not only come in on fish, but live rock, sand, and even inverts (not that inverts get it but they may have the cysts on their shells and such). I battle this too as does anyone that gets it, I tried UV sterilization...this works to reduce the ich but will not get rid of it....I have tried quarntining, but still get it from sand, rock and such.....the only thing I have been able to do is keep my salinity as stable as possible and temperature and pH as stable as possible and this keeps the tank happy and flare ups to a minimum.....if there truly is a was to eradicate ich I would love to hear it......that is with out tearing down my tank and or hurting my inverts and corals...

I just bought a Diatom filter to help kill the free floating parasites and am going to buy a goby and cleaner shrimp to help clean the rocks i dont know what else to do it seems to be getting better ive been soaking thier food in garlic extreme for about an hour before feeding i cant QT all these fish in a 10 gallon aquarium that i use for QT dont know what else to do

rashr · 01-26-2007, 10:08 AM

That's all you can do that I am aware of......just try to keep your parameters good and stable and this will minimze your outbreaks. One intelligent fellow explained to me that moving to a quarantine tank is not always the best thing to do....ich comes and attacks fish that are stressed....what is more stressfull to a fish than being yanked from the home (display tank) and put into a smaller shell of a home (quarantine tank). He said that he has a quarantine tank but once the fish go into the tank they are there unless he feels he needs to keep the other fish from harrassing them and/or the treatment requires it (ie. flukes and such). Good luck and keep us wondering minds posted if you run across the miracle method or treatment!

duke6188 · 01-26-2007, 10:20 AM

yeah the qt tank will be used now for new incomming fish so they dont have anything

orestes19832003 · 06-04-2007, 06:23 PM

there is a way to get rid of ich completly its long and drawn out and has to be done from the start. add all your sand, and some live rock let tank cycle add the rest of your live rock wait for the levels to return to normal if there is any die off. then add inverts wait 60 days before adding any fish. the ich will starve with no host. qt. all fish for 4weeks with copper in a seperate tank. after that you can add them. then before you add any more corals or inverts get another qt. tank and qt. all those for 30 to 60 days make sure no copper in that water and that will starve any hitch hikers. then you can place them in your ich free tank. as far as i know this would be the only full proof way to have a completely ich free tank and it would be a long and drawn out way to do it but it would be effective.

RAVEN · 06-06-2007, 11:28 PM

I battled ich for over a year and it came back even after breaking down my tank and storing the LR for 12 weeks and treating the fish with copper. Eventually I coppered my tank with cupramine for 2 weeks and am finally rid of it. Thats why IMO that you should do a FW dip on all new fish and QT and treat with copper for 2 weeks. I've got a 120 FOWLR tank and hundreds of dollars worth of fish and its not worth risking the whole tank because of a non QT and treated fish. This is also why I dont use live rock any more. I use dry reef rock and let it become live.

Cupramine can be removed from your tank with sea chems copper resin and charcoal and switching to reef crystal salt which has a heavy metal chelator in it which will bind to the copper.