Clown fish with ich? .. And some questions about ich..PICS

mario8402 · 02-25-2007, 07:56 PM

Ok, so the lady at my LFS told me that ich wasnt really a "disease" and that it occured when fish got too stressed out... I bought 2 clowns last Teusday 2-20-07 and 2 days ago I noticed they had ich.. Well I did the whole freshwater dip and one of them didnt like that so much.. I did 3 minutes fresh, 3 minutes salt (not in tank), and then another 3 in fresh for both of them.. as soon as I was done with that one of them kinda stayed toward the bottom and rested on the sand etc.. I could tell he wasnt doing good, but didnt know if he was just scared so I let him be.

The ich didnt miraculously "fall off" like the lady told me. I went out of town yesterday at 2pm and returned today around 7 and that one was dead, so I removed him.. now the other one still has ich but it more active than the other one was at the time of death.. any idea? I dont want to keep doing FW dips and just stress them out more.. I dont know what is happening, but EVERY fish that I have had to date has come down with ich and died.. I have had 4 firefish, 1 black clown (that didnt even make 24hrs) and a red lip blenny that died of unknown causes ( i think he was just not eating) the ONLY one that I didnt have trouble with was my first fish, a bicolor pseudo that we had for 3 weeks and had to get rid of because he was beating up the firefish and being too aggressive. Is my tank "infected" with ich or is that even possible?? I have a skimmer coming in within 3 days so I'm going to see if that helps, but everytime I have my water tested it comes back 100% and I have it tested at 2 LFS!! :mad:

These things are hard to take pics of !

coral reefer · 02-25-2007, 08:17 PM

Nice Clowns!!!http://www.nunnie.com/ick.html...This should help!

geekdafied · 02-25-2007, 08:21 PM

Ich is a parasite, not a disease. The only time it "falls off" is when the cysts drops cause its full of eggs to produce new Ich.

From what you have said in your post, you are going to have set up a QT and remove all of your fish and treat them with some kind of good medicine for ich, to take care of it once and for all. The bad part is, they are going to be in there for around 3 weeks. That gives the main tank to go thru the life cycles of the Ich currently in there to die off. If they cant find a host in 48hrs, they die, but it can take over a week for them to hatch.

Birchell · 02-25-2007, 08:25 PM

+++ That!! I learned my lesson already. Im QT all my new fish, corals, ect....

mario8402 · 02-25-2007, 08:29 PM

well, I dont have a QT tank at the moment, so I guess he will just have to duke it out... I have inverts in there so I cant use any "Reef safe" additives and I dont want to stress it out by doing another FW dip.
I will have my water tested tomorrow and probably do a 5 to 10 gal water change depending on results, but usually its good. Also, my skimmer will be here by wed hopefully. I have been feeding mysis shrimp with kent garlic on it. When I first put them in there they would not eat it, they would put it in their mouth and spit it out.. I put some regular one in there and it ate just fine. Beggars cant be choosers

geekdafied · 02-25-2007, 08:32 PM

this is what I used, and it is reef safe.

Just watch your nitrates...

Novalek - Kordon - Herbal Ich Attack

coral reefer · 02-25-2007, 08:35 PM

I tell ya...If everyone could just add their fish all at once at the beginning of their tank set-up after the cycling, the ich infections will be cut down drastically as so many of the fish at the local pet shops have been through so much stress-it's no wonder they have diseases plus their are so many fish in a single 10gallon tank at the pet shops and their system for the most part is all inclusive-meaning the water and filtration runs the whole system of 10-20 tanks!!!
If we didn't add any fish to our problem free tanks alot of this could be avoided...In a perfect world of course-seriously though...think about it!
Yeah their are times when we have temperature variations that are dramatic and all but that % is minimal compared to the fish we add to our tanks later on IMO!

Birchell · 02-25-2007, 08:36 PM

Well the bad part is that there are no reef safe ways to kill ick. The only way to kill it is to lower your SG to around 1.014 (called hyposalinity), and dose copper. You cant do that in a tank with inverts or rock/sand. Ick is in most tank, and gets active when a fish is stressed. You could try to wait it out, and just feed really good foods to help the fish's amun system. Garlic will help also. Good luck there!! Parisites in the aquarium are the worst!!

Michael

geekdafied · 02-25-2007, 08:37 PM

Thats why I wanna break down my tank and sell everything off and start all over, lol

Birchell · 02-25-2007, 08:37 PM

you guys snuck in behind me!! Im a slow typer...