Ich outbreak

Hello, I am new here and in advance thank you all for your help.

I currently have a 90 gallon that with these inhabitants. All fish have been in the tank 3+ months.

1). Powder Brown Tang (3-4 inches)
2.) 2 True Perc tank raised clowns
3.) 1 Six line Wrasse
4.) 3 Carberryi Anthias
5.) GSP, Misc Mushrooms, and some button polyps.
6.) 4 inch Maxima Clam
7.) 2 Cleaner shrimp, misc astrea, nassarius, and hermits.

My problem is this; the tang has recently gotten ich. He is still eating but, is flashing and pretty well covered in white spots. All other fish are fine, and show no signs of ich, even with the tang having it 5+ days. I currently have a 12 gallon nano that is cycled, but void of livestock, and a 10 gallon hospital tank. I am wondering what the best course of action from here out. I can treat the tang individually, but am afraid that when I put in back in the tank, he will catch it again. Or, remove all fish and treat the tang, however I don't feel like the 12 gallon I have will be adequate for all the fish to survive the 4 weeks I would need to leave the tank fallow. I basically have no money to purchase a larger tank even used, as I am just a poor college fellow

Any advice on what to do? Or a cheap method to export all the fish and keep them alive?

Thanks so much!

 

Garlic and seaweed. Let him beat it. Or something with lots of vitamins.

Its a hobby AND a way of life.

 

any kind of container that holds water and does not have contaminants is good to be a qt.
it doesn't have to be glass aquarium. but you need a heater and something to move the water. im using a plastic container that i use usually to mix salt in.
another thing the guy at the lfs told me to lower salinity for 24 hrs and increase it back up for the whole tank and ,as he said it wont affect any of the tank inhabitants. i donno how effective that is, he said it helps the fish fight the ich.

 

I leave the fish alone if there eating. Moving them will only stress them out more. From what I heard, if your fish can beat ich, they will gain some sort of immunity to it.

 

Wonderful, thank you all for your responses. It seems as though the ich is getting worse over the past few days.. Water parameters were all good, ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 10.5 salinity 1.026 temp 79 calcium 450 kh 9 ph 8.3. Is this to be expected? I have been feeding seaweed and food soaked in garlic and selcon. So as long as he is eating I should not be overly worried? I also considered a 35 gallon tub with an old 200 watt heater, maxi-jet 900 and some cycled liverock from the 12 gallon. Anyone think this I the better approach? Would hyposalinity in that situation destroy the liverock? If so, how do I manage the water pollution from that fishload in such confined space?

Thanks again!!

 

Its very tough, alot of water changes. I am doing 2 WC per day and its only keeping levels the same. I think i have read somewhere on this site, that people have done FW dip which removes the ich off the fish, seems like that and the feeding regime, might be a way to beat it. I would do some more research into it though.

 

Most reefers believe, the only way to rid your system of ich is to remove all fish from the main tank and place them into a hospital tank for ~6 weeks, theating them by hyposilinity or copper. Leaving the main system fish-less during this time, the ich would not have a host and die off.
Everything going forward would have to be QT'd to keep ich out.

I have mixed feelings about this approach, to me it stresses the sick fish even more and a lot of times result in death.

I have tangs that I've QT'd before adding to my main tank and still ended up with ich but I never took them out for treatment. I fed them well and I tried kick-ich which also has mixed reviews....did it work on my tank? I'm not sure, maybe they got better on their own but my tank has been ich free for over a year now...knock on wood. Good luck with the tang.

 

+1

Moving the fish will stress it more. Tangs are known as "Ich magnets" and when they're introduced to a tank, there are very big chances it can get ich. Just the transfer is enough for them to get it. It's crazy.

I treated my tank the first time with Kick-Ich, and I must say it didn't do much for me. Only made my water look awful for days while the treatment was being done.

Second time around, I just fed him lots of garlic soaked seaweed, meaty foods like mysis or brine shrimp and he pulled through in 11 days.

Just make sure he keeps eating. If he stops eating is when you have to worry. If you see it acting strange or not interested in food, you can do a freshwater dip. Grab some RO or RO/DI water and put it in a bucket with a small power head and some an aireator and put him in for 3 to 4 minutes (I gave mine 4) and then take him out and back into the tank or quarantine tank. It is true this procedure will stress the fish, but if he stops eating or starts acting funny, I consider it necessary... rather him stress for a few hours than die the next day.

Good luck!! And keep us updated.

PS: Make sure you throw a heater in the container if you decide to go with the freshwater dip and make the water match your tanks or QT tank temp. Some people dip their fish for up to 30 minutes, keeping a very closed eye on it. I only did mine for 4 and he got better, you may want to extend it if he's very badly infected, but i'm somehow reluctant to the 30 minutes... it scares me a little.

 

Alot of things have been said on this board and others regarding marine ICH or Crypt. the best thing anyone can do is read about it. there are many articles out there from those that have acutally done biological research on the Parasite that causes what we see as ICH. C.Irritans or Crypt is the culprit. it is a parasite that feeds off the fish. you see a cyst formed by its presence on the fish. it has a total life cycle of ~20-30 or so days depending on water temperature. since it feeds off the fish, if there are no fish in a system, it will die with no food. it is also not capable of osmolating the pressure in its cells when exposed to water below 1.010 specific gravity. when introduced to a hypo salinity environment, in certain stages it is vulnerable to this pressure difference and will literally explode its cellular walls and die. at 1.009 it si vulnerable in its larvae stage. the eggs and parasites already in the fish will not suffer as they are encapsulated. when you dip a fish in true freshwater, the parasite on the fish cannot handle this greater difference and it will explode. a proper freshwater dip should be for 30 minutes. Please note, that dipping a fish and then returning it to an infested tank is NOT a good solution as the fish will become infected again. Copper is also the other PROVEN method of killing the parasite.

The BEST solution in my opinion is to Remove that fish and treat it with Hypo or copper for 28 days. you should also remove all other fish from the display and treat them as well and treat them with Hypo to me 100% sure the parasite is erradicated. I would raise the temp to 81* to help speed up this life cycle.

all that said, you can feed the fish and it garner enough strength to overcome the infection, but I believe (also backed up by experts and researchers) that the parasite will still have some success enough to reproduce (in low numbers) to remain in the tank and then Reappear on the next stressful event in the tank.

This article is a GREAT procedure for a DIP. I used it for a known infected purple tang and it worked. I got the fish from a friend and it had Crypt. I had just finished erradicating it from my tank and didnt have a place to QT this fish at the time. none the less, I wanted a CRYPT free tank still so I did this dip and the fish never showed any more signs of infection, nor did it give it to my other fish.

http://www.reefland.com/forum/marin...tment/18887-freshwater-dip-marine-fishes.html


last thing I want to say is be careful in giving them more time. the fish usually succumb to the parasite when their gills become so infected they cannot get enough oxygen and they suffocate.

 

Thanks all for your responses. His breathing has already been elevated for a bit, but not looking too bad. His flashing has increased though. Eating tons of seaweed off of my clip. I would love to remove and treat him, but don't really have a means of catching him without removing literally everything from the tank. This tang is fast! I really don't want to just chase him into exhaustion. Any tried and true method for catching a fish of this size? I read catching one with a fishhook has worked, but that seems overly stressful in this situation.

Thank you all again for your help.