Trying to kick the ICK

Discussion in 'Diseases' started by 10acrewoods, Dec 4, 2008.

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  1. 10acrewoods

    10acrewoods Fire Goby

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    First of all I am going to try to keep up with this. I have seen some other threads that were great when the people making them kept up on them. I know you all have had your Ick spells and so have I (most with no success). I am going to try to cure my powder brown tang and list every thing I am doing to help him. All thoughts are welcome, cause I don't have all the answers.

    First off I noticed that he was developing spots and dosed my tank with malachite green. (this was a big mistake) My entire system totals 100 gal and I really don't recomend doing this again. First of all Day after dosing tank became cloudy and noticed a spike in nitrates. The spike is about 40ppm and hasn't droped. So I decided to do a water change. About 50% in two days. Testing after water chage didn't show much improvement, infact I think it still rose some. So to much dismay and some posts on here I figured my tank had some good die off and it needs to cycle back into place. I will still do water changes but just not that much again. All other parameters with in range. temp 76 ph 8.3 nitrites 0 amonia 0 po4 0. Display tank is 75 gal with 29 fuge in bottom. pic of tank and stand in my pic place. Lighting is 3 stage unit mh with antic blue and night lights only half the tank is lit.
    This is about day 6 and tang still alive and feeding well. You can see his fat belly in pic. Spots keep changing place and in morning he looses color and regain some in after noon after MH have been on most of the day. I have also noticed all my algae is gone probably because of the nitrate spike. I have been feeding my tang twice aday in the morning some solid pelet food and then in the afternoon with some frozen emerald entree or marine cuzine. There is also a clip with dried algae on it or fresh calupra from my other tank. I have just started today dosing food with garlic gaurd. Tang don't seem to rest much even when lights are out he is up and moving.
    Tang is also housed with fire gobie and gobie is showing no signs of ick yet!!!!!!!! :eek:
    There are also 3 turbo snails and 2 astira snails and about 6 hermit crabs in tank. Tank only has about 25 to 30 lbs of live rock in it also. There are also some starter coral in tank too just a few pylops. Can't aford live rock right now untill economy springs back.
    tang ick 12-4-08.JPG
    sorry pic is blurry but I guess my daughter feed him crack at night cause they both run around like a group of mad squirrls.
     
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  3. RemickJ

    RemickJ Teardrop Maxima Clam

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    I'd keep going with the garlic. You may also think about throwing a couple cleaner shrip in there as well. Now some will argue that cleaner shrimp do not eat ick but I know my shrimp are always busy on my tangs so they must be doing something helpful.. I'm going through the same thing with my Hippo right now.. Best of luck to you and I'll let you know if I have any break throughs and what worked.
     
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  4. 10acrewoods

    10acrewoods Fire Goby

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    Well I asked about cleaner shrimp and every one seemed to say that they wouldn't make it in time. Plus the only thing my lfs has is a fire shrimp and was hoping to get a skunk cleanner. Don't know too much about the shrimp though. Hope that your tang makes it. Is your tang very active and freaking out all the time.
     
  5. kchighrider

    kchighrider Plankton

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    I think you need to add some more rock give a nice cave for it to hide it will help.
     
  6. fishoholic

    fishoholic Purple Spiny Lobster

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  7. 10acrewoods

    10acrewoods Fire Goby

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    he has a nice cave to hide it but don't stay in there long. he like to zip in and out of it all day long.
     
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  9. 10acrewoods

    10acrewoods Fire Goby

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  10. Trigger Man

    Trigger Man Spanish Shawl Nudibranch

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    If you decide to medicate I found No Sick Fish Ick medication has worked for me every time I've used it and the ick never came back to the medicated fish. It lists as reef safe and I had no ill effects and I've got sps, softies, zoas, cuc etc.
     
  11. 10acrewoods

    10acrewoods Fire Goby

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    did it mess with any other parameters of tank.
     
  12. bc219

    bc219 Millepora

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    Some people don't agree with this but it worked well for me. My foxface almost died when he decided to sleep on the intake of a powerhead. He immediately (next morning) started getting ich, bad. I rose the temperature (after doing research on how to get rid of ich in a coral tank with no chemicals/meds) to 82-84 and the ich was gone by the morning. I put the temp back down to 78, ich came back. I put the temp back to 82-84 for a few weeks and it never came back.

    By the way the reason the spots seem to have moved by morning is because when the fish sleep their immune system is down and they will get new spots. It is possible also that the have knocked some of the parasites off, they have moved or fallen off over night.

    Your tang does not look bad at all. I would not freak out about it. Just get the parameters right and keep him fed well and it should be fine.