Ich Attack, Formalin 3

Do you prefer on or the other?
Can they be used together?
Is formalin future reef safe?
Thanks!

 

This is an odd beginning of a thread but we'll forgive you since your new. Welome to 3reef. I have only used kick-ich in my reef and it is reef safe. I'm not familiar wirh formalin but you can never ever ever have any copper in a reef tank so make sure before you put it in. Good luck.

 

I wouldn't put any chemicals to cure ick in a reef tank. Even if it doesn't contain Cu. The Cu can stay in the rocks and sand bed. Cu is toxic to inverts so it is not reef safe. Your best bet is to buy a QT and put the fish in there w/ no substrate or rock and just a hang on filter. The pour the CU treatment into the QT. Keep the fish in the QT for 30 days and no more ick hopefully...

 

Ok but ive been reading that pretty much every tank has ich... and what if it does come back when I re introduce them to the tank and or add new corals or something? What do you suggest?
Thanks

 

If you do go the quarantine route..You will have to keep the fish in there for 6+ weeks. If you keep them in QT until their ich is gone (3 weeks or so) and put them back in the display tank..they will become infected again. The parasites that have already filled your DT will not die off unless they are without a host for 6 weeks.

OR...

You can just feed food soaked in garlic extract and keep your water parameters stable and let them ride it out. This is what I would recommend. Catching the fish..moving them to a small QT tank..then dumping Cu based medications on them would stress them out a lot.

Ivan

 

Thanks irr0001 that is exactly what i thought. I have been soaking my pellets with garlic every night the past couple days. Would you suggest to use a product like ich attack to possibly minimize the ich? I only have 3 fish in the tank right now and haven't nearly finished stocking yet. What do i do when i want to add another fish? Just hope that its strong enough to slowly grow immunity?
Thanks everyone!

 

I tried ich-attack with zero results. I followed the dosing instructions perfectly. Some people will say they had great results, but IMO it was just a coincidence. All it did was make my water brown and smelly. I wouldn't add more fish until you have things under control. No sense in making it a bigger problem than it already is. When you haven't seen any symptoms (spots, scratching on rocks, etc..) for a month or two then you could start slowly adding more livestock.

 

Thanks. I agree with you on not adding more fish i wouldn't want to introduce them to it but how is the cycle going to stop? Do the ich eventually stop latching on to the fish and die off? I sort of under stand the 6 week life cycle of ich but dont see how they will ever leave my tank.
Thanks

 

I honestly can't answer that..I'm not sure if the fish's immunity or resistance to the parasite prevents the parasites from feeding or if they just aren't necessarily bothered by it anymore. Hopefully someone else can give you a solid answer.

 

OK, everybody has their own opinion on this subject.

There are things that you can do to avoid the ich. First thing is that most all fish have parasites that surface on their body when they are stressed.

When a new fish is introduced to your tank it is the most vulnerable time for them to get it. You can help a lot by having cleaner shrimp. I have 2 cleaner and 2 blood red shrimp and they go to town on all the fish and eat the ich and parasites off their bodies.

Contrary to other beliefs I have used Kick-Ich in my old 120 gal reef tank and it cured the ich in a few days with no fatalities. It is absolutely reef safe. Say what you want but this is my story and I'm sticking to it. Take a look at my fish and let me know what you think.
YouTube - My 210 gal reef tank