ick

[reefnut]

small white dots covering my fish.my cow fish and niger especially.never had this before.all fish were fine at 6 this morning now all fish seem to have a few dots on them and the niger and cow are covered in them.havent added any new fish in 2 months.whats the best thing to do?garlic or should i go to lfs and buy some kind of medicine?

[bulletsworld]

what kinda cowfish do you have? What size is your tank? Did you add anything new recently?

Cowfish which is a scaleless fish are VERY sensitive to changes, moves and medications...especially copper. Its best to treat them with Hyposalinity if you can. HAS to be in a established QT tank though. Bring over tank water and if you have established filter media that helps bring in up to be more stable.

Garlic I believe is a good think to try. As well as MAKE sure your tank conditions are at its HIGHEST level of water quality.

Best also to do searchs and read, read, read. Knowledge is power. Its good to understand how Ick works and its life cycle. Also to make sure you have ick.

Best of luck.

[Tarolisol]

PRAY :sad:

[reefnut]

bullet,ive read someother posts that you and others have made aboput ick.it seems my best option would be hyposalinity but i have no other tank big enough to do this in.my infected tank is a 75 fowlr and one condy anemone.tank has been sunning since cjristmas and this is the first sign of any problem.is there a good treatment i can do in my main tank that will kill the ick on and off of my fish/?and my hydrometer goes to 1.030 is that high enough?my main concern is the long horned cow, if i only save one fish i hope it is him?also there is a snowflake moray that i would like to try and save to.

[Beverly]

Hyposalinity means low salinity. You will definitely need a separate tank as Lee suggests. The plastic hydrometers commonly used are not as accurate as using a refractometer.

Here is the page on treating fish for ich with hyposalinity:

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

[bulletsworld]

Richard,

Damn you don't live closer I could help you treat them as the other guy backed out on the sale of my 25gal. Yup, by you wanting to make sure you save the cowfish (long horn) I imagine its gotten you got quite attached to it. They are extremely personable fish, love them.

Perhaps ask if you can borrow a tank or two from some of the fellow reefers. Sometimes people just have their QT tank lying around till they need.Or it may be in your best interest to go out and buy a 25 gal (depends on size of fish) or so for future treatments. As you will find with cowfish there are very seceptible to ick once they come in contact with it. Being that they are scaleless fish.

Also to if transfering fish into QT tank... Please don't exspose cowfish to air. Get a container and scoop fish with water left in it. This helps reduce the stress to the fish.

Another option is asking another reefer online in your area if they have a treatment tank all ready to go.

Last option, if you leave the fish in the tank and decide to do what most reefers do and go to the LFS and buy products like "Kick Ick", then watch the cowfish if its to heavily infected cause you may wanta remove before it releases it toxin. Thus killing your WHOLE tank. Garlic all food though.

Let the force be with ya.


Lee

[reefnut]

bullet you sound like you have lots of experience with this so i hope ypou dont mind me directing a bunch of questions your way.what if i remove my condy and drop the sg in my main tank?will this kill all the biological stuff?i do have a 33 sitting around if i remove all fish to this tank for hypo how long should i keep them there?while the fish are in the 33 how should i treat my main tank?because of limited space maybe i should remove the fish i dont want to lose and leave the rest in the main.there are no inverts at all except the condy and a few hermits.i live in a bsmnt suite and i dont really have room to set up antoher tank even a small one.
thanks for all your help

[reefnut]

i just checked on my fish and in less then 6 hours the dots seem to have mutiplied by 2.my poor cowfish is no totally covered.im filling my 33 with water and am going to try hyposalinity.i dont know what im doing so i hope i dont hurt him.what sg level to aim for and what do i do with him after treatment just throw him back in the tank?i barely have room for a qt tank let alone another one for him after treatment.maybe i should leave him in the 33 and start over with my main tank.well i have some fish to give away free if you guys want to treat them and get them healthy again.i have a foxface,squirrel,niger trigger and bicolor blenny.free for the taking as i have not enough room to treat all of my fish.ill even delivery them to the surrey delta area.i cant just sit here and wath them die.

[blood_hound]

Why don't you try kick ick for treating your other fish in the main tank it work fine but it will take about a month or two to finnish the treatment. And yeah live your cow fish in the 33 for awhile just to be safe.I had a bad experience with cow fish before. And if you can use uv sterilizer and garlic for the food.

[Willow]

kick ick is a useless waste of time. it's a product that doesn’t seem to do much or anything and it's pretty damn expensive.

[blood_hound]

It work fine for me.

[takphan]

richard
if you decide to do hyposalinity, please buy/borrow a refractometer and aim for 1.009 because the hydrometer is not accurate for this treatment

aerate the water to help the fish breath easier
keep the temp high 80~82 to speed up the ich cycle

may the force be with you

Tak

[bulletsworld]

Richard,

OMG... sounds like things getting worse. Sorry I was away and celebrating at my 30th B-day party. I feel bad I wasn't back here for ya...sorry. *HUGS*

More spots on the cowfish???? KEEP THE LIGHTS OFF ON THE TANK! ICK LOVES LIGHT! It hatches in your sandbed and moves up towards the light.

SoOOOo wish I was closer I could help you. What's the status now on everything? Can explain all to much on chat with this hangover today. But your welcome to call me and I can run a few idea's for yeah so you can keep all your fish. I pm'd you my number or you can pm me yours if you like.


Lee