ick

[adidas]

can someone help treat my hippo tang for ick? i just bought him on friday at golds. will pay if need be.

[reeferaddict]

I know I'm gonna get jumped on for this... but I don't care...

Try a Cleaner Wrasse... your system is big enough to sustain one long term and they'll eradicate any ich in your system. No treatment necessary, just drop him in and watch him go at it...

Allright fellow reefers - FLAME away!!! :mrgreen:

[andrewsk]

I know I'm gonna get jumped on for this... but I don't care...

Try a Cleaner Wrasse... your system is big enough to sustain one long term and they'll eradicate any ich in your system. No treatment necessary, just drop him in and watch him go at it...

Allright fellow reefers - FLAME away!!! :mrgreen:

Ill start :)

A Cleaner Wraisse may help relieve some of the parasites on the tang but will never remove the ick from the main system, you will always be fighting it. Also, Cleaner Wraises are said to have a very tough time in most systems and really should not be added. A Cleaner Srimp would be better IMHO.

Is this tang in the Main System or did you Quarantine? If you put him in the main system, you have a LONG road ahead.

The number ONE rule in Salt Water fish keeping should be NEVER ADD A NEW FISH TO THE MAIN DISPLAY WITHOUT QUARANTINE. :)

I have a friend that did this and refuses to let the tank fallow for 6 weeks. He is constantly battling the resurgance of Ick and is about ready to quit the hobby. (I am going to go over and pull all of his fish from the system and treat them for him next weekend)

If the Tang is in Quarantine, he is easy to cure. Cuppramine, lower the salinity and increase the temperature to 84 to speed up the parasite process. He will show major improvement within a week.

Give me more details of the situation and Ill help you remove the ick for good.

[adidas]

i just want to cure him, no i didnt quarrintine him :( due to my situation it would be hard to maintain a qtank. If someone would help me, i'd love to put him in Qtank and start treating him. Or, maybe i should take him back to golds seeing as i just bought him and he has ick.

[Skimmer Juice]

The chance of getting a fish with nothing wrong are pretty slim.Like andrewsk said you will have to pull all the fish out for six weeks.It is the only way to get rid of it.

[reeferaddict]

Ich is always in your system... there should be no need to QT all of this fish in your system. Fish that are stressed and not eating are prone to parasites.

If you CAN move any infected fish into a quarantine and treat with copper that would be great...

Andrew - that was the most polite flame I have ever received - thank you. :biggrin:

I agree that Cleaner Wrasses aren't for MOST systems, but I noted that this system seemed large enough that it may work well... one thing I DO know about Cleaner Wrasses is that they'll clear ich off anything in no time and the fish love it! I have 3 cleaner shrimp as well... but they didn't seem to do anything about the ich...

[andrewsk]

Here is what you need to do, and yes, it's a lot of work.

You have introduced ick into the tank already by adding the infected fish. Removing the fish and returning it will not help as the ick is almost certainly in the tank. Ick works in 3 stages. When the parasites drop from the fish, they lay dormant in the tank until they hatch, releasing free swimming parasites. These parasites find a fish, and burrow into the skin, forming what we call ick. The cycle then continues.

The only way to kill the ick, is in the free swimming stage. The absolute best way is copper but you need to be very careful with it's dose strength, espcially around angels. Also, you cannot dose this in a reef tank, or you will kill your corals and any nitrifying bacteria. Most other reef safe products either do not kill the ick, or are not reef safe at all.

What you need to do is remove ALL of you fish. Snails and Shrimp etc are ok to remain in the main tank. Your tank must then remain FALLOW for 6 weeks.
(No fish in it at all) The parasite will die off due to not having an intermediate host to complete it's cycle.

All of your fish should now be in a quarantine tank. (The bigger the better) with nothing but some PVC for hiding. Dose the Copper at the recomended amount. (Copper only needs to be dosed once/not daily). Raise the temp to 84. (This speeds up the parasite cycle.)

Do not add live rock or a biological filter as the copper will kill it. Keep a couple of strong powerheads in the tank to keep the flow up.

Perhaps you should list the fish you have so we can verify that they will be safe from the Copper as it can be deady to some species.

You will then need to do the following daily.

-Add top off RO water to the quarantine tank.
-Monitor Ammonia and Nitrites in the quarantine tank.
-Change a certain volume of water based on fish volume/ammonia levels (I change 25-30% daily.) Remember to add the appropriate amount of copper the the change water. (Not the RO top off water otherwise you will be raising the copper level as it does not evaporate)

Leave the copper in the quarantine tank for 7 to 10 days depending on the look of the fish. After this the ick should be gone. Do a 50% water change and add carbon and some filtration device to remove the remaining Copper. I add Purigen as well to help control the Ammonia and Nitrite until the filter can get the bacteria going. Perhaps even add one of those Bacteria jump starts to get the tank cycling faster.

Thats it. Easy! :)

Now don't you wish you had quarantined :)

Honestly, this is the only way to remove ick from your tank. Good Luck.

[andrewsk]

Ich is always in your system... there should be no need to QT all of this fish in your system. Fish that are stressed and not eating are prone to parasites.

If you CAN move any infected fish into a quarantine and treat with copper that would be great...

Andrew - that was the most polite flame I have ever received - thank you. :biggrin:

I agree that Cleaner Wrasses aren't for MOST systems, but I noted that this system seemed large enough that it may work well... one thing I DO know about Cleaner Wrasses is that they'll clear ich off anything in no time and the fish love it! I have 3 cleaner shrimp as well... but they didn't seem to do anything about the ich...

Ick can remain in some systems, that's true. The fish remain healthy and are able to fight off a low number of them, but as soon as any stress strikes, it can be deadly.

Letting the tank fallow for 6 weeks and treating all fish in QT guarantees that your system is ick free.

It's a gamble really. He could leave the Tang, add a cleaner and hope. But I would put money on what will happen is that in a week or 2 we get another panicked message that the Tang is dead and his other fish are showing signs of ick.

Then his fish are in real trouble.

Either way, very frustrating.

Do you not think fish need to be quarantined?

I will agree that a Cleaner Wraisse is very efficient and some people are able to keep them, just not most.

[i have crabs]

sorry my qt is still full for another few weeks or i would copper the little jerk for you,

[reeferaddict]

Do you not think fish need to be quarantined?



No argument there, though I don't have a propensity to do it myself. My past experiences with quarantine have been miserable, even with a dedicated 33g QT system, set up with or without rock, PVC, proper lighting etc... What I do now is throw any new fish in my fuge and keep an eye on them for a week or so for any signs of parasites or stress... usually once they start eating and are strong enough to ward off parasites I'll toss them in the main tank... so far I've been lucky... touch wood... My approach would be totally different in a FOWLR setup, but in the reef I really try to use natural methods... :mrgreen:

QT seems to be a 50/50 thing... some people swear by it... others think it's a waste of time... I'm still on the fence.

[phreezee]

Quarantining fish is a waste of time 100% of the time, if you don't also quarantine corals, rocks, etc.

Not too many people have the patience to quarantine frags for 6 weeks, and everytime you get a new one, the clock resets.

[christyf5]

Neon gobies work fantastically IMO. They have a higher survivability rate than cleaner wrasses and eat pretty much whatever you give them as well. If not, Kents Garlic Extreme will stink out your whole house but it does work :biggrin:

[OCDP]

Neon gobies work fantastically IMO. They have a higher survivability rate than cleaner wrasses and eat pretty much whatever you give them as well. If not, Kents Garlic Extreme will stink out your whole house but it does work :biggrin:

I am going to get a couple of these for my new setup.

Here's my tank on things.. I have had ick on and off but only to new additions. It's never spread to my other fish. I have added/replaced 3 fish in my tank and haven't seen it since.... a lot depends on a bunch of other factors when buying fish and introducing them to a system as well IMO.

I have only lost 1 fish to ick (flame angel) and well, that probably wasn't a wise purchase and I do regret it.. Anywhoo,

What I have used in the past for ick is garlic and and good, stable water paramaters. That does the trick for me...

Good luck.. try stuffing him with garlic. Look into the fish suggested, and also Polyp Lab just came out with a new med for getting rid of ick.. might be worth checking out. I am going to myself, polyp lab seems to have some good stuff.

[i have crabs]

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.php

[marie]

I have an achilles tang in his 7th week of quarantine right now. If I had put him in the main tank right away, he would of become another achilles tang statistic because he had marine velvet and ick.

A quarantine tank isn't that hard to set up. If you have a hob filter, you can keep the sponges for it in the sump of the main tank. When a new fish is expected in, just fill aquarium with water, add cheesy tank decorations for hiding places and use the already bacteria seeded sponges for your biological filtration.

After the fish are put in the main tank, you take the quarantine tank down, bleach everything, put new sponges in the sump and it is ready for the next fish

[adidas]

it's just harder for me because of a disablity, other wise i would have already been treating him. i want to try and stuff him with garlic and nori with selcon, but my rabbit and sailfin are total hogs! lol

[Palster]

A quarantine tank isn't that hard to set up. If you have a hob filter, you can keep the sponges for it in the sump of the main tank. When a new fish is expected in, just fill aquarium with water, add cheesy tank decorations for hiding places and use the already bacteria seeded sponges for your biological filtration.

I love the idea of keeping the HOB sponges in the sump. I haven't added any new fish to my tank for a while and I was unsure of what to do with my QT tank but now I will be tearing it down and just throwing the filter sponge in the sump until I need to QT again. Thanks for the great tip Marie!

[andrewsk]

it's just harder for me because of a disablity, other wise i would have already been treating him. i want to try and stuff him with garlic and nori with selcon, but my rabbit and sailfin are total hogs! lol

I am sure you know this but Hippos's need more meat than veggies. Buy him some Freeze Dried marine plankton and soak that in Garlic and Selcon instead. Freeze Dried foods are GREAT for adding vitamins etc.

Good luck leaving him in the Main tank. Ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

If you are unable to setup the quarantine tank, how did you set up the main tank? If someone helped you, Can that same person help you with Quarantine as well?

Where do you live in Calgary? Perhaps someone close to you could assist if you run into more trouble.

[Farrmanchu]

I have a Hippo/Regal also, showed ich in the first week, treated food with Selcon, and still do, make sure the fish eats well, Skunk Cleaner Shrimp took care of the rest. Ich lasted three days, now ich-free for a month. I agree that most systems contain ich, but a healthy, well fed fish, unstressed, will not get it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/Farrman/5f96d3b4.jpg
I forgot to mention, I feed New Life Spectrum Marine pellets soaked in Selcon in the morning, I think it's Garlic fortified.

[adidas]

I am sure you know this but Hippos's need more meat than veggies. Buy him some Freeze Dried marine plankton and soak that in Garlic and Selcon instead. Freeze Dried foods are GREAT for adding vitamins etc.

Good luck leaving him in the Main tank. Ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

If you are unable to setup the quarantine tank, how did you set up the main tank? If someone helped you, Can that same person help you with Quarantine as well?

Where do you live in Calgary? Perhaps someone close to you could assist if you run into more trouble.

i'll give him some mysis soaked in garlic tonight, i've also been feeding selcon every day. he actually looks better today, so i'm hoping I can fatten him up and get him through it.

I could probably get my roomie to help me with a quarrintine, he is just a little lazy lol

:)