Will a cleaner wrasse help with ich?

[tony_3a]

So my fish has ich, a very little amount right now about 10 small white salt looking dots. Anyways ive read very many different reviews about cleaner wrasse helping with ich, its about 50 50 right now if they do or dont?

Thanks for your help!

Ps i have some corals so i cannot add copper to the tank, i bought some garlic guard and im going to try soaking the food in that for a while.\

It is a coral beauty fish btw.

[PoonTang]

It will help but it wont cure it. Is this the only fish in your system? Is it a new addition?

[naesco]

So my fish has ich, a very little amount right now about 10 small white salt looking dots. Anyways ive read very many different reviews about cleaner wrasse helping with ich, its about 50 50 right now if they do or dont?

Thanks for your help!

Ps i have some corals so i cannot add copper to the tank, i bought some garlic guard and im going to try soaking the food in that for a while.\

It is a coral beauty fish btw.

No, the problem is they very rarely live. I am surprised any LFS import them anymore.
For ich what you need to do is as follows.
Buy some garlic extremet from the LFS or garlic extract from a health food store.
Soak dry (because it absorbs more) food and feed it to the fish. Feed very often as the more garlic it gets in it the better. Feed only garlic soaked foods. Continue even if you see the spots fall off the fish.

[tony_3a]

ok thats what i did, thanks for the tips on dry food, and i have a couple other fish i have 2 true perc clowns, and 2 chromis and a 6line wrasse

[PoonTang]

ok thats what i did, thanks for the tips on dry food, and i have a couple other fish i have 2 true perc clowns, and 2 chromis and a 6line wrasse

The only way to cure it really is to remove all of your fish and to QT them with copper. Your Display tank must remain absolutely fish less for up to 2 months (cant remember the exact time) and the ick will complete its life cycle and die off because it hasnt found that.
The other alternative is to simply live with it. Keep your fish healthy and well fed and they can fight it off naturally. Garlic, vitamins, clean water etc all promote happy healthy fish but the ich is never really gone.
It is kind of like humans with the common cold.

[tony_3a]

Ok I bought garlic guard, and soaked a some flake food and fed them tonight with it, they loved it, i think ill feed 2x a day with the garlic food for the next while.

Hypothetically lets say i see all the white spots fall off the coral beauty, how long would u recommend feeding them the garlic food for?

[Mech Eng]

Marine Ich lives mostly in the gills and can not be seen. When you see the white spots its due to the spreading of the ich, not the start. Loss of spots means the Ich has retreated, not that its gone. Life cycle of Marine Ich is 60-90 days with special cases up to 120days.

There was a post I put up about a month ago copied from another website with lots of good information on it about Marine Ich. About the only thing that cures Marine Ich is copper and time, garlic helps though.

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/23132-marine-ich-myths-facts.html

Good luck

[Seamazter]

Consider a UV fiter, or ozone reactor.
Both these kill the free floating ich.
Once they die in the water column they will not reproduce again, till you add a new source of ich.
Uv filter is the better choice over an ozone reactor.
note this will kill other microscopic life and illness but as a cure it is good.
You can choose to discontinue it after it has cured your ich.
....
Cleaner wrasse or cleaner shrimps, you can try to find a blue neon goby (the goby are rare but have a good survival rate over the cleaner wrasse)

[bvlester]

Well I am going to put my 2 cents in here I have been in and out of this hobby for over 21 years. I was doing 10g nano tanks where everyone else said that I could not. Any ways Garlic and the sort help in the early stags you will also have to soak the dry food with garlic and selcon or garlic and zoecon the selcon and zoecon give the fish essential amino acids that newer tanks do not have yet and if you are doing large water changes then you should use it all the time, amino acids help our corals also. Copper based treatments do more harm than good I never use it unless I am sure it is Marine Velvet. Copper kills the bacteria in the fishes stomach and many will not recover from treatment especially Angle Fish and Tangs. I use formalin or methanol blue for ICK, other parasites get Pazi-pro. I have found the garlic and selcon mix with flake and 5 ml tank water to work best, you have to feed this to your fish for the next 2 weeks minimum. It works if you have cough it on time if not the chances of catching the fish in your tank and treating them all as they will all have the parasite in them once they have been in contact with a fish with them. So catching the fish may kill them faster than the garlic and selcon treatment I have witnessed this before. The tress from catching the fish is more likely to do more harm than good. If you want to catch all the fish I would get a sedative from a vet and treat the whole tank with it and transfer the fish without stress. I have fought ICK a few times recently since using the garlic and selcon I have one almost every time. before it was a gamble maybe 50% chance of survival, it's your choice you can do what you want.
Copper also will harm the fishs liver.
I would also suggest investing in a UV sterilizer. Neon Gobi's work way better than the wrasse and they will not eat the host fish. LOL if you get a fake cleaner wrasse that is. cleaner shrimp work well once the fish get use to them being there and realize what they are there for.

I am reiterating that you should never use copper on Angle fish or Tangs as it kills the bacteria in their stomachs, and they will not last long after that in most cases. you have to di-loot the copper to much to be affective on the ICK.
I have posted links to these articles many times and it is not just to 1 or 2 articles. They say use fresh water dips when adding any new fish to QT and again before going in to your DT the dips have to last longer than 5 minutes but should last as long as 15 minutes. As Dip that are less than 5 minutes do little good but give the fish a respite and not kill any of the parasites other than the newly hatched ones. All fish carry parasites it is the stress that allows them to take over our fish and break their immune system down and eventual kill them.

Bill