Ich! Help!

[mikeclarke]

Hi there. I've got ich on my clowns and pj cardinals. My royal gramma has disappeared so I think he's succumb. I have a 100gal tank and can't catch the fish to put them in my 20gal qt. I've tried Microlift Herbtana and I haven't noticed improvement. It says you can have the uv or skimmer on. How long can I not have a skimmer with sps and soft corals? The skimmer will overflow with the medication in if so I guess I need to water change it until I can run it. Can I run the uv sterilizer? Is there any other reef safe treatment?

Any suggestions would be awesome. So far the coral cleaner shrimps and crabs are looking ok.

[Northernseacorals]

Hi there. I've got ich on my clowns and pj cardinals. My royal gramma has disappeared so I think he's succumb. I have a 100gal tank and can't catch the fish to put them in my 20gal qt. I've tried Microlift Herbtana and I haven't noticed improvement. It says you can have the uv or skimmer on. How long can I not have a skimmer with sps and soft corals? The skimmer will overflow with the medication in if so I guess I need to water change it until I can run it. Can I run the uv sterilizer? Is there any other reef safe treatment?

Any suggestions would be awesome. So far the coral cleaner shrimps and crabs are looking ok.

I would try to not use medication in your display tank, there will be many varying opinions on how to proceed; myself I've had an excellent successes rate removing the sick fish and placing them in a hospital tank using hypo-salinity. ( as you said you cannot catch them, hypo cannot be used on your display tank )

Some people also have great luck feeding the affected fish with garlic infused food, trying to keep the fish as comfortable as possible, reduced stress by people moving around the tank, make sure they are kept full of food and hope they are healthy enough to fight it off.

I do not see the harm in running a UV sterilizer, take a look here for some helpful information.

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/ich.html

[mrhasan]

Herbtana is a good med but it will take time. That's possibly the only option for your along with garlic food to get the fishes going again :)

[Reef Pilot]

Any suggestions would be awesome. So far the coral cleaner shrimps and crabs are looking ok.
I feel bad for you (been there myself), but not much you can do in your display tank now other than feed the fish well. Hopefully, your strong healthy ones will beat it.

Only sure cure for Ich, is to prevent it with good QT practice. But a new hastily set up QT will likely do more harm than good at this point. Lots of past discussion on this subject here if you search a little.

[mikeclarke]

Thanks for the suggestions. I drove an hour to cranbrook and back to get some Herbtana and garlic. I've got the uv sterilizer on too do hopefully that helps. How often should I do water changes since the skimmer is off?

[windcoast reefs]

I can go a week without a skimmer if I don't feed to heavy. I would try and do a water change a week, maybe %20. But the best thing is to watch your tank and just look to see if the corals are doing well. If they look happy, the tank should be fine. Also test every couple of days just to see what's going on.

[Nano]

I think you'll be please with the results from herbtana, just make sure you got microbe lift. Thats the kind you want for ich. I treated my tank almost a year ago now and havent had an outbreak since. The nice thing is that its safe for fish and corals, unlike some brands that have warnings on the bottle that it could potentially kill the fish if they are already in poor health. You'll want to leave your skimmer off while treating, I think 10 days, but what I did, was turned it off in the morning, then treated the tank right after, leaving it off for the day, then turning it back on for the night. If you leave your skimmer on during treatment it most likely will cause it to over flow as well as skim out the medication causing it to be ineffective.

[mikeclarke]

Unfortunately, my two year old male clown died this morning. The fox face looks good still but isn't eating much. Will my female clown be okay on her own? Would you get a male for her? Some of the pj cardinals look okay and some don't. I guess we will see what happens. Hopefully everything will be okay in a few weeks. I am going to Calgary and Lethbridge so I can get some more fish but definitely keep them in QT!

Any recommendations on where to get fish in either Calgary or Lethbridge?

[hfp75]

I dont truely remember but Herbtania (sp) says something like 7-10 days for a treatment, I was told to run it longer and did successfully run it for almost a month with good results - until the Ich subsided.

Whether it was the Herbtania or not - your guess is as good as mine but I have been right on track since that month.

During that time I increased my water changes & was heavily vacuuming the sand, due to the Ich eggs being in statis there, and I ran garlic soaked food (1 hr), increased the volume of food a bit.

Remember it takes time - patience. Easy for me to say though as I am not in your shoes right now.

Tank:
55g with a 15g sump, 1-1.5" sand. Also running a Coralife TurboTwist 9w UV - with low-med flow.