Blue Regal with ICH!

Telford · #1 01-08-2008, 05:14 AM

I recently added a blue regal tang to my fairly young tank (10 weeks). He had a couple spots of ich within a day or two of adding him but now he's completely covered in it. I only have a yellow tang, a royal gramma and a couple scooter blennies in the tank.

Should i do something about it or give it some time. Freshwater dip? Any help is very appreciated....

mark · #2 01-08-2008, 05:27 AM

Getting the impression it's always going to be around unless you remove all fish and treat in a QT (hypo-salinity or copper) and let the tank go fish-fallow.

There's a chance the fish can get over it and it won't show up again or it could kill them all. Risk you're taking if you try to wait it out, fish might be too weak for treatment if things start going bad.

Telford · #3 01-08-2008, 05:29 AM

He seems somewhat happy, he's out and swimming and he's eating...

mark · #4 01-08-2008, 05:50 AM

All good.

Going through something similar. Added a Regal to an established system that hadn't shown ick in something like 4+ years. After about six months noticed a few spots on the Regal then which cleared up in a few days and nothing since (been ~2 months).

Was and still am a little torn if I should pull the tank apart to get the fish out, place in a QT with the risk associated or let things be (which guess I'm sort of doing).

Still kicking myself for not quarantining from the start. All the hassle to treat for the whole tank compared to the minor effort of setting up for one fish.

Telford · #5 01-08-2008, 05:56 AM

He doesn't just a have a few spots unfortunately...He's completely covered in it.... thinking i gotta do something. Gonna try a dip i think

mark · #6 01-08-2008, 05:59 AM

Read this?

untamed · #7 01-08-2008, 06:05 AM

If he is still eating and not behaving too badly, I would just leave him be. There's really differing opinions on this particular topic...but that's my experience fwiw.

bv_reefer · #8 01-08-2008, 06:06 AM

are'nt scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp good for picking of parasites?

Der_Iron_Chef · #9 01-08-2008, 06:10 AM

They won't help with ich.

I would happen to agree with Untamed on this one. Make sure he is well fed and endures as little stress as possible.

Might I suggest seaweed soaked in garlic? I know some people think it's a farce, but other swear by garlic. Give it a go. Can't hurt, eh? If nothing more, it IS known to increase appetite, which has its benefits in this case.

fkshiu · #10 01-08-2008, 06:30 AM

You have 2 choices: learn to live with it or take steps to eliminate the ich properly.

The second choice is quite drastic if done properly and most people have neither the time nor the patience. You must remove EVERY FISH from your display system. Then you must place them in a q-tank and treat with copper or hyposalinity over the course of weeks. You must leave the display tank fallow (fishless) for AT LEAST 1 month, but preferably longer. Thereafter in order to keep ich out of your system you must quarantine each and every single thing you put in your tank.

As you can see, simply getting the fish out of a tank full of live rock will be a massive chore.

The first choice is what most people do and it's fine as the fish (esp. the tangs) will often go into a chronic low level infection - sometimes you sees the spots, sometimes you don't, but it's always there. If the tank is healthy, you feed right, etc, etc, things usually go OK. However, there's always the spectre that if anything goes out of whack the ich may come back with a sudden vengeance.