Help: New Butterfly with Ich. FML.

The Grizz · #1 02-16-2011, 01:44 AM

I would have some cleaner shrimp to but something, have no idea what, has a taste for all the shrimp I have put in my tank even a huge coral banded shrimp.

Delphinus · #2 02-16-2011, 02:58 AM

I remember you saying that. Wonder who it could be.. do you have any hermits, are they goners too?

The Grizz · #3 02-16-2011, 03:04 AM

Have several hermit crabs, have not lost any of them.

ScubaSteve · #4 02-16-2011, 09:33 PM

So a bit of update. If fed the butterfly and my other fish mysis and pellets soaked in garlic (with some garlic chucks) last night and they all gobbled it up. I woke up this morning and the butterfly was significantly better. He only had a couple of remaining white spots on his fins; far better than yesterdays tip to tail ordeal. Was it the fish fighting it, the garlic, the cleaner shrimp? We'll see how quickly he gets over it and whether is comes back.

Thanks for the advice guys!

The Grizz · #5 02-16-2011, 09:44 PM

Good to hear, by tomorrow there should be no sign of it at all. Keep feeding with garlic your fish will love it.

Judy Waytiuk · #6 03-03-2011, 09:47 PM

Can you give us an update now? How is the butterfly? I ask because I have a powder blue that's infested (everyone else in the tank is utterly healthy) and have just put some nori and pellets into bowls to soak in garlic overnight...

ScubaSteve · #7 03-03-2011, 11:22 PM

He's happy as a clam... Errr, happy as a fish?.... The ich still comes and goes though. It seems that after a week of heavy feeding ( to reduce stress) it came back pretty bad. Big water change and it was gone. The ich flair up could have been due to the polluted water from overfeeding or it could have just been coincidal with the natural cycle of the parasite. Dunno. Either way, a water change seemed to help.

I also stopped feeding with garlic for a bit. BAM! Ich! I've stepped up feedin with garlic again and it seems to help. I've found that Spike won't take the food of there are garlic chunks... He just nibbles and then spits the food out. I've started slicing the garlic and adding it to boiled RO/DI and letting it cool... Basically making my own garlic extract. I'll remove the garlic with a strainer and then add the food to the extract and let it soak for several hours. I then drain the garlic water and freeze the food. He goes bananas for this stuff and it seems to do the trick.