Help: New Butterfly with Ich. FML.

[Judy Waytiuk]

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]

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.

[cwatkins]

That sounds like a lot of work. I eventually switched to Garlic Extreme. I think it was like only $8 or something like that. Man that stuff is concentrated and powerful.

[Judy Waytiuk]

The tang I'm having the problem with only eats nori-- so I have some sheets soaking in chopped garlic with some tank water in a bowl, and will start feeding that tomorrow...
fridge reeks of garlic now...

[mws]

I just moved everyone to a bigger tank and most fish are showing sings of ich from stress of moving.
I started Marc Weiss Immuno-Vital and garlic socked food. I find from previous times both help, but it will be a long battle, over next two months it will come and go. I do have a neon goby who cleans fish but the problem is he is looking the worst out of all of them, as no one cleans him.

[ScubaSteve]

Sigh... I don't get this fish man. I love this guy, he has great personality and he's a total blast to hang out with. He even "plays" with me! Definitely one of the best fish I've had. Except...

His ich just keep getting worse (or at least no better). The ich goes away, comes back, goes away, comes back... Today it's back with a vengence.

He seems to be settling in a little better (at least when I'm around) when the ich is gone. He swims around, poke at the rocks and eats like a pig. When it's back he's pretty restless and twitchy. If I sneak into the room so he doesn't see me (when he's battling ich) I can see him swimming up and down the glass. I take this as a sign of stress. So, I can't figure out if he's stressed because of the ich, or if he's battling ich because he's stressed because he doesn't like his tank...?

There's no one around to bother him (just a goby, mandarin and blenny, all of whom are peaceful... and a couple cleaner shrimp). Any ideas on this guy? Just an ich magnet or something else?

[Judy Waytiuk]

sadly, my powder blue succumbed... your butterfly may also. I have come to the conclusion that the experts are right: there is no magic bullet for marine ich other than removing all the fish from the display tank, leaving it fishless for at least two months (or more), and treating all the fish in a QT tank during that time with copper meds.
i just hope i do not see a single speck of ich on any of the other fish! so far, the powder blue was the onyl fish in the tank to show ANY sign!

[The Grizz]

Something is stressing it out big time but it does not sound like it could be another fish. How are your water parameters & temp? Do your lights come on all at once, hard start? Or do they gradually come on? Just thinking outside the box as it seems like something is some what shocking him.

Would stray voltage case him to stress?