Ich - Experinced help?

[alan mcilvried]

I think I may have Ich in my main tank. Noticed it yesterday on a fairly recent Hennioccus. He's been in the tank for about 5 days. He came from a LFS that treats with copper and he had been there for well over a week. Should have quarantined him anyway, but my mean damsel was in the quarantine tank and my daughter has grown attached to it. That's obvioulsy a different discussion at this point. Lesson #5 - don't keep permanent fish in the quarantine tank.

 

What I'm seeing is appearing as sparse white spots on his tail and one or two on his fins.

 

I only have 3 fish in the tank right now and no coral. I can get rid of the damsel and move them back to the quarantine tank - they may be cramped, but they'll have to get over it. That will leave my main tank empty except for cleanup crew (crabs, snails, shrimp), two mushrooms and the live rock.

 

I've tried to do my homework here, but I would appreciate any firsthand experience with any of the following:

 

I can treat the quarantine tank with either hyposalinity or copper. If I go hyposalinity, I am assuming I need to introduce the fish at 1.023 first (my main tank salinity) and then gradually reduce to 1.009-1.010 through water changes. How quickly should I drop it and then how how quickly should I raise it? (hours - days?) I think I understand it should stay low for about 14 days.

 

More importantly, I'm wondering what to do with my main tank. Hyposalinity treatment appears to be ok with the fish, but I don't think I understand whether is will harm the live rock or my other critters. Has anyone tried this?

 

Finally, I read some information about Malachite Green which indicated it is safe with invertibrates. Could I use that in the main tank? Has anyone tried this?

 

Anything else? I've read varying opinion about garlic, but the relsults appear to be largely anecdotal, so I don't think I'll try that as my first line of defense.

 

Thanks

Al

[dbartco]

 

MG will turn all silicone green, don't do on main tank

Hypo in qt tank, separate the damsel with somthing, just drop them in at this point

Make darn sure it is ick and not something else!

Garlic, nothing definitive, just may boost immune and may make them crap out any internal nasties (fiber!)

[traveller7]

Ich lifecycle with a link to hypo treatment plan:

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-j.../marineich.html

 

Leave the main display alone for the entire hypo treatment and ich will die, treatment is much longer then 14 days to be safe....not to mention bringing up from hypo is best done via evaporative top off with full strength SW.

 

IME: skip the malachite green and don't treat the main tank with anything.

IME: garlic is best on the dinner table and away from the tank.

 

Just my experiences of course

[fab]

Do you have a UV sterilizer on the main tank? It is good at killing the swimming phase of the ich parasite. That is really the phase where you need to overcome the infestation. It won't do 100% but it will kill any of them that get into the UV sterilizer. It is a help, but not a total solution.

 

fab

[alan mcilvried]

Ich lifecycle with a link to hypo treatment plan:

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-j.../marineich.html

 

Leave the main display alone for the entire hypo treatment and ich will die, treatment is much longer then 14 days to be safe....not to mention bringing up from hypo is best done via evaporative top off with full strength SW.

 

IME: skip the malachite green and don't treat the main tank with anything.

IME: garlic is best on the dinner table and away from the tank.

 

Just my experiences of course

Thanks for the link to the ich article. I'm still not sure that is what is going on with my fish. The symptoms keep coming and going. I've never had ich before, so I don't know what I'm looking for other than pic's on-line. Looks like it, but it goes away and then comes back.

 

Looks like if I try to drop the salinity on my entire system - my crabs and shrimp are toast. Has that been you experience? Hate to kill them, but not sure what else to do. I can't put them in the quarantine tank if they could possibly transport ich into that.

 

Al

[treesprite]

thats what amyloodinium (aka oodinium) does - people think the fish are all better, only to find all the fish dead the next day. I kept my display fish-free for a couple of months and treated the fish in qt with copper and did FW dips. I didn't know about hypo back then, but still, irradicated the disease, lost nothing, and haven't had a disease of any kind in the several years since that was done.

[YBeNormal]

Al,

 

The hospital tank for treating diseased fish should usually be void of substrate, LR or decorations other than maybe some PVC connectors for the fish to hide in. This helps to maintain a cleaner environment during treatment and also prevents the disease or parasites from establishing themselves in that tank.

 

A hospital tank can be a very simple setup of a tank, rubbermaid container or anything clean that will hold water, a HOB or canister filter, maybe an airstone and heater. Skimmer is not even needed in many cases since you will be doing frequent water changes and lighting is more for your benefit than for the fish.