Why can

[Chris-]

Not a fish doctor but that does not look like ick. Velvet or even flukes? Either way, if it is one or the other, fresh water bath a good week soaking in some quinine sulfate should take care of the fish. You could at least then let them back in the sterile tank, or, keep them pinned in another tank while you wait out the 2 months or more and enjoy the corals.

[rocko918]

I believe 99% of us have ich in our tanks. I think its like the flu, it attacks when we are weak. But i don't think it is Ich either. If that is what the other fish look like than i think i might be something else.

 

I would focus on feeding and good water as well. I don't think this is something that will change quickly. I certainly would not add any more fish for a while now. Wait til your remaining fish are healthy for a month ( i know it will be hard to do) but in the long run it may help.

[zygote2k]

Just continue your present course. The fish will get healthier eventually. Small(young) fish are more susceptible to water chemistry issues. Rather than try any drastic actions, just let some time pass and all will be well.

[hlem]

Just continue your present course. The fish will get healthier eventually. Small(young) fish are more susceptible to water chemistry issues. Rather than try any drastic actions, just let some time pass and all will be well.

 

i'm sorry, but this does not work if one or more of your fish is already weaken and heavily infected. the more infected one will get worse, and hence, will infect the rest because there are more ich/disease or whatever it is to spread, which will also then get worse. chain reaction.

 

I lost 20+fish with the "leave it alone method".

 

You need to find the cause... "what is stressing my fish" if you can eliminate that, then you can "let time heal"

Edited April 14, 2010 by hlem

[Chris-]

i'm sorry, but this does not work if one or more of your fish is already weaken and heavily infected. the more infected one will get worse, and hence, will infect the rest because there are more ich/disease or whatever it is to spread, which will also then get worse. chain reaction.

 

I lost 20+fish with the "leave it alone method".

 

You need to find the cause... "what is stressing my fish" if you can eliminate that, then you can "let time heal"

 

20+ fish? jeez, sorry to hear, that must have been not so fun.

[zygote2k]

i'm sorry, but this does not work if one or more of your fish is already weaken and heavily infected. the more infected one will get worse, and hence, will infect the rest because there are more ich/disease or whatever it is to spread, which will also then get worse. chain reaction.

 

I lost 20+fish with the "leave it alone method".

 

You need to find the cause... "what is stressing my fish" if you can eliminate that, then you can "let time heal"

 

This does work as long as you have STABLE, excellent water chemistry before you add fish. This is a prime example of what happens when you add fish to a tank that isn't ready to support fish. Back in the day, you needed the excellent water quality to bring to the LFS before they would even sell you a fish.

I simply don't have issues with fish getting sick in ANY of my own or any of the maintenance tanks because I do my best to maintain STABLE water chemistry. I bought a 4" Hippo and introduced it to an established tank, in a week it was covered in ick. Rather than try to catch it, set up a QT, treat the fish with various means and methods, I decided that the best course of action is to let the fish ride it out. It's healthy, the tank water is great, it's 6' long with plenty of swimming room, etc.

[Chris-]

Yes, it is "possible" to take a sick ick infested fish and make him healthy in the tank. Is it water quality? Garlic? just the fishes ability to fight it off? Heck, I have heard and read of many copper treatments that do/did not work. One thread a guy tried twice and was going nuts! Fact of the matter is, we do not know what "good water" and "garlic" really does (yes of course it helps), if it in fact does anything, it is "Russian roulette" at its finest!

 

While some are fine with this, thats not my route. My solution is the end all solution, d-day, think a-bomb, DONE!! I believe OP is done with Russian Roulette, though it is his call, all we can do is give him advice.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Chris-

[Happyfeet]

I'm not seeing ich on that clown picture you posted. The spots (little bit of white between his eyes) are way too small. Are you sure it's ich and not velvet? Most healthy fish can actually fight off ich. Your description of the hippo being covered in only a day sounds too fast for ich. With velvet, once a fish has it, they're usually dead within 3-5 days. Ich can (and usually does) linger for weeks.

 

I went back and looked at the picture. I agree with Brian, it doesn't look like Ich, looks like its on the clowns eye as well. I don't believe ich would be able to grow on the surface of the eye.

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

That is not ich! It looks like you are dealing with a bacterial or fungal infection. I would use antibiotics in a qt setup, probly metronidazole since it kils MOST parasites and bacterial infections, API General cure has prazequental and metronidazole it works great for me!

[Chris-]

Really? It has prazequental in there too? Cool!

[hlem]

This does work as long as you have STABLE, excellent water chemistry before you add fish. This is a prime example of what happens when you add fish to a tank that isn't ready to support fish. Back in the day, you needed the excellent water quality to bring to the LFS before they would even sell you a fish.

I simply don't have issues with fish getting sick in ANY of my own or any of the maintenance tanks because I do my best to maintain STABLE water chemistry. I bought a 4" Hippo and introduced it to an established tank, in a week it was covered in ick. Rather than try to catch it, set up a QT, treat the fish with various means and methods, I decided that the best course of action is to let the fish ride it out. It's healthy, the tank water is great, it's 6' long with plenty of swimming room, etc.

 

well, if the tank is stable, water chemistry or whatever you consider "stable" means, and all of a sudden, from an introduction of a new fish or something, there is now ich. so, my point is that even if you got a good clean system going, and your fish got ich from something newly added, then you have to fix the new issue, it's simply will not go away. you still have to find the issue, may it be water chemistry or something and "stabilizer" it, ie, fix it.

[Chris-]

Well, no use squabbling about it now, lol. The OP just has to figure which route he wants to ride out. Once he tells us that, then we can give him ideas and help in that direction.

[Jon Lazar]

Chris,

 

The problem with "bleaching the tank" is that you recommend taking out a piece of live rock first. The dormant phase of ich settles out on the tank substrate, which includes sand, live rock, tank walls, frogspawn branches, etc. So unless you bleach everything, there may still be ich.

 

You will get the best results eliminating ich by either copper or hyposalinity in a quarantine tank, and giving the DT 4 weeks with no fish. I know these aren't 100% effective, but AFAIK there are no other tested, peer reviewed methods for treating ich.

 

Since you don't want to go that route again, IME your best bet is to feed the remaining fish well with frozen, high-nutrition food. Avoid fish that are prone to ich or tend to fight, and don't add any fish for a long time.

 

Good luck,

Jon

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

Chris,

 

The problem with "bleaching the tank" is that you recommend taking out a piece of live rock first. The dormant phase of ich settles out on the tank substrate, which includes sand, live rock, tank walls, frogspawn branches, etc. So unless you bleach everything, there may still be ich.

 

You will get the best results eliminating ich by either copper or hyposalinity in a quarantine tank, and giving the DT 4 weeks with no fish. I know these aren't 100% effective, but AFAIK there are no other tested, peer reviewed methods for treating ich.

 

Since you don't want to go that route again, IME your best bet is to feed the remaining fish well with frozen, high-nutrition food. Avoid fish that are prone to ich or tend to fight, and don't add any fish for a long time.

 

Good luck,

Jon

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

Chris,

 

The problem with "bleaching the tank" is that you recommend taking out a piece of live rock first. The dormant phase of ich settles out on the tank substrate, which includes sand, live rock, tank walls, frogspawn branches, etc. So unless you bleach everything, there may still be ich.

 

You will get the best results eliminating ich by either copper or hyposalinity in a quarantine tank, and giving the DT 4 weeks with no fish. I know these aren't 100% effective, but AFAIK there are no other tested, peer reviewed methods for treating ich.

 

Since you don't want to go that route again, IME your best bet is to feed the remaining fish well with frozen, high-nutrition food. Avoid fish that are prone to ich or tend to fight, and don't add any fish for a long time.

 

Good luck,

Jon

Jon is right here, thats why I think you should treat the fish in a QT and that way your maintank stays Fish free during treatment which should kill off any ich if this is what you have but I still don't think it is........Good Luck with everything I think everyone has been through this before in the hobby.

[Chris-]

Chris,

 

The problem with "bleaching the tank" is that you recommend taking out a piece of live rock first. The dormant phase of ich settles out on the tank substrate, which includes sand, live rock, tank walls, frogspawn branches, etc. So unless you bleach everything, there may still be ich.

 

 

 

 

This is correct, but....

 

Hypo in the DT - I have tried that twice with no sucess. Granted I have a 6" sand bed, but still, after hypo with a "refracto meter" it was a no go.

 

Copper - I repeat that I have read many a post that it does not always work. What now? We can get back to that in a minute.

 

Feeding garlic - This is just a well wish event. It could fix the fish and it could do nothing and they die anyways, aka russian roulette. Ick or whatever the fish have is STILL in the tank waiting to play havoc at anytime.

 

Bleaching - This is all dependent on what the OP is going to do. My original theory is to take everything out of the tank, sterilize the tank. I think that the more ick, velevt or whatever is in there, the more of a chance it has at surviving. When the tank is bleached, we now KNOW the tank is clean. We can then work foward with a clean tank.

 

If OP is not going to bleach, I would want to still take out as much substrate as I could for the/a 2-3 month duration. This leaves the least amount of nasty to deal with. like you said, it is everywhere, thats one reason I like bleaching. Yes, corals still have it but now you are dealing with 90% LESS nasty than originally started with. that could be the diff of 6 weeks and not working, like my case or 6 weeks and it is gone, which I think it would be in that case.

 

If OP lives with parents and can not take out corals, then the fish have to come out. and then hope he has them out long enough before putting new fish in, which, I would not go any longer than 3 months.

 

Hope i made some sense, its been a long day and I am tired, lol. All I know is that fallow and hypo have wasted my time over and over. Not until I bombed my tank did that work.

Edited April 15, 2010 by Chris-

[Incredible Corals]

Thanks for all the help. I was starting to believe I was the only one that had gone through this.

 

I'm going to just feed the remaining fish well and hope they all recover (rods and garlic soaked flakes etc). I'll keep the tank as-is for a few months and work on getting the water even better (not sure how much better) and work on coral growth. If the remaining fish recover then I might add some more fish down the road and only fish that are very ich/disease resistant (ie Rabbit fish, madrian, damsels, chromies, etc.)

 

With one kid under 2 and another on the way I need to keep the hobby as easy as possible. I don't have time for multiple quarantine tanks or the space for more than my 55gal.

 

On the bright side, all my corals are doing amazing along with all my inverts. I can't wait to see what the tank looks like a year from now. Maybe I could get some cool inverts like one of those electric flame scallops.

[treesprite]

The clowns look like maybe it's the bacterial infection that my female clown gets when she is really stressed out. When my clown has it, it always goes away on its own with no treatment. So far, every episode followed me moving her between tanks. I have also had fish that got the viral infection lymphocystis as a result of stress from moving between owners' tanks and being in a QT.

 

The above is why I am developing more of a "wait and see" attitude about removing fish from a tank when they are sick, or using treatments that have the potential to reduce immunity.

 

A while back, 2 of the newest additions to my main DT came down with what looked like ich. I left them in the tank and they both recovered. I did put a shrimp in the tank - they supposedly do not eat ich, but they help by reducing physical discomfort, which in turn reduces the fish's stress level, and also helps keep the fish from injuring themselves by rubbing on the rockwork. therefore reducing stress and reducing the risk of an "itchy" fish injuring themselves from rubbing against the rough rockwork.

 

At this point the fish you have moved around are very stressed out already - stressing them out more by moving them yet again.... it's likely to stress them out even more, reduce immunity more, make the fish more weak so that they can't recover.

[sen5241b]

1 I had a Mandarin get ich and die from it.

2 There are many species of the parasite called ich --some more virulent than others. This explains why some tank owners have very different experiences with ich.

3 Consider OTHER WAYS ich gets into tank! Frozen foods can have ich (in the tomite stage) and they can re-animate. The ability of some inverts to reanimate is well known. Blood worms (fresh water source) do not have marine ich. I've seen gamma irradiated frozen food available. The slightest drop of water from an infected source will start the whole GD'ed ich cycle over again.

4 I've used "kick-Ich" and it seemed to work fine but then maybe the fish got better on their own. If I over-dosed with it the inverts looked stressed.

5 My guess: QT all fish for 12 weeks with copper AND hypo-salinity. The ich parasite CANNOT survive forever without a host.

[sen5241b]

One other thing: If any seafood is frozen at -6F for 72 hours it will kill all parasites. Health codes require any raw seafood served (like sushi) to have been frozen in this way.

[gmubeach]

I've never had ich nock on wood but this is a wake up call... I would hate to keep loosing 20fish!

[Jon Lazar]

Thanks for all the help. I was starting to believe I was the only one that had gone through this.

 

I'm going to just feed the remaining fish well and hope they all recover (rods and garlic soaked flakes etc). I'll keep the tank as-is for a few months and work on getting the water even better (not sure how much better) and work on coral growth. If the remaining fish recover then I might add some more fish down the road and only fish that are very ich/disease resistant (ie Rabbit fish, madrian, damsels, chromies, etc.)

 

With one kid under 2 and another on the way I need to keep the hobby as easy as possible. I don't have time for multiple quarantine tanks or the space for more than my 55gal.

 

On the bright side, all my corals are doing amazing along with all my inverts. I can't wait to see what the tank looks like a year from now. Maybe I could get some cool inverts like one of those electric flame scallops.

 

Your fish plan is a good compromise, considering your space and time limitations.

 

I would stay away from the flame scallop though, as they don't last long in our reef tanks. If you want an active, interesting invert, you might try a coral banded shrimp.

[hlem]

I've never had ich nock on wood but this is a wake up call... I would hate to keep loosing 20fish!

 

its not fun....

[ctenophore]

Your fish plan is a good compromise, considering your space and time limitations.

 

I would stay away from the flame scallop though, as they don't last long in our reef tanks. If you want an active, interesting invert, you might try a coral banded shrimp.

You might also try keeping some of your circulation pumps aimed at the surface to improve gas exchange. This might make breathing easier for a fish that has parasites on its gills (where ich really does its damage) by increasing dissolved oxygen levels.

 

Skunk cleaner shrimp are cool too, and don't have claws that can catch smaller fish.

 

Good luck

[Incredible Corals]

You might also try keeping some of your circulation pumps aimed at the surface to improve gas exchange. This might make breathing easier for a fish that has parasites on its gills (where ich really does its damage) by increasing dissolved oxygen levels.

 

Skunk cleaner shrimp are cool too, and don't have claws that can catch smaller fish.

 

Good luck

 

I did just that a few days ago. I turned one PH up to break up the surface even more. I've had a skunk cleaner for a while and all the fish go over to him.

 

On a positive note. All the fish are looking better. All the their eyes have cleared up and the clowns look much better. They are eating like crazy and I'm giving mostly rods soaked in garlic. Four fish in a 55 isn't too bad. I really want a yellow tang. Not sure what it is about that fish but I love the way they swim.