I messed up...

kopczynski

Member
I noticed this morning that my damsel and tang had ich, and under further investigation everysingle fish is covered head to tail. The cause is a coral banded shrimp who was constantly nipping at the fish while they slept, but i didnt notice it was causing serious stress. He is now in a time out tank with a Foxface that likes corals and a tang that wouldn't get along with my kole tang (which now has ich). Unfortunatley the tank with the isolated inhabitants was also a quarantine tank. My tank is a reef tank and i just added 300$ worth of more coral this morning. Any tips or suggestions? Fish list includes, Kole tang, 2 Ocellaris Clownfish, 1 Fourline Wrasse, Royal Gramma basslet, And a starcki Damsel. I have fed misis and baby brine shrimp soaked in garlic and gave the tang nori twice today but jow he wont touch it. Thanks for any help you can give.
 

jay0705

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately u need to get a qt. U can see if a lfs will hold your current healthy fish in qt. Then treat the rest in your qt
 

Kristin1234

Active Member
From what I Have read you will more than likely have to remove all fish from display to a hospital tank and treat them there and leave them there for 4-6 weeks. The parasite will die in your display tank with no fish as the host.

Then all the fish should be treated for ich and then reintroduce them to the display when they are healty again.
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
The shrimp is the one keeping the parasite in check. There is no easy answer for treating fish in a reef tank. What is the size of your infected tank?
 

kopczynski

Member
? I said i added 300 dollars worth of coral today, not 300 pounds of rock lol. There is 80 pounds of rock in the system and at the moment there are 12 pieces of coral in the tank.
 

pegasus

Well-Known Member
I know some people don't like it when I say this, but I treated my DT for Ick with medication from NoSickFish dot com. I lost no fish, invertebrates, or corals. Mysis and pods were all alive and well when treatment was completed. It's reef safe, and from my experience, it works.
 

flower

Well-Known Member
I noticed this morning that my damsel and tang had ich, and under further investigation everysingle fish is covered head to tail. The cause is a coral banded shrimp who was constantly nipping at the fish while they slept, but i didnt notice it was causing serious stress.
Just want to make something very clear. The CAUSE was not your coral banded shrimp. The CAUSE is a parasite that your display tank was exposed to. Stressed fish may succumb to the parasite faster, but stress does not CAUSE ich. If you quarantine all new fish, you could have prevented the problem.
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Sorry about the misunderstanding. Course of action depends on what you are willing to do. To address ich in your tank, it will involve dismantling your tank to treat your fish. There is no real other good easy alternative, but we can help you along with the process of adequately addressing the ich. The other alternative is to just live with the ich in your tank. If you want to try a reef safe med, its up to you, but in all my yrs here (15) and seeing hundreds of people coming here with ich problems, I have not seen too much happy endings with doing nothing or using reef safe meds.
 
Or you could try this way 1). Get Kent Marine 00657 Garlic Xtreme - put two drops each time to the food that going to feed your fish for 14 days 2). Do 10% water change daily for 14 days. 3). Keep your eyes close all fish, after the six days, no fish should have ICH.

It works for me and I have added 9 fish after the treatment and all fish are doing great.
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Or you could try this way 1). Get Kent Marine 00657 Garlic Xtreme - put two drops each time to the food that going to feed your fish for 14 days 2). Do 10% water change daily for 14 days. 3). Keep your eyes close all fish, after the six days, no fish should have ICH.

It works for me and I have added 9 fish after the treatment and all fish are doing great.
Saying that the fish will have no ich following your suggestion is terribly misleading. Garlic Extreme would do zero results in addressing ich. If garlic is to be used for ich, it would need to be fresh garlic, not bottled. Even then, garlic would have little use. At best, it can be used (along with good QT practices) to prevent ich and aid along holistically with other health concerns, such as boost to immune system or warding off bacteria infections.

As for the water changes, yes that could be used. The idea is to dilute out the parasite in the free swimming stage; however, it remains iffy for that to work. I would try 20% w/c daily (if still remains iffy).
 
Saying that the fish will have no ich following your suggestion is terribly misleading. Garlic Extreme would do zero results in addressing ich. If garlic is to be used for ich, it would need to be fresh garlic, not bottled. Even then, garlic would have little use. At best, it can be used (along with good QT practices) to prevent ich and aid along holistically with other health concerns, such as boost to immune system or warding off bacteria infections.

As for the water changes, yes that could be used. The idea is to dilute out the parasite in the free swimming stage; however, it remains iffy for that to work. I would try 20% w/c daily (if still remains iffy).
Garlic Xtreme may not going to kill ICH, the idea is not to allow ich to attach to the fish, change water 10 % daily will reduce ICH in the tank like you told me before, ich living cycle is 7 days, if Garlic Xtreme able to not allow ick attached to fish plus 14-day change water, why is not going to work.
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Garlic Xtreme has no effect. Only fresh garlic that is minced quickly and fed to fish with fish food. Even so, you are counting on that to get rid of ich? It is by no means a certainty.

How about your situation? Are you ich clear now?
 

pegasus

Well-Known Member
Garlic will only boost the fish's immune system. It will help the fish fight off secondary infections, but will do nothing to rid the tank of Ick... which is a parasite. The life cycle of Ick is between 4 - 6 weeks. It attaches to the fish and feeds for about a week, falls off, and quickly attaches to the substrate (sand, rocks, etc.) where it reproduces for about 18 - 21 days. Then the babies go in search of a host fish. Water changes will only remove the parasite when it falls off the fish, or when it's looking for a fish. Since the parasite is only free-swimming for a few hours, the chance of removing even a small amount of Ick with water changes is very low.
 
Garlic Xtreme has no effect. Only fresh garlic that is minced quickly and fed to fish with fish food. Even so, you are counting on that to get rid of ich? It is by no means a certainty.

How about your situation? Are you ich clear now?

It almost three months, I have not noticed any problem for ICH, I do have problem with fish food (too much coloring), my tank is look like brown after I change flake food.
 
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