Aaaghgggghhhhhh

radiolotek

radiolotek

Member
Ok what the hell is going on. I had a ich outbreak that claimed alot of my fish. I raised the temp to 84 and didn't add anything for about a month and a half. a week ago I got a spotted sweetlips and tonight I noticed it had ich on it. I don't know why this is happening. My tank sits at:
Temp 80
Trites 0
Trates about 10
Amonia 0
Ph 8.4
SG 1.025
I feed flake, frozen mysis, and seaweed sheets.
I don't know whats going on.
I am going to take the sweetlips to my LFS in the morning cause they have a QT tank they offer for free to their customers and I don't have one yet. I do water changes about every week to every other at the most. I am about to sell my SW equip and go to FW. I am tired of looking at an emty tank cause every time I add something I get ich. The only thing that doesn't get it is my flamehawk. I have hermit crabs, nassarus (sp) snails, turbos, and one decorator-spider crab. LR and LS. :help: :help: :help: I need help badly.
 
evanish

evanish

Member
First off, raising the temperature isn't going to make ich just disapear. Also I do want to point out that your ph is pretty high but that wouldn't affect the ich. One thing I could recommend investing in would be your own qt tank and I would qt all new fish that enter your tank for atleast 5 weeks. Then leave your main tank fishless for atleast 4 weeks to make sure all the ich dies off.
 
radiolotek

radiolotek

Member
I did leave the tank fishless the first time for 6 weeks. I was told by a lfs here that while it was fishless to raise the temp. I did that and after 6 weeks I slowly lowered the temp to 80 and put my flame hawk back in. 2 weeks later I put my sweetlips in (they were in another tank that is now gone due to a big crack) it was my qt. No lr or ls in it. Both fish were ich free in the qt tank. I can't figure it out.
 
mavgi

mavgi

Member
because of this i always keep the new arrival about 4-6 weeks in my QT before i put them in the main tank. it's sound not normal and a lot of time i saw and read that after 1 or 2 week if the fish ok so put him in the main tank but after i got ich again in my main tank i decide to keep fish at the minmum 4 weks in my QT before he go to the main tank. i bought a very nice and full colored blue tang the fish was looking great after 2 weeks in my QT he start to show sign of ich it's hard to see the fish in the qt for a long time and we want to put him in the display quick as we can but need here lot of patient .
 
sly

sly

Active Member
Kent garlic extreme will help fight ich. It makes the fish's immune system stronger... I use an ultra violet sterilizer on my tank and I've never had ICH.
 
mavgi

mavgi

Member
sorry to said that but if ich already present not garlic or uv will stop that the way to stop the ich it's to treat that again with hypo or cooper.
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
Radio, it was very good of you to leave your tank fishless for a month and a half and raise the temp to 84. That more than likely killed the ich in your tank. However, just because there is no ich in your tank does not mean that the fish you just bought does not have ich at the fish store. Ich could be on the fish's body without you knowing it or seeing it. This is why a quarantine tank is so important. When you add the fish to the tank and the ich appears, that means something is stressing the fish out. I would first look at your acclimation process to make sure that is correct. Also, it is important to test the LFS' water with yours to see how big of a difference there is in pH and salinity. A huge difference will definitely stress a fish out.
Evanish, raising the temperature to 84 degrees will slow down the reproduction of ich and kill it faster. A pH of 8.4 is not high at all.
Sly, you are absolutely right in asserting that garlic can help fight off ich by increasing the fish's immune system.
Mavgi, I have no doubt that a healthy fish that is fed a nutritious, varied, well-balanced diet and that is kept in a proper enviroment with ideal water quality can surely fight off ich without hypo or copper. Ich might be in the water, but if the fish is healthy, fed a very varied diet high in nutrition, and the tank is kept ideally, the fish will not contract ich. Healthy, unstressed fish do not contract ich.
In this case, you probably did not research the fish you bought before you purchased it. If you had, you would have found out that the spotted sweetlips was a terrible choice to go in your aquarium because this is a fish that does very poorly in captivity and reaches a maximum growth length of 29 inches. Imagine a fully grown panther grouper, and then add 9 more inches to that! :scared: :scared: :scared:
 
mavgi

mavgi

Member
lion i don't have any spotted sweetlips or you talk about Radiolotek

yes the main things it's to keep water quality in the tank but Stress and poor water conditions do not cause Ich , it will lower a fish's resistance to infection and spoil their immune systemit.it doesn't matter what how stressed a fish may be, it cannot get infected. In a tank where parasites are present, stressed fish are more likely to show signs of "Ich" before more healthy fish, and healty fish will may infect.
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
Radio is the person I was talking to with the spotted sweetlips. That was the fish in question in the first post.
Mavgi, I have never had a healthy fish come down with ich. Maybe that is just me though. Anytime my customers had ich in their tanks, I could always pinpoint it to why the fish got ich to begin with. If their immune system is not lowered by stress, the diet they are fed is very nutritious and FULL of vitamins/garlic, and water quality is ideal, there is no reason a fish would contract ich, in my opinion. Most, if not all, LFS have ich in their water, but there are some LFS' out there where you would be hard-pressed to find ich on the fish in their tanks because they keep their fish well-fed, water parameters ideal, and do not expose the fish to external stresses.
 
radiolotek

radiolotek

Member
Lion- 1) The way I acclimate is first I float the bag for about 10 min. then I dump the fish in. lol J/K !!!! No realy I float for about 20 then I put the fish in a bucket and run an air line from the main tank and drip tank water in for about 2 hours. After that they go to the QT tank for about 3 weeks (when I had one). Is this corect? Also I do feed garlic with the frozen mysis every night. And last but not least regarding the sweetlips. I had no idea that they got that big when I bought it. The LFS (not the one with the QT tank) said "yea they are great in a reef tank and will get along great in your tank" Never did they mention that it got bigger than hell. Looks like I can't trust anything a LFS says ever.
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
I wouldn't go as far as never trusting any LFS, but get second opinions on things they tell you. If you are interested in a fish/invert/coral, tell them to hold it for you for a day while you go home and research it first. This way, you do not get stuck with the huge groupers, snappers, sweetlips, gonipora, etc. .
Mixing garlic with your food is excellent, but be sure to be feeding 3-4 things with the mysis. Only having one thing in the diet is never a good thing.
Your acclimation process sounds fine. Do you check the salinity and pH of the water in the bag before beginning the drip acclimation?
mavgi, I do not own an LFS (yet), but I have worked in a few through my life and I set-up and maintain tanks for people as a side job.
 
radiolotek

radiolotek

Member
I thought I put down what I feed up top. Sorry. I do feed a few things. I feed flake, dried seaweed, and the mysis with the garlic. evry once in a while I will feed baby brine for treats.
 
radiolotek

radiolotek

Member
Ok well I just called the LFS to tell them I was bringing the fish down and they informed me that they no longer have a QT tank for their customers. Crap now what do I do. Last time I had the outbreak I had a QT tank now I don't. I've heard Ich attack is a waste of time and I have LR&LS as well as inverts so I can't treat in my main tank so what do I do now?
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
Not to be critical, but that is still not enough to sustain healthy fish, in my opinion. In the wild, these animals we keep have a huge variety of food in their diet. Reducing it to 3 or 4 items will have long term effects, if you ask me. For example, us humans eat chicken, steak, beef, all kinds of different vegatables, fruits, breads, pastas, etc. That is how humans are supposed to eat to be healthy.
That is the reason why I like "formula" foods. I rotate feeding my fish Formula A, B, Reef Formula, and Algae Formula, as well as marine pellets and Julian Sprung's Sea Veggies. In just using these four frozen formulas, my fish are getting krill, clam, mysis, scallop, fish, fish roe, spirulina, marine algae, lettuce, seaweed, mussel, crab, lobster, squidd, plankton, zooplankton, kelp. Just as a side note, I also put fresh pieces of banana into my tank (originally for my batfish), but I found out that my other fish love it as well.
 
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