Another ich ?

[fishfood]

Ok, Well i did a search and read most of the other post on ich and garlic. After getting back from a christmas vacation I found that the tank had ich. I started a garlic treatment with their food. The yellow tang has his good days and bad days depending if he stops by the cleaner shrimp. The tank Raised clown seems to be doing the best. Very few spots and acting normal. My royal gramma is the worst. Didn't eat today. The only fish that i would be able to take out of the tank to treat would be the clown. The tang hides as soon as you get within a few feet of the tank and the gramma hasn't been out in the past day.
I guess what i'm trying to find out is how long to use the garlic and/or will the fish survive without any other treatment? I couldn't find this info in any of the other posts. I've been using garlic for 3 days.
If anyone else has some suggestions please let me hear them.
Thanks

 

[moby da goby]

I was informed from another post that garlic takes several weeks of feeding. I'm battling a mild yet persistent case of ich myself. I"m feeding garlic/vitamin soaked food and just generally keeping a close eye on the tank. The two worst, the tangs I actually took out and treated in a QT and they are staying there for a few weeks until the main tank is cleared up.

 

[fishfood]

I'm in the process of setting up a hospital tank today. I will probably get the clown and tang out but the gramma is another story. If i can get him out of the rocks he will go also.

 

[beth]

What kind of setup do you have? If it is strictly FO, you can treat the fish in the main tank, otherwise, all fish must be removed because the tank must also be treated [by having no fish in it for 1 month]. If this is not done, then the ick will remain in the tank, and treating some fish in a hospital tank will be pointless once they return to the infected tank to be re-contaminated.
Garlic might work with a few minor spots of ick on a fish...it's not going to work on an all-out infestation which is what you are dealing with. Let me also say here about the garlic treatment. Yes, it does work, as I said, on minor ick problems, but the ick is in your tank. Helping a fish out with getting rid of a few protazoa will not eliminate ick from your tank...it only provides relief at that moment to the fish.
You need to get these fish out of your tank and place them in a hospital tank, then treat with hyposalinity. Leaving any fish in the main tank...even if that fish does not have visible symptoms of the disease, will mean that the tank will remain with the protazoa just waiting for all the host fish to return home so they can get back to feeding...sad but true.

 

[moby da goby]

Does ich travel/host onto shells of shrimp, snails and hermit crabs? So if I where to move my cleanup guys from one tank to another will that just re-infest the other tank?

 

[fishfood]

Well i didn't have a problem getting anything out of the tank except the clown. He is healthy and trying to catch him in a tank with 75 lbs of live rock and coral was hard. The other two are basically dead. The tang got worse today and was not difficult to remove but has been on his side on the bottom of the tank since i put him in. The same with the gramma. It looks as if i'll be back to the beginning with one clown.
It sucks that it happened while on vacation and we didn't catch it early enough.
Is the clown doing well because he was tank raised??
Drew