Confusion

[jo118]

I have a 55 gallon tank with 4 ocellaris clowns and a juvenille 2" yellow tang.
All the fish get along great, and there is 2 cleaner shrimp. The tank is a couple months old. It has a couple peices of live rock, and the tank's landscape is mostly made up of coral that we got from the bahamas about 25 years ago, when there was alot =(. Every once in a while i take the coral out and bleach it. In the past week, i have had an outbreak of this hairlike algae, purple coloring on my dolomite, and what i think is ich. How do i control these problems? I know about the qt tank preference, however i was hoping that i could treat the ich in my main tank. THe white spots seem to be going away. Should i use the "rid-ich" even though there is 2 shrimp in there? MY clownfish have lost a little appetite, and seem to brush against the coral every now and then. The yellow tang is healthy.
HELP: Ich, hair-like algae.

 

[cam78]

Conusion is right....why would you take the coral out and bleach it, I would assume to clean it?

 

[dperna]

wait, that sounded a little confusing to me. what do you think has ich? the clowns?

 

[cam78]

I don't know either. The only thing I would add is after cleaning the coral with bleach clean it and add a chlorine remover to the bucket of water. Like a water conditioner that is. This way if there is any chlorine left this will help remove it. Maybe the hair algae is growing because of the phosphates left in the coral from using tap water to clean the coral. Use the conditioner and I would think it would remove all the bad stuff in tap.

 

[beatlesfan]

Well first of all i would like to say that if the tang gets much bigger i would take it back. A 55g is not enough for any tang for a long period of time. Other than that i am a bit confused by your post but if you are having problems with algae i would say get some turbo snails.

 

[jo118]

ok sounds good, and yes the clowns have had white spots, however they seem to be going away however are still brushing against things and not eating much. I want to make sure the ich is wiped out. Can i treat in my main tank while there is shrimp in it?

 

[tanglove]

If you have cleaner shrimp they should help get rid of the ick on the fish. The ones that get bigger are a little more lazy than the others, but the smaller ones are real good cleaners. And having snails will help clean the algae and some parasites out of the tank. A lawnmower blenny will help as well with the algae.

 

[trigger11]

Hopefully someone with more experience may chime in. but in the meantime I recommend doing a search for, "Curing Ich" on these forums. I may be wrong but I remember reading that Ich is an invertebrate. So if you were to put the ICH cure in your tank it would kill ALL invertebrates. Including your Shrimp. If the white spots appear to be going away, I myself would probably just monitor the situation. After all, that is one of the jobs for your cleaner shrimp to do (cleaning parasites from fish) and it sounds to me like they are doing that. Also, if it turns out the ich is not going away then a QT tank is going to be the best bet. I sort of have the same situation. I bought a plant from the LFS and I had to use their water. One of my clownfish was scratching up against the tank quite a bit and I thought he might have Ich. He has been spending a lot of time with the Fire Shrimp. I havent seen him scratch on anything today and he is eating a lot more. Best of luck.

 

[tanglove]

Oh by the way, some garlic will help to get your clowns appetite going some what. Well actually it will draw them to the food you are feeding. Most fish seem to like garlic and I have heard it is good for the ich as well. Dunno how much thats true, but I have seen results from it.

 

[1journeyman]

Originally Posted by trigger11
Hopefully someone with more experience may chime in. but in the meantime I recommend doing a search for, "Curing Ich" on these forums. I may be wrong but I remember reading that Ich is an invertebrate. So if you were to put the ICH cure in your tank it would kill ALL invertebrates. Including your Shrimp. ....
Good info.
Ich is a parasite. To get rid of it you need to remove all of your fish, place them in a QT tank and run hypo (search disease forum) and run your display tank for 4-6 weeks with no fish.
Garlic (fresh), cleaners, etc. may help but they will not rid the tank of the parasite.

 

[kanicky]

Originally Posted by TangLove
Oh by the way, some garlic will help to get your clowns appetite going some what. Well actually it will draw them to the food you are feeding. Most fish seem to like garlic and I have heard it is good for the ich as well. Dunno how much thats true, but I have seen results from it.
Sorry to hijack the thread, but I've heard that you can dip your flakes, shrimp, etc. in garlic, but never heard it specified what kind of garlic...Crushed garlic cloves, what?

 

[puffer32]

Originally Posted by Kanicky
Sorry to hijack the thread, but I've heard that you can dip your flakes, shrimp, etc. in garlic, but never heard it specified what kind of garlic...Crushed garlic cloves, what?
use fresh squeezed garlic juice.

 

[cam78]

Can you feed small tiny pieces of garlic, will they eat that? Would that prevent diseases?

 

[beatlesfan]

Originally Posted by CAM78
Can you feed small tiny pieces of garlic, will they eat that? Would that prevent diseases?
I am pretty sure that they will not eat eat the garlic. also I doubt that just chunks of garlic are going to be good for them.

 

[tanglove]

I think its more that the garlic helps to boost immunities. It doesnt get rid of them itself, it just helps the fish to recover from them.

 

[saltn00b]

garlic contains leptin which entices fish to eat. eating fish are healthy fish, thats about as far as garlic has been proven to be useful, and all i believe it helps with immunity. The best cure for ick is prevention. too late for this situation but you need to set up a (correctly set up) quarantine tank for future additions.
do some research on Hyposalinization or Hypo. this is the best cure for it. do not add copper!!!