Danger! Ich cure(Malachite Green Hydrochloride) Dont use!!!

[37g joe]

I started my tank up in june 0f 2005 It had been going great all my levels where awsome tank was florishing. Over two weeks ago my Coral beauty started to get white spot (ich) I had never delat with whiite spot even with former fresh water tanks. I decided not to procrastinate and went to one of the local shops I have had alot of good service from. The guy who I usally deal with was not their. another guy who ive seen thier who is less experinced was working i told him of my problem and what type of tank I had with some inverts, fish, and LR. He recomended ich cure (Malachite Green Hydrochloride) I took it home and used it.within one day my coral beauty, false percula, yelow tail blue damsel, lawnmower blenny, bali star &Green ringed dragonet(psychedelic fish) where all dead and my last fish my yelow tang was not looking so good I went to another dealler the next day to pick up some salt water for a imidet water change told the dealler what I used and he said that stuff is great for fresh water but horible for reef tanks I changed the water that day 2 days later the yelow tang died. strangly several inverts managed through small sponges who hitched a ride into my tank, emerald crab, anemone crab, coral branded shrimp, some anemones such as a condy, some snails and some mushrooms all survived which i was told i was very lucky. so its been a few weeks now ive done some more water changes to make certain that all that junk is out also done some resarch about other cures for ich garlic remidies and alike went back to the original store today and told the guy who knows what he is talking about what happened he told me that his coworker should of never sugested that product and he would have a talk with him he was really nice and gave me a conch and some snails for free for my troubles not nearly what i lost but at least somthing I also purchased my first fish since the catastrophe. a false percula. I hope by posting this that others might not have the same happen to them.

 

[mikeyjer]

Your very lucky that your inverts survived through that! You should NEVER use meds in your display tank anyway, it needs to be done in a QT tank. Malachite green is a good med if used properly. I've used it in QT tank and it work just fine if you don't over dose it. They say that it's safe with inverts, but it's not! I've lost a hermit because of it. That's been quite some time ago. Good Luck with yours! :happyfish

 

[fishieness]

id never use something that had hydrochloride in it.
you should have tryed hyposalinity in a QT. Are you sure you didnt overdose it? If it is a saltwater product it definatly shouldnt have killed your fish.
good luck none the less rebuilding your tank.

 

[37g joe]

i put less then i was sapose to the bottle says to put 2 drops per gallon of water but the water was real blue when i was almost done and so i stoped yes i need to set up a qt tank i have a small 5 gallon tank that i might set up for a qt but not sure if thats to small

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by 37g Joe
i put less then i was sapose to the bottle says to put 2 drops per gallon of water but the water was real blue when i was almost done and so i stoped yes i need to set up a qt tank i have a small 5 gallon tank that i might set up for a qt but not sure if thats to small
5 gallon is a bit small for the fishes you originally had. I would go up a bit to a 10-29 gallon depending on the size and amount of fish you put in there. :happyfish

 

[seahorse11]

What about using "RX P Marine" to treat ich? It says that it contains pepper and natural plant extracts to treat ich in saltwater tanks and is safe for most inverts.

 

[grumpygils]

I am in the midst of ick myself. I have a quaranteen tank 10G but there is no way to get the Royal G out of my larger tank. A blennie, c shrimp, star, RG and chromis reside in the 20g reef and there is no way to get the RG out with out ripping every rock out of the tank. Yes, I tried baiting, him, tricking him, reasoning with him ectt....no way. SO I decided to try to ick treat the 20 g tank. My LFS said to use Ruby Reef Kick Ick. The active ingrediant is 5-nitroimidazoles. After previously reading thread after thread I was scared at the LFS suggestion and explained my concerns. She said she has used it on her 300+g Reef tank that is STUFFED! I am trying it and I am in my third treatment dosage over the last week and all seems fine. Chromis still has slight signs of ick, but hopefully it will go away with subsequent treatments and kill the hatchling cysts if they exist.
Has any one used this product?
gg

 

[37g joe]

well hpe it works out for you yea ich is a pain but guess i had to learn sometime i could of had alot worse happen. What ive been reading is that there are garlic solutions that you can periodicaly soack your fish food in and its more of a prevenitive than a cure im still looking into it has any one used garlic in the past if so tell me about your experinces

 

[scubadoo]

A general commnet.....the only proven additive effective against ich is copper which is deadly to all inverts. Following this logically and based on proven science and testing ...how can an additive be reefsafe leaving all inverts unharmed while killing the parasites? If you give it some thought the claims of these products defie logic. They use buzz words and catch phrases such as all organic, all natrual, reef safe, etc.
Many of the producers of these miracle cures also make copper based medications. If the voodoo mixtures actually worked and were proven why do they still make the others? They provide zero evidence of effectiveness and some will not even list the ingredients.
The wonder juices can or will cause problems with your water parameters, can actually harm inverts and soak up your money. They also use the most important variable when treating sick fish....time.

 

[37g joe]

what did people do befor the internet im so glad that their are peop[le on here who know what they are talikng about sometimes with a hobby like thgis that is so spread out and you dont get to talk with other hobiest every day you need a place like this that can be a life line well i guess i just need to set up a q/t tank probably do a ten gallon might do a 20 not sure yet. thanks so much for everyones inpute. would a biowheel be alright in a q/t tank

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by 37g Joe
well hpe it works out for you yea ich is a pain but guess i had to learn sometime i could of had alot worse happen. What ive been reading is that there are garlic solutions that you can periodicaly soack your fish food in and its more of a prevenitive than a cure im still looking into it has any one used garlic in the past if so tell me about your experinces
I've used garlic in the past. It works great for me, it usually takes a week to two before all the ich symptoms reside. I find that best if you lower your tank temperature to around 74-76. Ich cycle goes faster when the temperature is above that, the higher the temp the faster the process. At the lower temperature, that lowers the time it takes for new ones to be born. During that period, you treat with added garlic foods. I usually feed it 2-3 times a day. It brings up their immune system and I read it damages the ich cyst(not sure if that's true or not, was researching it and that's what I found). For me, the ich went away within 2 weeks. You can try this method and see if it works for you. Different methods works for different folks, but I'm sticking to this one cause it works for me. My Naso Tang wouldn't eat for awhile after his best bud died and with newly added corals, he was stressed and not eating for 2 weeks. He was very very thin and eventually he developed ich. If I have to catch him and put him into QT tank then treat with meds or doing hypo on him, he would of died!!!!! He was too weak at that time, I started with formula 2 cause he wouldn't eat nothing else, it has added garlic. He wouldn't eat that at first either. I had to defrost it completely and break it off in small tiny pieces and feed it to him. He then starts to eat it. I usually defrost it anyway cause of excess water within that would make your water dirty. I feed it to him 3-4 times per day, sometimes 5 if I'm around long enough. Because of my work schedule makes it hard to do. All I have to do is do extra water change which it don't bother me cause I only want to keep him alive. After 2 weeks of treatment, he gained ALL his weight back and ich is gone! He's one sensitive fish I tell ya, he don't like anything new, he stress when something is new in his tank. He is one of my favorite fish!!!!! :happyfish

 

[37g joe]

formula 2 wheredo you get that and do u know if u can just use regular garlic or do u have to use a garlic product made for treating fish

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by 37g Joe
formula 2 wheredo you get that and do u know if u can just use regular garlic or do u have to use a garlic product made for treating fish
You can get Formula 2 through most LFS, it has 2% added garlic. If you can't find it, you can get Kent's Garlic Extract, soak the fish food within and feed it to them. You can use regular garlic too, but it would cost more cause you only use the juice you mesh out of the garlic. :happyfish

 

[fishieness]

if you do use regular garlic, make sure that is all it is. Ive seen people go out and buy the minced garlic in the garlic juice. And a lot of them are full of preservatives and additives and such.

 

[danedodger]

grumpygills: I've been told that Kick Ick does work but I'm not sure if they used it on saltwater. I've also used Rid Ich, main ingredient being malachite green, several times on fish only, salt and fresh, and it doesn't seem to do anything. I was told at work to use freshwater dips but a) that doesn't do a thing to kill the organisms still in the tank waiting to jump any fish who's immune system goes down and b) it seems to me that if stress is a major cause of a fish's immune system going down making them vulnerable to things like ich it might be somewhat counterproductive. With freshwater dips at least some of the ich already on the fish does fall off though.
Copper and hyposalinity seem to be the only "proven" methods for kicking it. You can't use copper if you have inverts or even in any tank that you want to put inverts into one day so I'm very leery of using it at all. Not to mention that copper even damages fish to some extent. That leaves hypo. I can tell you from my own experience that running tanks only slightly hypo doesn't seem to do it. I've got my tanks at work right now running at 1.015 and still the first time someone messed up my tanks everyone's got cases of ich that I'm fighting off. I've also got UV sterilizers at work and they don't seem to be doing much of anything except my tanks don't seem to be getting algae spots as fast as before.
I know garlic isn't PROVEN but based on what we DO know about the properties of garlic and other people's experience, like Mikeyjer, it seems to me that it would at least help. Heck, if it can't hurt and may help why not give it a try?
There's also now medications out there (we have them at work) that you can have them eat directly like tetracycline, pennicillin, and others. They won't cure parasites but I've been trying the tetracycline out in their food hoping it will help keep secondary infections at bay. So far so good!! My yellow eye tang was hardest hit, absolutely covered in ich and what I guess is an awful body fungus, and I swore I'd lose him within a day. The tanks are at 1.015, temp is low at about 72F, treating the water with antifungal meds, keeping neon gobies in with him, and treating the food with the tetracycline and he's slowly but surely eating and recovering!

 

[grumpygils]

Thanks Dane Dodger, I will find some garlic products today and try. This has been going on now for a week but the spots have not become more numerous. Just a few flecks. RG looks and eats fine but is still periodically slapping rocks. Maybe kick ick is just barely keeping it at bay? I never thought much of hypo.
Mc

 

[houndhome1]

I went through a lateral line erosion problem a while ago from a power outage that destoyed my water. I now use only galic based foods for all my tank creatures. They have responded very well. I believe it boost their inmune system. Like us eacting oranges in the winter. I believe prevention is the best.

 

[danedodger]

All I can say for sure is that I personally believe in the benefits of garlic! I've fed it to my dogs for years and years with the result being shiny, healthy coats and only having to use flea preventatives during the worst of the summer months. And whenever I or my kiddos are sick I go straight for the garlic capsules. I've had a combination of garlic and cayenne pepper capsules completely kill off nasty colds within 24 hours! I do honestly believe it boosts the immune system so I can't say it's a CURE but it helps the body cure itself.