Does ICH Affect Corals?

[euphoria]

1) I may be on the verge of getting my SECOND ich attack in the reef tank. Will this affect my corals ?
2) I am planning on treating the fish w/ metro and adding more garlic and Marine C into the water directly. Will that affect my corals ?

 

[beth]

If you have ich problems it will never go away until you treat it. Please read the post on ICH in the FAQ Thread.
Ich is a fish disease, not a coral disease. I don't know what metro is, except that it is not like going to be effective in treating ich. You can garlic soak your fish food. Vit C is useless for treating ich. At best it will only be a vit supplement for the fish, but it certainly will not treat ich. You can add it to food, but not to water.

 

[euphoria]

Thanks Beth.
I've noticed that your thoughts on the UV are that they don't work. If so, then why is it being sold? Does it kill other things effectively or is it completely useless? I bought one 2 months ago and if I do end up w/ a big ich attack, I'll be proven that they don't work.

 

[mary]

Euphoria, Good, you ARE talking to Beth. Just checked out the disease forum. She is really informed, knows her stuff.

 

[beth]

Thank you Mary for the vote of confidence, I know a few things, but I probably can learn much more than I already know One thing about this hobby is that you can never take a breather from the learning process.
EUPHORIA, I never said that UV's don't work, they aren't a cure for ich however. Like garlic, they may help prevent getting ich....the operative word being "may". I would not recommend any hobbyist using a UV as a weapon against ich. However, they can be usuful in a FO tank where, in the absense of natural filters and a natural environment, the hobbyist needs to rely on various mechanical, chemical, etc. means to maintain quality tank conditions.

 

[euphoria]

Thanks for the info Beth. What's the main negative thing about UV? Cuz I keep hearing that it kills good stuff from the tank. I just want to know if it's doing more harm than good to the tank.

 

[beth]

Exactly what you heard. Lets say you are hoping that by using a UV you can cut back on some algae spores or even parasites, bacteria or whatever in the water. Does the UV have the ability to say, "look there, here comes some ich lets zap it!". No, it doesn't. It "zaps" everything that runs thru it. Including the benefical bacteria that runs your biofilter.
In reef tanks or tanks with live rock/live sand, most of the things in the water are needed by filter feeding organisms, thus you don't want it "zaped" by a UV. That would be especially true of a reef tank. However, in a FO tank where the emphasis is on FISH, then the UV might be a good option to cut back on the possibility of fish getting diseases. Additionally, in a FO tank, the hobbyist is relying mostly on mechanical or chemical means to filter water. Thus, the UV is one of those filters. It just depends on how you have your system setup and where you are going with it. I have certainly used UVs in a FO tank. I won't use it in my reef tank.

 

[euphoria]

So should I turn my UV off and see how my tank reacts to it? My corals are doing great w/ the UV on, but I really don't have much pod population. Can the UV kill pod population?

 

[beth]

How do you know about the pod population? Have you checked to see?
How do you have your tank set up? What water do you use?

 

[euphoria]

OK here's the details
60 gallon tank w/ about an inch and a half of LS and 50lbs or so of LR. Wet/dry w/ protein skimmer and bioballs, plus a canister filter, 2 PH's inside the tank, a chiller that keeps water from 78-79F.
I have corals, cleaner shrimp, sandsifter star, and hermit crabs, and 6 fish.
I used to see lots of pods all over the sandbed and rocks. At that time I still had the UV sterilizer, but I noticed that once I added my sandsifter their #s started to go down. I don't know whether the UV contributed to their #s going down or was it all from the sandsifter. I hardly see any, if any, around now. I see some inside my overflow box, but that's it. They are nowhere else to be found.
I added the sandsifter cuz I had bad brown algae problems on my sandbed and the star really helped on that issue. Now it's all white.
I use RO water for topoffs and for SW I buy Catalina Island ocean water from the LFS. It's a very reputable LFS, so I"m not worried about the quality of the ocean water.
So in short, I do have good filtration.
I really want to have lots of pods, cuz I want to have a mandarin in the tank.
SO, do I turn the UV off ? Maybe I can turn it off and keep a close eye on what changes in the tank. Anything I should look forward to that will change?

 

[beth]

When the lights go out in your tank at night, wait one hour then get a flash light and a magnifying glass and start looking about in your tank.
See any pods now?

 

[mary]

Beth, My very healthy mandarin was about 5 years old and went missing, just after I'd seen it pecking these tiny black "crawly's" off of rock, something the tank has had since we first put the rock in. Tonight, as I was looking for it with the flashlight on, a most distressing sight caught my eye. Under one of the largest rocks, close to the corner where the mandarin would bed down at night, a very large, as wide as my index finger, bristle worm had it and was feasting as it was being pulled into a large hole under the rock. My flashlight bothered the worm so it seemed too be pulling it deep into the hole on the underside. Was so discusted, yet all I could do was cry. Now, that was a very healthy fish. This means that a tank as old as mine has had many years for bristles to get a foothold , become large, and start creating havoc. I have trapped them under layed out rock and guess I'll have to continue doing that. The fish that sleep on the substratum are most vunerable, although one evening flashing the light on the rocks a huge worm was literally almost touching the gramma, which always slept in a deep crevise. I reached in and with my long tweezers, plucked the bristlleworm away, however the end which was still in a rock broke off. Just like earthworms and other worms they grow back whichever end they lose. Have you heard of this happening to healthy fish? The worm was much larger than the fish.

 

[beth]

Mary, I disagree that the bristleworm attacked and ate your mandarin. Likely your mandaran died and, as part of the cleanup crew which a bristle is a primary componet, it began to eat a dead carcus. There are few predator bristles. The common worms that are rather pinkish/purle are not fish eating killers.
Sometimes fish just up and die for no reason that we can determine.

 

[mary]

Well, I do know they are beneficial for clean up of dead carcasses. however, the mandarin should have lived longer than 5 yrs. and the last I'd seen it it was active and eating. Why do bristle worms circle and appear to strangle button polyps, that I have seen also. No urgency in answering this, I do believe we can't possibly know everything these animals do, and that our knowledge is gained through observing. You are correct in that I did not see the worm get the fish, but have seen them aimed at and very close to touching live fish at night when fish are at rest. I have intervened at those times but have to be careful in getting bristles bercause they break off for their own defense, and regenerate. The good news is I don't have to spend hours attempting to trap them., will until I actually witness them killing a live fish, take your educated word for it. Thanks

 

[euphoria]

OK, I"ll try that at night. Actually I'm working at night for a few days, so Monday night I'll try it and let you know. I hope I get shocked
So then all those little crawly things I saw before and don't see now, what were they, if not pods? Why can't they be seen during daytime w/ the

[hr]
eye now and can only be seen at night w/ a magnifier?