First problem with my tank....ICH

[shwstpr88]

Ok so I just got a new Hippo tang and no QT tank what do i get....ICH! He developed it one day ago and today I see my puffer has a few spots on his fins. No one else seems to have it as of yet.....I have one hippo tang, yellow tang, porc puffer, two clowns, one long horn cowfish (baby), royal gramma, 4 yellow tail damsels, one daisy coral, hermit crabs, two star fish (blue linkia and sand sifting), 3 emerald crabs, anenome.
So after all that What can I do to save my tank? No one looks uncomfortable yet as I beleive this is VERY early early break out. I have turned the temperature of the tank up to 82 degrees and the lowered the salinity to 1.020.
What else can I do to help the tank but not kill half of it?
Thanks for the help!

 

[geridoc]

You will have to treat the fish AND the tank. Remove all of the invertebrates and most of the lr to a Rubbermaid container fitted with a heater and a powerhead for circulation. Then subject your DT and the fish to hyposalinity as described in the disease forum sticky. After the appropriate time you can return the inverts to the DT. Before you start, get some Amquel Plus and moinitor ammonium levels in the Rubbermaid container as well as the tank - if they rise, immediately use Amquel to limit toxicity. Finally, decide now that your rule will forever be "Quarantine Everything!"

 

[luke01]

First of all make sure it is ich. If it is and if you can catch the fish give him a 4 minute same temperature and airated freshwater bath and place fish back immediatly back. It can kill the fish but so will ich. If you are not ready to do so you can try spectrum thera a. formula fish food. I had sucess with both. When ich is gone and you introduce a new fish the tang might get the spots back and you can treat with thera A again.

 

[crypt keeper]

The ich is in your tank. Its over and done with. It may not show any signs on your other fish because healthy stress free fish can live with the disease and be normal. You need to listen to the first person who replied. Take out all inverts and rock. Put in some pvc pipe for hiding places. Start hypo. ICH will die completely after 4 - 6 weeks.
Horrible way to learn.

 

[nina&noah]

This will be a cycle. I did the EXACT same thing. I introduced a blue hippo without QT and it got ich. There is good news and bad news with this story...
The good news is that the blue hippo survived. I've had him about a year. I got him through the ich with vitamins and garlic.
The bad news is that EVERY time I would try to intro a new fish, the blue hippo would get the spots. The new fish would then develop the spots and eventually die. Then the blue hippo would lose the spots and be just fine again. The ich is in my tank. There is nothing I can do about it because of the way my tank was built. I talked about it in a different thread. From my experience you have two options...
1. Take care of the problem now as described above and in many sections of the board.
or
2. Try to get your fish through this with vitamins and garlic and never add another fish to your tank again.
I finally had some success adding 3 anthias to my tank, but that was after many, many casualties. The way I did it was I QT the anthias and pumped them full of vitamins. Then I began giving the tang garlic. When it was time to add the anthias to the DT the hippo did develop 2 or 3 spots, but they quickly disappeared. This is not what I would recommend. It is expensive and stressful.
Just so you know, I did try 2 different "reef safe" medications out of desperation. They didn't crash my tank, but they didn't help the ich at all.

 

[crypt keeper]

Common sense would have said take the hippo out and treat him in a qt set up. Then treat my empty fishless tank.
Just so you know all of your fish have ich. Their immune system is strong enough to fight it off.

 

[nina&noah]

Originally Posted by crypt keeper http:///forum/post/3012272
Common sense would have said take the hippo out and treat him in a qt set up. Then treat my empty fishless tank.
Just so you know all of your fish have ich. Their immune system is strong enough to fight it off.
Ok, I will try to not be offended by that statement because maybe I didn't make myself clear or maybe you skimmed the post. I can't take my fish out. It is not an option for me. I am not an idiot and I do have common sense. Here is my story if you are interested...
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/344851/waving-the-white-flag-help-me-fix-my-mistakes

 

[shwstpr88]

Yikes! gettin nasty in here but original poster thank you for the help. You all say to take out the live rock is this really needed? I can certanly take out the inverts but why the live rock? I have a 30gal tank in the basement I am setting up can I add the fish to that tank right away? If you could give me some tips on the 30 gal tank and how to set it up for the incoming sickos I would appreciate it!

 

[shwstpr88]

OH wait im sorry I am adding the inverts/ coral i have so maybe it wont be so hard then eh?

 

[crypt keeper]

I read your thread. I take back the lack of common sense. But You can catch your fish. is your tank an odd shape or a common reactangle?

 

[shwstpr88]

Sorry to keep reposting....when the tank is just full of fish only what is recommeded for medication? or do I just hypo?

 

[hlcroghan]

Hypo works by killing inverts. Inverts cannot survive in a low salt environment. That is also why someone recommended a fresh water dip. Ich is an invert that feeds off of fish as a parasite. That is why it works so well. It only kills the free floating ich, so as the eggs hatch they die. It takes approximately 6 weeks for the whole life cycle to go through and then you know that the fish are ich free and it can't reoccur.....The reason you remove the live rock is that you don't want to kill any beneficial invert like copepods that live within the rock.
Also if you treat with copper in the tank, you can't have any inverts in that tank ever again as copper kills inverts and it will have to be used as a qt tank only or a fish only tank. Although you wouldn't have very good live rock in the tank if you did that. It will leech out of the tank that you had it in even if cleaned.
If you only do hyposalinity then that tank can be used later for a saltwater reef tank if you want and you can get a smaller qt tank where you also treat with copper.
IMO, I prefer hyposalinity because you are doing it more naturally without chemicals.

 

[bizzmoneyb]

hippo tangs are ich magnets. to me that is the #1 fish to QT.
like already said, you can do it one of two ways. either catch all of your fish, put them in the other 30 gal tank and treat that tank with hypo. slowly drop the salinity down to 1.009 for 6-8 weeks. that will kill off any ich on the fish and in that tank. meanwhile no fish in you DT for 6-8 weeks will eliminate the ich in that tank as well, it cannot survive without a fish to host it.
or you can do like already said and remove all coral, inverts and live rock from the DT. Leave the fish in there and treat that with hypo. You need to remove these because inverts, corals and live rock will not survive in that low of salinity.
so, would it be a bigger pain in the ass to catch all of the fish or remove all of the inverts and rock? id think #1. and do hypo, dont do meds.

 

[ophiura]

Unfortunately if you lowered the tank specific gravity to 1.020 -
This level is fatal to many inverts and likely will result in the death of your seastars within a month. They should be kept strictly at 1.025-1.026.

 

[shwstpr88]

Well....sorry to sound like a goon, but I am still learning...I'm not so sure I have Ich anymore. When I got home from work yesterday everyone looked perfect! The only fish that showed anything was the hippo tang and he was perfect and bright blue yesterday what gives? Is there somthing that resembles ich that isnt?

 

[nina&noah]

Probably not, as I stated earlier, my blue hippo recovers quickly. One day he has spots, the next day they are gone. Unfortunatly, it does not mean that there is no ich in your tank. It just means that your blue hippo is not as stressed and was able to fight a full infection.

 

[ophiura]

It is also part of the natural life cycle of the parasite.

 

[florida joe]

The parasitic stage of ick last from 3 to 7 days NOT one
Tangs are more prone to ick NOT magnates.
You either have ick in your tank or you don’t. It does not lurk in your tank waiting for you to introduce a tang.
There are other parasites that mimic ick
Not having a backbone is not the reason hypo kills ick
While silicone can absorbe and leach out copper. The experts at Seachem state that after copper has been removed they have never had an incidence of copper levels leaching out of silicone at levels detrimental to any inhabitance in marine aquariums.
Ich is an invert that feeds off of fish as a parasite. That is why it works so well. It only kills the free floating ich, so as the eggs hatch they die.
Hypo DOES NOT kill the free-floating stage of the parasite, there is in fact no free floating stage in the life cycle of ick. Hypo kills by lack of osmotic pressure differential not as “ the eggs hatch”

 

[shwstpr88]

Ya I didnt think it was ich if it lasted only a few hours 24 max! I am bringing my salinity back up to 1.025 from 1.021 I do have a daisy polop that is looking a bit rough now with the water changing the last few days, my fault probably hopfully he will be ok it was doing so well before and its my first and only coral.