Help Ick Is Taking Over!!!

[gtiguy]

Does anyone know what i can do at this point to save the rest of my fish from getting ick or any other parasite??? I have had at least 3 fish die in the last 2 weeks from either not eating or ick (sand cystals all over body) recently did a major water change to fix problem but as of this morning my damsel died

(and i thought they lived through everything, but look liked hole in the head syndrome, all scuffed up on one side than his eye got weird........ :help: :help:
Is there any additive i can use to rid this plague?

 

[emporer]

TRY HYPOSALINITY. This is a procedure where you lower your salininty to 1.10 what this does is kills all types of inverts and parrasites and sometimes bennificial bacteria. Obviously with this mentioned.. you absolutley can not..have anything in the tankbesides your fish and sand. All LR, INVERTS, COrals must go .. because it will die and cant handle the low salinity. Fish on the other hand can live in low salinity level... u canm get waymore detailed info by doing a search on hyposalinity. Im doing it now for the 1st time and i see good affects.

 

[gtiguy]

Originally Posted by Emporer
TRY HYPOSALINITY. This is a procedure where you lower your salininty to 1.10 what this does is kills all types of inverts and parrasites and sometimes bennificial bacteria. Obviously with this mentioned.. you absolutley can not..have anything in the tankbesides your fish and sand. All LR, INVERTS, COrals must go .. because it will die and cant handle the low salinity. Fish on the other hand can live in low salinity level... u canm get waymore detailed info by doing a search on hyposalinity. Im doing it now for the 1st time and i see good affects.

Thanks Emp,
As of now though i have a tang, one 3 stripe damsel and a cleaner shrimp with turbo snails and a sand sifter star.....as good as that sounds to try was actually wondering about any of these additives like Ick Rid, or parasite remover , what do you think?

 

[ophiura]

DO NOT DO hyposalinity in a main tank. Set up a QT and use a known medication such as copper or hyposalinity. DO NOT EXPOSE any inverts to these conditions. Just leave them in the main tank. The process takes roughly 5 weeks or so, and in that time ick will die off.
But you need a serious review of your tank and figure out what is stressing things out. Healthy fish do not just get seriously ill with some of these diseases...for whatever reason their immune system is compromised. This can be dietary, related to water quality, related to aggressive fish, or an inappropriate tank...also potentially things like stray voltage.
Please post SPECIFIC tank parameters, and other info about your system and fish. Try and correlate anything with the outbreak of the disease - equipment or fish added, water change, painting in the house...anything. Also you may wish to search and review threads in the disease forum, and perhaps post there remembering to add the information that I've requested here.
I am a fraid a GREAT deal of time has been lost in this battle. At the very least, start soaking food in garlic (look up posts by Beth on garlic) and add vitamins such as selcon or zoe.
Kick Ick is not a known cure, and may not work. Additionally it may result in unexpected loss of inverts. By no means should you use any copper based medications in your main display, regardless of if they claim to be safe.

 

[gtiguy]

My tank parameters are fine, and its a 36g with 30+lbs of live rock and sand.....and i have narrowed it down to two things: 1. The royal gramma i had bought weeks prior from my lfs came down right away with ick, i did not react fast enough and ultimately he died but to my concern i think he infected my tank or tank mates.....

...2. My temp in the tank is always jumping around (which i know comprimises their immune system greatly, but since i do not have a chiller its very hard to level off at 79-80.....(it goes from 76 at the coldest-night time, to sometimes 82 during the day.....) .....
I am dosing garlic in their food at this point.......also did a major water change after my damsel died.....i am not willing to give up but want to know for sure i can add others at some time w/o the fear of disease....... :thinking:

 

[emporer]

I still reccomend hyposalinity... but you will deffinatley need to keep the shrimp snails and stafish in a seperate tank... get like a 5 gallon. The reason why I favor hyposalinity is because ich tends to always stay in the tank.. and comes back heavy after bad infections. I went through 2 tank wipeouts due to ich... it continuasly haunts me. Now im doing everything i can to remove it from my display..and kick ich and stuff is a joke i think... it can work but not so affective... without using meds... u never really want to put copper in a display. Finally I will for sure know that i wont have infected fish anymore as long as i play my cards right and dont stress my fish. Im happy enuff knowing the parrasite isnt in my tank for sure after this and its a clean start... I have a purple tang and a annularis angel in there now, and eel,, and there doing fine,, so ur tang and damsel will b ok to if u do it... good luck nomatter what u decide!

 

[scubadoo]

Originally Posted by GtiGuy
My tank parameters are fine, and its a 36g with 30+lbs of live rock and sand.....and i have narrowed it down to two things: 1. The royal gramma i had bought weeks prior from my lfs came down right away with ick, i did not react fast enough and ultimately he died but to my concern i think he infected my tank or tank mates.....

...2. My temp in the tank is always jumping around (which i know comprimises their immune system greatly, but since i do not have a chiller its very hard to level off at 79-80.....(it goes from 76 at the coldest-night time, to sometimes 82 during the day.....) .....
I am dosing garlic in their food at this point.......also did a major water change after my damsel died.....i am not willing to give up but want to know for sure i can add others at some time w/o the fear of disease....... :thinking:
The problem with your system is two fold.
One...ytour temp cannont fluctuate more than two degrees on a constant basis. Set your heater to 82 and this should maintain a steady temp. Make sure you have plenty water movement.
Two...it sounds like you may have too many fish in your 36. If you have two fish remaining and you lost three then perhaps your system was overcrowded.
Both of the above can and will lead to ich outbreaks if the disease is present in your system. It looks like the disease has thinned the herd......I STRONGLY suggest you maintain a steady temp in the system. A constantly fluctuating temp of 6 degrees is not good.
Also, a 36 is too small to keep a tang long-term.

 

[ophiura]

A temperature fluctuation like that, IMO, is totally preventable. Get a heater, set it to 80 or so so it doesn't drop, and just run a plain old fan over the lights and surface of the water. Keeps it very stable. Somewhere in the 78-82 range is fine, just don't let it move around so much. It is when the tank temps are in the high eighties that chillers become an issue. Lower values are cheaply and very easily stabilized. There is no reason to experience them.
IMO, the only way to eliminate the parasite from the tank is to remove the fish to QT, treat properly with hypo, leave no fish in the main display during that time...from that point on ANYTHING going into the tank must go through QT. All fish must go through full hypo, and all rock, sand and inverts should go into (NON HYPO) QT. This is what many advocate. That is the only true way to fully rid the system. And this is not particularly - if even remotely- realistic, IMO.
I do encourage people to find any possible causes of stress in the tank. IMO, there are a lot of fish, and from the sound of it inappropriate fish, in a 36g tank. At least 3 fish have died (I am assuming the royal gramma is one of them, and a damsel) leaving 2 fish including a tang. So there were at least 5 fish in this tank. I would check for stray voltage, I would list water quality to be sure you are not missing anything, I would list all fish and diets to be sure nothing is missing, and age of tank/filtration, etc.
The thing I always wonder about ick is this, and it is just bugging me-
Many, many fish in LFS systems are exposed to ick from other fish...maybe they even get a few spots in the days after arrival. They are usually not kept in full copper treatment or proper hypo or in QT. They go home to tanks. And yet every fish in every tank is not wiped out from ick...also ick can pop up in tanks that have not had a fish added in a long time... and it seems to me it should be if other fish can just "get" ick from another fish without some stress involved that impacts their immune system. So I think for most hobbyists, ick is present in their tank in some undetectable infection level and it is some stress that weakens the fish and makes in susceptible to broad infection. So while you have to treat the fish, you also have to look for what might be stressing it.

 

[scubadoo]

I forgot to mention...the only proven methods for killing parasites are hyposlinity and copper. Both methods have pros and cons...neither can/should be used in the main display and are deadly to inverts, etc.
The ONLY additive known and proven to be effective against ick is copper. UV's also are quite ineffective in killing parasites. If someone suggessts purchasing one as a cure for ich save your money. It is better spent on a top of the line protein skimmer or additional live rock if needed. Aquarium UV's flow rates are too fast with too short exposure time. THe window for effectiveness in killing parasites using the conventional smaller aqaurium uv's is very small and narrow rendering them ineffective .
A UV can/will marginally improve water quality.

 

[ridomart]

ophiura,I think most LFS keep a low sault level to keep ick from running rampant.What I was told by my fisk store?

 

[ridomart]

.017

 

[ophiura]

Originally Posted by RiDoMart
ophiura,I think most LFS keep a low sault level to keep ick from running rampant.What I was told by my fisk store?
Yes, but usually not low enough for truly effective hypo (which is 1.009 specific gravity - I have yet to see a fish store that does that not to mention it is a constant battle against evaporation) or constant enough for effective copper, and not long enough as a hypo treatment anyway (which is something like 4-5weeks). So effectively, most keep FO systems at 1.019 (or even 1.017), fatal to snails and such but not the parasite, and do it for a few days until the fish is sold. If it was that easy to kill off ick then it would not be an issue. So it is still common to see fish in LFS with ick, and many on flow thru systems....so after this exposure and ineffective treatment, if fish are otherwise unable to fight off this parasite, most should die taking every other fish in the tank with them. An yet they don't.

 

[rgmason]

IMO i have used a product which is called(SANO)
i would reccomend it to alot of people

 

[yupi1982]

I been having the same problem and OPHIURA helped me a lot ,
i am still combating ich in my tank but i think is getting better,
when ophiura says find the cause of the ich is because once you do that you will find the properly cure . :happyfish
in my case i found out just about 4 days ago what was the main problem.
the thing is that when i go to work i turn off the A/C and in summer time the temperature rises very fast; when i come back temperature is 6 degrees higher, when fishes get those changes they stress themselves ans there is when ich attack. try the kick ich for 15 days , turn off the protein skimmer, take out the carbon if you have a bioload and watch out for the temperatue level every 5 hours, try to keep it safe.
the principals causes of ich are :
* malnutrition
* drastic temperature changes that lead to stress
* stress by damisels or another territorial fish
* quality of the water
* adding fishes to fast can overload and brake the enviorment in your tank
give you a tip , when you add another fish do not add it with the water from the LFS , you never know what is in there!!
luck for you and luck for myself , so far the worse problem i've had!! :happy: