Help Ick Outbreak

[nizmike]

Hello All,
In my 55 gallon tank I have:
1 Black Percula Clown
1 Flame angel
1 Royal Gramma
Tank has been up and running for 3 months. I have not added anything for several weeks.
About three days ago my roomate left the window open and the temp in my tank dropped from 80 down to the low 70's.
I noticed last night that my flame and gramma have ick. Both fish also have their tail fins torn up a bit. Could my percula be harrassing them?
The clown seems to have less ick then the other two.
Also, all fish eat, just not as agressively.
Last night I raised the temp in the tank to 83-84 and put in some stress coat. I am going to run to the pet store tonight after work. What should I get to treat this? I don't have a hospital tank.
I tested the water last night and the levels seem fine except for a .25PPM amonia reading. (I have a red sea kit and have never gotten an abosulte 0 reading, although last nights reading seems to show a little more amonia than usual.)
Also last weekend the sump pump on my Amiracle Wet/Dry started pushing bubles so I dismantled and cleaned the entire filter. I removed the bio-balls in this process and had them out of water for maybe 1/2 hour. Could this killed the beneficial bacteria? I also have 25 lbs of live rock (going to add more) for additional biological filtration.
Please provide any help you can. I don't won't to lose any fish.
Thanks,
Mike

 

[fishmamma]

Hi- newbie here, no helpful info except just read another post recommending "no-ick" or "kick-ick" if ytreating in main tank. Good luck!!

 

[loopy]

Hi.
don't use copper, it will kill any inverts and your live rock. I am using Kick Ich right now and it's working. It's safe for the live rock and inverts. Many don't think it works...it's working in my tank. Good luck.

 

[scubadoo]

The temp drop is what most likely caused the outbreak. The cleaning of the filter may have compromised the biological filter...but it does not sound like you have a heavy bioload. The bilogical filter lives on all surfaces in the aquarium...so I doubt that was the cause. However' you do have a fairly young system so perhaps this did contribute to the problem.
THe only proven methods that kill the parasites are copper and hyposalinity. Do not add copper to the display tank. Most inverts cannot survive hyposalinity so best done in a QT tank..or remove the inverts.
If you do not treat with hyposalinity them make sure your water quality is good and remains steady. Feed them some vitamin soaked food and some food soaked in garlic. If you have an ammonia problem then the water quality needs to be addressed immediately.
Kick Ich is a snake oil in my opinion. If fish recover from ich it is probably not due to kick ich...but is due to the boosting of their immune system. They basically grew stronger....the stress left and they beat the disease. SOmeone would have to convince me that there is a " magical" ingredient that has been tested and proven to kill the parasites in Kick Ich. Not some company puffery.
The ammonia should be a concern, as this will stress the fish and could be fatal if not a false reading. Also, your tank is very young to house an angel. THey do better in systems at least 6 months old....or older. This could also be contributing to the stress on the angel. Make sure you do not have a false ammonia reading. If not false then this too is adding to the stress of the animals which is why the disease took off.
I do not recommend copper as it causes numerous problems with fish both short and long term. Copper is like chemotherapy on fish.
Poor water quality and stress creates a great envionmnet for ich to explode. You may have both going on. Gert the ammnoia down to zero if you do not have a false reading ....this should be step one.

 

[larrynews]

i've used no-ick 3 times and it has worked everytime....the only time i lost fish to ick was when i did not use it...for what thats worth

 

[dragonfli]

personally hyposalinity has been awesome for me and any fish ive used it on. it might not be as easy as dripping chemicals into your tank, but is much healthier. ive also used a freshwater dip, and that worked awesome on a few fish but i dont reccomend it with most. i need to study it more but i know it works better that putting your fish through chemo......it might kill the parasite but it puts extra tension on the fish, and can cause future outbreaks. keep readin all the posts you can and use the search. then you can get 100's of opinions without waiting for replys.

 

[tangmaster]

NEVER EVER EVER NEVER use KICK-ICK. I will never believe there is anything in it to even harrass an ICK parasite.
ALso, if you can find a LFS that has NEON GOBIES or a cleaner wrasse. BUY THEM. WELL WORTH IT!!! DOn't usually reccomend someone to buy cleaner wrasses, especially the Hawiian species but in this case( as was mine) BUY THEM!! I have ONE cleaner wrasse and one neon gobie in a 180g reef and never had a prob since. I tried HYPOSALINITY, copper, methylane blue, malachite green, all in my 55 fish only tank..NO RESULTS til I did a 50% water change ( NO FILTER TAMPERING AT ALL)
and introduced a my DYNAMIC DUO , the wrasse and gobie!
They chase ICK like the Carlina Panthers chased a SUPERBOWL WIN!!

 

[who dey]

kent garlic extreme:yes:

 

[loopy]

I am using Kick Ich and it is working. All my fish were sick with ick. Now they are swiming and eating like normal and look great. Copper and hypo will kill your live rock and inverts. You will have to move them to another tank or container, which will stress the fish even more, and again when you put them back. Also, copper will cut the life of your fish in about 1/2.
what ever you choose to do, good luck, keep us updated.

 

[blitz99]

Originally posted by TangMaster
They chase ICK like the Carlina Panthers chased a SUPERBOWL WIN!!
so they fail?
figures, because ich is tricky as heck..
i used kick ich and it worked... my coral beauty is spot free as is my remaining firefish... i say remaining because i did lose a few fish to the ich... but i also waited a few days to begin treatment (more like a week)... my remaining clown is nasty looking now, looks like a bunch of zits popped on his body.
kick ich will help, it's up to the fish to build up some stress resistance... use the stress coat stuff (starts with an m but i forget what it's called)... and kick ich is worth a try.

 

[90reefkepr]

i made my own food consisting of some ginger because i was using KICK ICH and it DID NOTHING so far the ginger stuff is doing great. id say that is one of the best thigs.
i also have kent garlic coming and some people say that it works others say not.
dont know
im going to stick with the ginger