HOW CAN I PREVENT ICK?

[livi79]

Is there anyway to prevent ick? I had five fish and all of them got wiped out the first time I had ick. It's been over a month and I want to start adding fish again to my coral tank, but I'm affraid they'll just get deseased again. Is there a way to prevent ick?

 

[kass]

Ick is caused from stress. Stress is caused by alot of reasons in a fish tank. Keep the water quality good, temperature steady, salinity,have enough hiding places,add compatible fish, don't overcrowd, just to name a few and you could still get ick, but your chances are much less. It's also very helpful to have a quarentine tank. When you do add a new fish turn the lights off for at least 3 hours for fish to get accustomed to the tank. Especially if you have other fish already. I would wait at least 6 weeks if you had a wipeout and then add 1 fish at a time very slowly, like maybe a month apart.

 

[atoz]

The way ick works is the egg hatches in approx. 3 days from falling from the fish. When it hatches it hatches around 300 parisites then repeats cycle. The parasite has to attach to a fish in 7-14 days or it will die. Wait at least 4-6 weeks before adding new fish. I use to have ick bad I was treating my fish every other week. The best way to help prevent ick is to invest in a uv sterilizer. What the uv sterilizer does is a constant flow of water is pumped into the sterilizer and the sterilizer kills all parisites.
Before I got one I was loosing alot of fish but now I haven't lost a fish since I had it 4 months and my fish don't scratch or show any signs of stress. You can purchase on for around 60-100 dollars depending on the size of your tank.

 

[kris]

The best way of preventing disease, including ick, is to buy from a reputable dealer who quarantines their fish--this worked for many years for me.
--I had never seen ick or anything else (except in pictures) until I bought from a different source. And yes keeping stress levels down helps, and I have never used a sterilizer but I'm sure this would help too, but not totally prevent.

 

[sharkbait]

ICKY ICKY ICK, I know the feeling. I made the mistake of over stocking to quickly. This stressed the heck out of every fish in the tank. The ammonia levels shot through the roof. I lost half of my tank. I thought I was saving money buying in bluk on the internet. This was in a well matured 100 gl tank. I went on ahead a bought a UV. Then 4 weeks later. I started back slowly 1 fish every 2 wks. I haven't had a bug problem since then. Good luck!