Ich Problem in 55G reef tank.
- Thread starter day262
- Start date
trikonreef
Member
do you have any fish in your tank? if you do, do a quick fresh water dip with them and they will be fine. other than that i dont know what to do. (i asked my husband and that is what he suggested if you have any fish. get the fish better and it will be fine) hope this helps a lil.
day262
New Member
I have two saddleback clowns (One of them has the ich) two green Chromis, a mandarin, two sapphire blue damsels, one red fire fish, one scooter blenny. So far only the bigger clown in showing ich. Freshwater dips scare the crap outta me, LOL. Never done one. Can anyone explain it to me? And thanks for your help trikonreef!
deejeff442
Active Member
freshwater dip really only should be used as a last resort.
how bad is the ich?
is it getting worse and how fast.
i have a clown now with a little on him and my tangs get it on occasion.
is he eating normally?
fish can fight off ich as long as they are healthy.
a good diet with various foods and add some garlic with zoe vitamines.
i like to feed a bit more when it shows up to keep them healthy .
get yourself a couple cleaner shrimp and they will help at the early stages.
most of the time when the water is in good quality and the fish are healthy it will go away.
if it gets worse and you see it on your other fish you will need to hypo them in a qt tank for 4-5 weeks.
freshwater dip wont take the ich out of the tank and as soon as you put him back he will be extremly stressed and will have the ich again and worse.
how bad is the ich?
is it getting worse and how fast.
i have a clown now with a little on him and my tangs get it on occasion.
is he eating normally?
fish can fight off ich as long as they are healthy.
a good diet with various foods and add some garlic with zoe vitamines.
i like to feed a bit more when it shows up to keep them healthy .
get yourself a couple cleaner shrimp and they will help at the early stages.
most of the time when the water is in good quality and the fish are healthy it will go away.
if it gets worse and you see it on your other fish you will need to hypo them in a qt tank for 4-5 weeks.
freshwater dip wont take the ich out of the tank and as soon as you put him back he will be extremly stressed and will have the ich again and worse.
hlcroghan
Active Member
There are two ways to go about this.
You can try to get the clown healthy so that he fights it off. This somwtimes times works but you will always always have ich in your tank. IMO and IME this is the wrong way to do it because anytime anything goes badly in your tank, the fish will get stressed and possibly have an out break. AND any new additions can really be susceptible to it because they are already stressed.
It is much better to get a quarantine tank and slowly lower the salinity to approx. 1.009. This kills invert and that is what ich is. Hence why you cannot do this in any tank that has corals, anemones, live rock, or inverts. Get a small tank, get a filter, put some pvc pipes and some cycled live rock from the display for filtration and then get all the fish in there. It takes approx 4-6 weeks. Then your display tank and the fish will be free and you won't have to worry about it anymore. The ich in the display tank will have died off because it had no fish to host.
You can try to get the clown healthy so that he fights it off. This somwtimes times works but you will always always have ich in your tank. IMO and IME this is the wrong way to do it because anytime anything goes badly in your tank, the fish will get stressed and possibly have an out break. AND any new additions can really be susceptible to it because they are already stressed.
It is much better to get a quarantine tank and slowly lower the salinity to approx. 1.009. This kills invert and that is what ich is. Hence why you cannot do this in any tank that has corals, anemones, live rock, or inverts. Get a small tank, get a filter, put some pvc pipes and some cycled live rock from the display for filtration and then get all the fish in there. It takes approx 4-6 weeks. Then your display tank and the fish will be free and you won't have to worry about it anymore. The ich in the display tank will have died off because it had no fish to host.
trikonreef
Member
Originally Posted by hlcroghan
http:///forum/post/3020954
There are two ways to go about this.
You can try to get the clown healthy so that he fights it off. This somwtimes times works but you will always always have ich in your tank. IMO and IME this is the wrong way to do it because anytime anything goes badly in your tank, the fish will get stressed and possibly have an out break. AND any new additions can really be susceptible to it because they are already stressed.
It is much better to get a quarantine tank and slowly lower the salinity to approx. 1.009. This kills invert and that is what ich is. Hence why you cannot do this in any tank that has corals, anemones, live rock, or inverts. Get a small tank, get a filter, put some pvc pipes and some cycled live rock from the display for filtration and then get all the fish in there. It takes approx 4-6 weeks. Then your display tank and the fish will be free and you won't have to worry about it anymore. The ich in the display tank will have died off because it had no fish to host.
my husband agrees with you. this would be the best way to fix the problem. we has what we called a "hospital tank" for that kind of thing, for our fish anyway. hope that it works. hate to see you loose your fish to ich. i hate goin to LFS and seeing that all that they have is sick fish. we bought a few fish a few years back with it and did a quick FWD with them and they were fine, of course we monitored them and kept them in the Hosptial tank til they were all better. good luck with this!
deejeff442
Active Member
i have no idea why anyone would do a fwd on a fish that looks healthy and stress the hell out of him then put him in a qt where he will be watched for 4 weeks? stressing out a fish that way can cause alot of problems ich isnt the only disease out there.stress can cause all kinds of problems like line disease.
fwd should only be used for a last resort if the fish dont look like it will make it a couple more days.
qt tanks are great but what do you do when you have a 250 gallon dt with 14 good size fish in it?
fwd should only be used for a last resort if the fish dont look like it will make it a couple more days.
qt tanks are great but what do you do when you have a 250 gallon dt with 14 good size fish in it?
day262
New Member
The clown is the only one with it so far, and he is eating liek a horse and swimming everywhere. I just noticed the ich about 2 days ago and it hasn't gotten any worse as of yet. I will give it a few more days and see what happens. Thanks for all the help! Oh, and I do have a QT tank, just haven't had the heart to take all of my LR out to catch the little feller out of the 55G. Trying to find a solution without all the stress on me and the tank.
bryce.martin23
Member
Originally Posted by day262
http:///forum/post/3020736
I have two saddleback clowns (One of them has the ich) two green Chromis, a mandarin, two sapphire blue damsels, one red fire fish, one scooter blenny. So far only the bigger clown in showing ich. Freshwater dips scare the crap outta me, LOL. Never done one. Can anyone explain it to me? And thanks for your help trikonreef!
the way i have heard and read about the freshwater dips is the pressure in a saltwater tank in somewhat low, and when droping the salinity or in this case completly eliminating all salt the pressure of the water goes up causing the paricites to actually explode from the intense pressure. I dont know if this is exactly how it works but this is what i read on ask.com when roaming around their site. I once had this same problem with my tank for the longest time.
http:///forum/post/3020736
I have two saddleback clowns (One of them has the ich) two green Chromis, a mandarin, two sapphire blue damsels, one red fire fish, one scooter blenny. So far only the bigger clown in showing ich. Freshwater dips scare the crap outta me, LOL. Never done one. Can anyone explain it to me? And thanks for your help trikonreef!
the way i have heard and read about the freshwater dips is the pressure in a saltwater tank in somewhat low, and when droping the salinity or in this case completly eliminating all salt the pressure of the water goes up causing the paricites to actually explode from the intense pressure. I dont know if this is exactly how it works but this is what i read on ask.com when roaming around their site. I once had this same problem with my tank for the longest time.
manners
Member
im fairly new to this but i have a reef tank with corals and an anemone, i got an ick out break and lost 3 fish and had some chromis that where showing signs of it. i was given some advice to rid the tank of ich i was told to drop the selinity down to 1.020 and bring the temp up to 82 for 2 weeks. some of the corals didnt come out for the two weeks but after a week the fish looked 100% so i left it for the full 2 weeks and then changed it all back . every thing looks like it is dooing great now and there are no signs of ich. now i have a qt so hopfuly i wont get more ich.