ICH QUESTION

blazehok68

Active Member
just set my 28 gallon cube back up. have about 50 lbs of base rock and 8lbs of live rock. hang on the back refugium with skimmer built in, cheato in it, and a 3 gallon sump underneath. cycle was underway, ammonia was down, so after my tank being up for a month, i put in two ocellaris clowns. everything looked ok, but i was getting a cyano outbreak so a week later i added 4 turbo snails and about a dozen hermits. this was thursday. last night i noticed white spots on the ends of the clowns fins and tails which im pretty sure is ich. i know i cant add any medicine to the tank without killing all inverts and LR.

question is if i remove the infected clowns, which are the only fish in there, is the ich still in the tank or is it only on the clowns? im pretty sure the clowns probably were sick when i got them and didnt notice cause when i was in there getting the snails, i saw other fish in the store that were sick.

if i remove the clowns, what should i do to ensure that any new fish that i add will not get sick, other than getting fish from another fish store?
 

jay0705

Well-Known Member
Your lucky in a sense. Put the clowns in a qt tank. Treat w hypo or cooper. Leave your display fishless for 6-8 wks. Yes ich is there now but w o fish to host them they die. Your tank will again be ich free. Not all fish show signs of ich rt away so yes they may have had it or it could attached to the snail shells too. Any hard surface can carry ich. Snail shells, clams, coral plugs ect
 

blazehok68

Active Member
Your lucky in a sense. Put the clowns in a qt tank. Treat w hypo or cooper. Leave your display fishless for 6-8 wks. Yes ich is there now but w o fish to host them they die. Your tank will again be ich free. Not all fish show signs of ich rt away so yes they may have had it or it could attached to the snail shells too. Any hard surface can carry ich. Snail shells, clams, coral plugs ect

thanks for the quick reply. what about adding corals? i was going to add some zoas in a week or two. they shouldnt be affected right? and inverts arent affected by it either?
 

jay0705

Well-Known Member
Nope only fish. It can come in on hard corals but softies ur good. Ich is the bain of sw bc its so much harder to treat then in fw. Once the tank is fallow long enough you'll be fine. I would qt all new fish tho
 

pegasus

Well-Known Member
Yeah I dont have a qt tank or the room for one. We will see.
If a QT isn't an option (which it should be), here's an alternative.

info: https://nosickfish.com/treating-marine-ich/
medication: https://nosickfish.com/product/ichmedicine/

Although I don't recommend medicating the display tank, sometimes it's hard to work around it. I've used a few of their products in my main tank (including ICH 350) with no adverse effects on any of the tank inhabitants. A bit expensive, but well worth it...
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
I would not recommend that med. Does anyone know what are the ingredients in that product? I have looked around and could not find an answer to that, including from the manufacture's webpage. That alone is pretty sketchy. There is no quick cure for ich.

Without a QT, I'd recommend removing your LR and any inverts your have. Easily house this in a bucket with salt water and a pump, then use hyposalinity in the display.

You will continue to introduce disease in to the display tank unless you avoid the problem by setting up a quarantine tank. There is no way around that.
 
I have corals and inverts, I have done this with garlic extreme from Kent, two drops with food and 10% daily changing water for the first 7 days..

I JUST A BEGINNER.
 

beth

Administrator
Staff member
I would suggest hyposalinity in a newly set up QT. You could also leave the fish in the tank and remove your rock and macro to a bucket with a powerhead. You can treat the fish in the display with hyposalinity.

Let us know if you need more help.
 
Top