ick on the tangs

[colami]

It looks like I might be having a ick breakout on the hippo and achilles. the hippo scratches it side on the rock. angels are good. best way to kill the ick with out messing with my starfish and cleaner shrimp. does the freshwater dip work? meds? do not have a quar. tank. thanks

 

[lion_crazz]

freshwater dip works, but is a stressful method. I always tell people to use Parasite Stop! for ich because it is completely reef and invert safe, and is really not a medicine, so if you inadvertently overdose it, it is not a problem. It is only a 5 day treatment, but I have never seen it not work.

 

[hewetton]

Freshwater dip is sort of a very superficial way to get rid of ick. It only works on the ones that are on the outer surface. They will come back in no time if there is any stress present. I've never tried Parasite Stop, so I can't comment on its effectiveness.

 

[elfdoctors]

Some of the bottled cures only work for a portion of the lifecycle so they require treatment thoughout an entire lifecycle with constant levels of the medication. Occasionally people seem happy with the results, but these are not reliable. I used hyposalinity for my tank before I had my QT set up.
Stress plays a minimal role in saltwater ich. If you quarantine your fish, you will not have to worry about this disease. The role that stress playes is that if a fish is very healthy (under less stress), it can sometimes develop a limited immunity to ich.
Freshwater ich is often precipitated by stress. It can sometimes be impossibly to eradicate the causative organism from your tank. However, this is a completely different disease from saltwater ich.

 

[hewetton]

Yeah, copper sulfate(chelated) and hyposalinity are the best known methods so far. But, if there is any parasite present in a tank, its inhabitants get infected with it no matter what...it's not a chance event....they just don't have any choice. (unless there is a way to intercept parasites before they get your fishes) Every fishes kept in the hobby have some kind of parasites with them in spite of your effort to sterilize them. It's all about maintaining an equilibrium. The weakening of the immune system is one of the biggest factors that are responsible for the outbreak of the disease and you know..... stress does such an effective job at disrupting this equilibrium. Even if you have almost perfect water parameters, but with stress still present, fishes are very prone to being symptomatic. So it's really important to have a near stress-free environment besides good water quality and proper diet.