My fish have ich.

[jenni1979]

My fish have ich and I am using garlic in their food. Should I use an antibiotic? Here is some info on my tank for you to go by. It has some soft corals and mushrooms. I have a snails, hermits, coral beauty, tang, royal gramma, and a starfish in my 55 gal tank. I quaranteened the fish before I added them to my main tank for a little over a month, but as soon as I added them to my main tank, within a few days they all got ich. It doesn't seem to be too bad yet. I can't really see any on the yellow tang, but I know he has them because he is scraping his body on the rocks. The coral beauty has some on the top of its body near the head, and since yesterday the royal gramma maybe has five or six on the top of its head. I think the garlic is helping some. I have used it only two days now. Well, let me know if I should use an antibiotic. I have Maracyn. I have read somewhere that Maracyn 2 works.

 

[beth]

I hate to tell you but there is no choice but to treat all the fish in a QT. Antibiotics is totally useless. Ich is a parasite not a bacteria. You can not treat this fish adequately in a reef tank.
Do you also have LR?

 

[polarpooch]

The garlic is good. It boosts the chances of survial, in my opinion.
You can get those fish out of the main tank, and treat them (lots of differing opinions on how...do a search on this board on ich treatment)...
I haven't heard maracyn is at all effective for the problem. Isn't maracyn an anti-biotic? In which case it attacks bacterial infections, not parasites like ich. Then again, I'm no biologist.
Here's how I liked the ich problem:
I use a UV sterilizer, which has eliminated ich in my tank. I did have a small problem with a blue tang I recently added to my reef...but I treated with garlic soaked food and the anti-parastie food from Tetra (hard to find, no longer being produced...but worth looking for on the shelves)...between the garlic, the food and the UV taking care of the free floating parasites, the ich cleared up in about 4 days. No other fishes in the tank became stricken. Fish experienced zero stress.
Just a thought for future fish....

 

[jenni1979]

Well the garlic has seemed to help. The ick is gone completely. I will watch them real close for a few days and if it comes back, I may consider taking them out and putting them back in the quarantine tank.

 

[beth]

The ich is not gone. Ich has a 3 cycles during its 3 wk life cycle. Only one of these cycles are the parasites visible on the fish. Likely you will see it again shortly.

 

[calvindo]

if this is the case... will ick ever be completely gone from a tank? QT is absolutely not an option for me. setting up the tank is no problem, catching the fish is a HUGE problem. For people who have a reef set up? what can they do, besides the QT method?
thanks

 

[calvindo]

why when adding a new fish, the ick comes back? that seems to be happening. is it because of stress or is it because the new fish has ick? also, does garlic juice cure ick or does it just gives the fish more appetite?
thank you