Preventing Ich

wablondie98664

wablondie98664

Active Member
soak the food you feed it in garlic. i got a powderblue tang 3 weeks ago and have been heavily soaking all food in garlic. seems to be working
 
fishman830

fishman830

Active Member
1. never over stock a tank
2. make sure they have enough horizontal(sp?) space
3. make sure you're feeding them well, lots of greens
4. keep with fish that are peaceful
5. never put them in tanks with other tangs of the same shape or color
 
disdominican

disdominican

Member
Unfortunately my tang has ich. I don't know what to do. My LFS tested my water and said all was fine except for magnesium. They told me to buy a cleaner shrimp and raise the mag and everything would be fine. As I've read on here though, I have to use copper in a QT, which I dont have. Will my other fish get the ich. I have a true perc, blue damsel, rock blenny, and some inverts. What should I do???
 
brian90vette

brian90vette

Member
Go to the store and buy a rubbermaid container. You can get a big one for under 10 bucks. set it up as a Qt tank. I bought a mini biowheel for mine as filtration. youll need a heater but thats about it. Hope your tang makes it. Mine wiped out my entire system back in my early days of the hobby.
Brian
 
alison

alison

Member
:happyfish Sorry your fish have ick, we've all been there, and your not alone. Unfortunately you got one of the harder to keep tangs. I bought a baby blue tang myself, and I battled ick bigtime with him. When it comes to keeping saltwater fish you are going to get so many opinions. In my opinion you don't have to use copper in a qt tank. I used formulin for ick on my blue tang in a qt and he kicked it. I also did freshwater dips with R.O. water and ph balanced and temp adjusted. A qt tank is key though. Your tang can definately give the ick to the other fish, so I would set up the qt soon. Hope this helps
 
brian90vette

brian90vette

Member
Also,
I think LFS should be held responsible for selling you a fish with ich. I think they should have to QT your fish for you if it has ICH. If not they could offer QTing fish as a service for a certain fee. Just ideas.
Brian
 
disdominican

disdominican

Member
ok so if i buy a rubbermaid and buy some saltwater from an lfs i dose the fish in the qt and leave the main tank as is? And do i place all my fish in the qt or just the tang becaus there are no signs of ick on the other fish yet.
 
misty927

misty927

Member
In addition to all of those great suggestions, you might want to consider a UV sterilizer. They can rid of many types of bacteria which can cause infection. They aren't generally considered a good idea with reef tanks, however, as they also kill beneficial bacteria and other little organisms! :yes:
 
brian90vette

brian90vette

Member
I agree that the garlic is questionable. The Hypo is a good method I just have never used it. The key is to get rid of the parasite. The parasite can not live in a tank without fish. So to be certain it is really gone you should QT all the fish. This really sucks as we never want to take our fish out of our displays. If you have a nice rubbermaid container and room to put it you will find it isnt so bad. Good luck.
Brian
 
carp31

carp31

Member
I swear by the UV sterilizer!! I use to have problems with my tangs getting ich a couple of years a go. Then I put a UV sterilizer on my FOWLR tank and never had ich again! In my opinion, don't run it on a reef tank unless you put it on for only a few hours or maybe at night on a timer.
 
wid

wid

Member
maybe you got the better more powerful UV. Mine 9w didn't have my fish. they got ICH and my UV is on all day.
Wid
 
disdominican

disdominican

Member
I am going to pick up an empty 30 gal tank from my aunts garage that was previously used for fw. Would I have to cycle the tank or would I use water from my display? I'm going to search on the hypo now. I have an old uv sterilizer that I got when I purchased my my main display but ut needed a new bulb and the wires were hanging all over the place, I didn't know how to work it, but I have a reef and am unsure about it.
 
carp31

carp31

Member
Wid,
Mine is a 9 watt too. How often do you change the bulb? I change it every 6 months. Never had a ich problem since.
 
brian90vette

brian90vette

Member
dis you could use a little display water mixed with some new. The UV sterilizer will be perfect for the QT if you can get it running. It will really assist in getting rid of this ich. The fish are already in the display water so I dont think using it will hurt them anymore than it already has. the hypo will start to kill them anyways. Good luck.
Brian
 
briterco

briterco

Member
Prevention is certainly the best cure. I got a blue hippo about 2 months ago, and religously followed the QT and hyposalinity process. I suspected the hippo came home with some ich, as he was scratching a bit the first day, but as I got the salinity down, that stopped pretty quickly, and hasn't scratched since. Also, the last week of QT, began adding garlic to both the hippo's and display's meals. When the time came to move, I introduced the hippo with as little stress as possible. Upon release, it took him about 30 minutes to act like he'd been there all of his life. I'm continuing with a few drops of garlic each day. No signs of any problems whatsoever...
 
tgill

tgill

Member
My yellow tang had both white and black ick. For both of these I increased the temp in my tank(put my glass lids back on) and started feeding major amounts of nori(everyone went vegetarian). It took awhile but my tang quit scratching and is doing great!! Hope this helps.
:happyfish
 
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