sick of ICK

[tierodking]

It seems that whenever I buy a surgeon fish, they are good and happy for the 1st week or 2. after that it goes to sh"t. The tangs always come down w/ ick. I try kick-ick, fresh water dip (not 100% sure on proper way to do it).
Is there something I am doing wrong? I can't keep a powder blue and I am on my 1st achilles and its got ick.
Last night, before I went to bed, The tang was almost dead, breathing heavy and laying on its side. I was gonna flush him but I didn't. I woke this morn. and the tang looked good. I saw some ick so I spent 30 min catching him. I put him in fresh water for 1 min, was going to do 2 min but the fish stopped moving/breathing. I took him out of the fresh water, put him back in the tank and moved him around to get salt water back through his gills. he layed there lifeless. I took a shower, came down and say him swimming around. now tonite, he looks good but has ick much worse. what can I do?
why do my surgeon fish continuously keep getting ick? what is the proper way to do a fresh water dip?
thanks
shawn

 

[fishieness]

id say go hyposalinity instead of a fresh water dip, you will find out how to do this in the disease and treatment forum with the stickied thread on the top.
tangs to often get ick because they are very sensitive and delicate fish. ick is a parasite located in your main system. do any of your other fish have it? ick takes advantage of a fish when the fish is stressed and the slime coat is this. the parasite can not latch on. then the parasite grows and dropps off, creating much much more "icklettes". haha. that is my patented saying. anyways. so doing freshwater dips is not realy a good thing IMO. this is because, you are killing the ick on the fish, but it is still located in your system. and putting a saltwater fish in freshwater, and chasing it around with a net for 30 minutes just makes the fish more stressed. so you are making it even more supseptibal to ick. hyposalinity will kill ick throughout the tank. however, it will also kill hermits (many kinds. some kinds have been known to survive if they originate in tidal pools or other such environments where salinity changes often), crabs, snails, starfish, corals, anenomes, ect. so id remove yoru clean up crew or any inverts first. if you have a reef tank and cannot do all of this, then DONT BUY ANY MORE TANGS! they are sensitive fish, and if you keep buying one after the other, the ick is going to stay alive. the life cycle of this parasite is about 6 weeks. so once your current fish are ick free for about 2 months or so, then start buying a tang.
but also, you need to find out what are stressing all of your tangs out? if could be that your tank is too small, or you didnt acclimate properly, or the shipping wasnt delicate, or you have an agressive fish in there making the new tangs stressed. there are so many possibilities, and unfortunaly, you have to fix it. because if your tank is finaly ick free, your fish will still be stressed for one way or another.
try feeding garlic too. that will help prevent the ick from latchign on to your other fish.
and this has taken me so long to type youve probably gotten like 20 resposes already. good luck!

 

[tierodking]

I haven't had an ick prob since my last powder blue. that was at least 5 months ago.
I have an achilles now, just swapped tanks from a 54 to a 120, I sure that the move stressed him. but you said that icks cycle is 6 weeks, but does each icklette have a cycle of 6 weeks? so they will never go away if each icklette ( i like that word) has a 6 week cycle.
I was gonna run all the water through an ozone during the water transfer just so nothing like this would happen.

 

[fishieness]

well they will go away as long as they dont have fish to latch on to. you said your last one was about 5 months ago before this one. so either you were getting small outbreaks of ick here or there but they were so minor you didnt notice, or it came form the water form your LFS when you bought the fish. or there was a spot or two on the fish and it has jsut mulitiplied.
how big is yoru tank though? that is a common cause of tangs getting stressed out.

 

[reefreak29]

i personally dont believe in hyposalinity , fresh water dips or kick ich , why put the fish under MORE stress? i use garlic extreme and soak there food in it the ick will be gone in a couple weeks while the fishes amune system builds

 

[fishieness]

Originally Posted by reefreak29
i personally dont believe in hyposalinity , fresh water dips or kick ich , why put the fish under MORE stress? i use garlic extreme and soak there food in it the ick will be gone in a couple weeks while the fishes amune system builds
hyposalinity does not put a lot of stress on the fish AS LONG AS IT IS DONE VERY SLOWLY
but i do agree with you on freshwater dips and kick ick
garlic is good. i use garlic extream just because it is high in vitamins. garlic has no proven, scientific research to prove that it fights ick. it should not be used as a medicine. only as something to help fish keep it away when adding a new fish. it gets in the blood, and suposedly (theoredicly), the ick doesnt like the garlic so they dont latch on

 

[tierodking]

my tank is 120g. I had a 54g and just swapped them on monday.
so the ick will kill a fish, and remain in your tank. it can have samm outbreaks and then finally one day...bang... its a large outbreak and your fish are dead?
when I take everything out of the tank for 6 weeks, that is fish, crabs, corals, hermit crabs, snails...everything or just fish?

 

[fishieness]

just fish.
ick can remain in your system without fish for 6 weeks. just incase, id do 8-10 just to be safe. im saying it could have been living in your system from latching onto a fish occationaly, but since the fish are at least kinda healthy you wouldnt notice. then once a stressed fish enters the tank, then BAM. then the ick can take control. its possible but not likely. i would guess that the fish either had a spot at the LFS that you didnt notice or when you acclimated the fish, some of the LFS water containing ick enterd. then when the powder blue got stressed from the small tank, then it took over. This is just my theory. did any of your other fish get ick?
and a 54 is too small for a tang. and im expecting that it is a corner tank? that means that its not as wide. not suitible for any species of tang IMO.
that is probably what stressed them out.

 

[jer4916]

ich itself is something inside every animal (fish) now what you can do to aviod this you must maintain perfect water quality...if you keep running into problems then you might want to think about taking all the fish out of your tank.... keeping it like that for 6 weeks....during that time hook up a UV filter...that will help kill the ich in its free floating stage as well as all the other harmful bacteria in your water. As for your fish you must find out what is causing the ich...something in your water is doing it...or something in your tank....or the fact that it may be to small or you have to many tangs... i dont know.
Ich should not be a problem in a reef...your water should be good enough quality if you have corals.... i would just hook up a UV ...and keep your tank either fish free for 6 weeks...OR add nothing for 6 weeks after you notice your ich outbreak leave...also remember to QT your fish if your having problems.... because then you can treat them in hypo or copper (i prefer hypo) to kill what is ever on them.
Remember tangs are not for everyone... they are a harder fish to keep... they are ich magnets....
i have 4 in my tank ...and well....i have a proper size tank, my water is perfect (i use ro/di) i keep miracle mud in the tank which helps keep them healthy ...i also run a UV.
just some tips
best of luck
~Chris

 

[jer4916]

Originally Posted by fishieness
hyposalinity does not put a lot of stress on the fish AS LONG AS IT IS DONE VERY SLOWLY
but i do agree with you on freshwater dips and kick ick
garlic is good. i use garlic extream just because it is high in vitamins. garlic has no proven, scientific research to prove that it fights ick. it should not be used as a medicine. only as something to help fish keep it away when adding a new fish. it gets in the blood, and suposedly (theoredicly), the ick doesnt like the garlic so they dont latch on

freshwater dips should be done for atleast 8minutes ...it will fully kill the invert (ich) otherwise your 2 minutes are invain... ich is like a carp...its hard as hell to kill.
also kick ich is a bunch of bull s**t. Kick ich is designed to attack ich. Funny thing ich is an invert and if kick ich really did what it says it does it would kill everyone of your corals, everyone of your crabs/shrimp/stars. So its snake oil.
only things that cure ich:
Hypo - Proven. (Lower salinity kills ich/inverts)
Copper - Proven. (but not needed, bad for fish)
Garlic - Proven. (Garlic leaves the body through skin pushing ich out)
Perfect water quality - Proven. (I need not discribe why)
Kick Ich/By products - Not proven. Only noted by manufactures. (80% of time fish die) or case 2 they get better because of there own immune system NOT kick Ich.
Just advice from someone who's been in the hobby for a loooong time.
~Chris

 

[tierodking]

Now I have a 120g, and yes I do agree that a 54 is too small for a tang. I just did another freshawater dip. I did it for 2 min, any longer and it looks like the fish will die. he gets all pale, lays on one side and stops breathing, and thats just in 2 min.
8 min is a long time, i'm sure it will kill the ick, but what about the fish too?

 

[jer4916]

make sure the temp and ph are the same and nothing should go wrong, each fish is different...watch the fish.... make sure they dont lay down....etc.. use your best judgement...but know that 2 minutes isnt long enough...
and honestly i dont suggest freshwater dips...they put more stress on the fish... 90% of the time thats why ich is there.
get perfect water quality.
feed it food with garlic soaked in (seriously it works... i didn't believe it until i tried it)
and lower your tanks sal.
this will kill it.
NOTHING else will do it properly.
~Chris

 

[fishieness]

Originally Posted by Jer4916
ich itself is something inside every animal (fish)
ich is not located inside fish. if is an invert, not a virus. it is free floating. it latched on to parts of fish with a diminished slime coat caused by stress or irritation. it latches on behind the scales. this is why fish like a dragonette cannot get ich. at least that is where everything i have learned has pointed me to.
but once agian, i would use kick ich.
but i still disagree about freshwater dipps. they get rid of the ich on the fish, but just stres sout the fish more. this makes the fish weaker and more supseptable to more ich latching on! this is why you must do somethign like hypo.
and that is not how garlic works. it is very strong and potent (as anyone with garlic extream owuld know

lol)... well.... you are what you eat. those peptides, molecules, enzymes, whatever is in garlic that makes it strong gets into the blook of the fish which is the reason why ich attaches to fish in the first place. that garlic is very potent for such a small creature. but it doesnt actualy push them out. where woudl it push them out? im not mocking you here though. that is a serious question. maybe i dont know everything about the anatomy of a fish. i dont believe that they have pore like a human. possibly to expess waste, but certainly not to sweat which is what the purpose of ours is. i dont believe it is necessary to expell waste and such through your pores seeing as how cats, dogs, pigs, and other animals donthave any.
garlic is a good prevention though. we can agree on that

 

[tierodking]

i have read a little about hypo, but still am not 100% sure exactly how to do it.

 

[fishieness]

did you read the thing in the disease and treatment forum? do not do this in your main tank if you have ton sof inverts/corals!!!
if you have them then you can put them in a small er tank, or the fish in another tank and cure them, then try to give them to the LFS to hold or as credit. you are just lowering the salinity very very slowly so that the fish can survive but the ich cannot. lower it over the point of several days or even as long as a week with a series of a lot of very small water changes. only change the water with fresh, filtered, unsalted water.
the instructions in the disease and treatment section hsould help you out more

 

[tierodking]

thanks for all your help, i'll see what the outcome is
what is the reccommended qt time for new fish?

 

[fishieness]

3 weeks give or take a week. ive never QTed fish, but then again i lost two fish to ich when i first started. also, i havnet bought a fish in a realy long time. next fish i buy, ill set up a QT. usualy in 3 weeks you will be able to see any illnesses or such.

 

[jer4916]

idk, everything i have read has pointed in the direction i have stated and i've studied. But again i could be wrong, i know my way works though....
and its been proven over and over...
~Chris

 

[tierodking]

one of my concerns w/ hypo is that it seems to take soooo long. usually my fish are dead from ick w/ in a few days. hypo, to me, seems like it takes several weeks. I know that is for the whole treatment, but just starting the treatment, lowering the sal., that in itself takes several days.

 

[jer4916]

thats why you must learn to see the first signs of a problem and correctly it instantly. Also you should be able to lower the animal into hypo over a 9 hour period.... little by little.... IF you have to.
better to do that...then loose the fish.
~Chris