there is nothing more annoying than ick!

mr.clownfish

Active Member
this morning, fed my fish and went to school, everything looked normal. i come back from school and do a monthly water change and right after i notice my fish are all literally COVERED in white dots. ive had ick before, but this is insane, the worst case i have ever seen. it was a sudden break out of the little

[hr]
. i have a 12gal copper tank running with a pair of perculas already in there. i just caught my maderin goby and placed him in there. now i need to catch my six line (which is going to be impossible), a kole tang, and a pair of pink skunk clownfish. Luckily i kept my (about) 8gal bowl shaped tank going, my mother has been yelling at me to empty it for a couple months now. im going to add some copper to it and place my other pair of clowns in there, all i need is to buy a heater for the tank. ill place my 6 line in the bowl tank with the clowns and place the kole tang in the 12 gal. i hope they survive till tomorrow =/. my kole tang hasnt been eating for about a week now so its not looking to great for him. is there any advice anyone can share...
 

king_neptune

Active Member
Pick up a giant rubber maid or look on craigslist for a 20-55gal tank. They come up all the time dirt cheap. I payed $20 for my QT tank. Its ugly but does the job.
Your spreading all your resources and effort amongst several systems. That can lead to potential problems that you and I might not be able to see coming. My point is do the treatment in one tank, all at the same time. The best solution to ICH from all of the sites Ive read(Ive had to deal with ich myself recently, so I have had to do a bunch of learning as well) is the hypo treatment. Some vary in opinions, but most will agree its a safer method than copper. Treat all your fish with it.
Remove EVERY fish from your DT and treat them, its a pain yes, but its the only way to be absolutely sure your squashing ICH permenantly.
Whats the point of treating a few fish, then have them get ICH again at a later date because you didn't remove the source problem. The only way to do that is separate the fish from the ICH for the duration of its life cycle.
Ive got my fish in a hospital tank as we speak. I was going to start dropping the salinity today, but I had a disaster and the power was cut. The temp fell so drastically that I am not wanting to shock them for a couple more days. I am very lucky they all lived. It was a big scare to me when I came home a few hours ago and the temp was 62degrees.
 

flower

Well-Known Member

Your QT is too small for all those fish. Even if you treat for ich, you can't put them back into the main tank for at least 4-6 weeks for the ich parasite to die off without a host.
King_Neptune's idea of a tub is excellent, set it up like a tank, and use your water from the main system since all will be treated. Lighting won't matter to the fish, just use a heater, and a filter.
Inverts and corals are fine left in the main tank, they don’t get ich.
 

king_neptune

Active Member
Oh snap. I missed the tang, ok I would shoot for a larger bin. The kind sold at feed stores, or 40g+ tank. I also believe Walmart and Homedepot have 35g laundry baskets that would suffice(like 20 bucks). They have a low yet wide footprint, which would provide swimming room for your tang.
And yes 40g is a bit small for a tang. But since its only a temp home, the tang police will let it slide

Honestly a 55g would be just about right to handle everything for the short duration of 8 weeks(im treating ICH and going for 10weeks myself). A HOB filter would suffice, and weekly water changes minimum.
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
ok so the tub idea sounds great! i have a tub thats about 30 gals so ill just use that. and what should i fill the tub with? clean store bought water or some from my DT and some from the store?
 

flower

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by Mr.clownfish
http:///forum/post/3217474
ok so the tub idea sounds great! i have a tub thats about 30 gals so ill just use that. and what should i fill the tub with? clean store bought water or some from my DT and some from the store?

As much of you main tank water as possible and fresh mixed saltwater after it sits for 24 hours, it won't matter if it is from the LFS or your own made up..You will have to do allot of water changes while using the tub.
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
great more water changes -__-.
ok so i emptied 5 gals of my 40 gal and 5 gals from another one of my 12 gals that has been cycled for over 2 years and ill fill the rest up with store bought water. should i add copper along with the hypo treatment?
 

al mc

Active Member
Originally Posted by Mr.clownfish
http:///forum/post/3217170
this morning, fed my fish and went to school, everything looked normal. i come back from school and do a monthly water change and right after i notice my fish are all literally COVERED in white dots. ive had ick before, but this is insane, the worst case i have ever seen. it was a sudden break out of the little

[hr]
. i have a 12gal copper tank running with a pair of perculas already in there. i just caught my maderin goby and placed him in there. now i need to catch my six line (which is going to be impossible), a kole tang, and a pair of pink skunk clownfish. Luckily i kept my (about) 8gal bowl shaped tank going, my mother has been yelling at me to empty it for a couple months now. im going to add some copper to it and place my other pair of clowns in there, all i need is to buy a heater for the tank. ill place my 6 line in the bowl tank with the clowns and place the kole tang in the 12 gal. i hope they survive till tomorrow =/. my kole tang hasnt been eating for about a week now so its not looking to great for him. is there any advice anyone can share...

Sorry to be adding my comments so late...But, you never mentioned if this is a reef tank or FOWLR. If there are no inverts you could do hyposalinity on the DT. Even if you have a couple inverts you could move them and much of the rock to the rubbermade with heater, pump and lights and still hypo the DT.
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
oh im sorry i left that out. ya its a reef with lots of coral and some inverts.
OK! so i got everything together and i was only able to catch my female pink skunk. she is breathing kind of heavily... i hope thats normal, and shes kind of leaning on her side on the bottom of the tub. im not gonna start the treatment until i catch the others. i just hope the skunk survives!
OH! and are there any tricks for catching tangs and 6 lines? im loaded up with live rock so i cant move them around much. ive herd of traps but i dont fully understand how to make them...
I NEED HELP!
 

noah's nemo

Member
Try the 2 liter bottle trick.Cut the top of it off,about 4-5 inches down.Invert the top into the bottom,so the part you pour out of is now inside the bottom part.Place some food in,the fish swim in,but can't swim out.I bet it works for your 6 line,but your tang may be to big.
 

manateelake

New Member
I wish I had talked to you a few days ago myself. I am battling with an unfortunate ich problem that has claimed 4 fish and seems to finally be turning around. I have a 145gal reef tank loaded with corals, inverts and fish. I use a 20 gal mud sump filter with live mangroves for filtration, and have always had perfect water parameters. I am not sure where the problem began, but it first appeared on my blue tang. I know that it has never been totally eradicated because of my live rock and coral structure, and the inability to catch all the fish, so I started by adding cleaner shrimp. First one, and he did the trick for the tang and some smaller anthias, but the ich persisted. I added a second, then tried a cleaner wrasse. Two dead cleaner wrasses later, I resorted to a HT with copper for the worst affected this time around. I could only treat two more fish, a clown and a spanish hog, and have since lost the spanish hog. Heart wrenching to say the least! I wound up installing a Turbo Twist 6X, 18 watt uv sterilizer as a last resort, and, knock on wood, it has stopped the ich spread, and I have seen an improvement in the two worst affected fish that have finally resurfaced from hiding in the rocks. My percula clown has survived, and I bought him another cleaner wrasse to be in the hospital with in the meantime. I am new to this site, but will try and post some pics later this afternoon, but the sterilizer seems to be doing what nothing else would due to the confines of my tank's environment.
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
Originally Posted by manateelake
http:///forum/post/3218986
I wish I had talked to you a few days ago myself. I am battling with an unfortunate ich problem that has claimed 4 fish and seems to finally be turning around. I have a 145gal reef tank loaded with corals, inverts and fish. I use a 20 gal mud sump filter with live mangroves for filtration, and have always had perfect water parameters. I am not sure where the problem began, but it first appeared on my blue tang. I know that it has never been totally eradicated because of my live rock and coral structure, and the inability to catch all the fish, so I started by adding cleaner shrimp. First one, and he did the trick for the tang and some smaller anthias, but the ich persisted. I added a second, then tried a cleaner wrasse. Two dead cleaner wrasses later, I resorted to a HT with copper for the worst affected this time around. I could only treat two more fish, a clown and a spanish hog, and have since lost the spanish hog. Heart wrenching to say the least! I wound up installing a Turbo Twist 6X, 18 watt uv sterilizer as a last resort, and, knock on wood, it has stopped the ich spread, and I have seen an improvement in the two worst affected fish that have finally resurfaced from hiding in the rocks. My percula clown has survived, and I bought him another cleaner wrasse to be in the hospital with in the meantime. I am new to this site, but will try and post some pics later this afternoon, but the sterilizer seems to be doing what nothing else would due to the confines of my tank's environment.
that sucks dude! so this UV sterilizer thing... is it coral safe?
oh and i read somewhere that people should stop buying cleaner wrasses unless they have a 300+ gal tank with lots of fish, cause there diet is of dead fish cells and parasites. i saw my cleaner shrimp picking off some parasites but it wont clear up the problem cause the ick larvae is still in the water and will continue to come back. its an annoying war!
 

manateelake

New Member
The UV sterilizer installs on the return pump from the sump. In your case, it would install in-line on the return from your canister filter and probably hang on the back....anyway, the cool thing is, it is totally coral safe because it is not in direct contact with the coral, and it sterilizes the parasites which keeps them from reproducing but does not harm the biological chemistry of the tank. Yes, it is a long cycle, but doable. Coralife is the manufacturer, and you can investigate further on their site.
On the cleaner wrasse issue, I have the latest one in a ten gallon HT with my clown. He has survived longer than any of them. I have observed him eating live brine shrimp, flake food, and frozen blood worms. He seems to be perfectly satisfied with that diet since the clown is now free of the ick and his scales are regenerating.
This is my take. Ick, in fish, is like cancer in humans. They all have some amount of it in their system simply because they are fish, and their immune system is what keeps them from getting sick. In an environment that is clean and strong, and stress free, i.e. no dramatic changes in temperature, salinity, or chemical content (which I feel results in water frequent water changes), fish by nature are able to fight off parasitic attacks and therefore not allow for a host on which to reproduce.
Alright, wind aside, I would love to know how your progress is coming, and if you had any luck with the fish trap in case I have to catch my bangai cardinals (female now suffering from an unknown fin degeneration, but all related I am certain).
 

florida joe

Well-Known Member
This is my take. Ick, in fish, is like cancer in humans. They all have some amount of it in their system simply because they are fish, and their immune system is what keeps them from getting sick. In an environment that is clean and strong, and stress free, i.e. no dramatic changes in temperature, salinity, or chemical content (which I feel results in water frequent water changes), fish by nature are able to fight off parasitic attacks and therefore not allow for a host on which to reproduce.
I am going to disagree. The ick parasite is not in a fishes system it attaches its self to the fish for a specific time line then drops off to start its reproduction cycle. Just because they are fish does not mean they have ick. It is in fact rare for a fish in the open ocean to have ick
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
it worked!!! WHOOOOhOOOOO!!!! thank you sooo much noah's nemo!! it was the coolest feeling when i saw him in there

but how do i catch the kole tang? his not really too big hes like 4ins, but he wont fit through the hole like the six line...
im so excited i caught the six line! =D
 

manateelake

New Member
Thanks Joe, no offfense, just had little luck with ridding all of my fish of the ick, and always had a problem with new introductions. In my case, I feel like I am just going to have to learn to live with it, and create the environment mostly healthy for my fish and corals and inverts to fight together. I have done my best at keeping the tank ick free, but never get it totally clean. I hope the UV sterilizer will be the answer.
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
Originally Posted by manateelake
http:///forum/post/3219334
Thanks Joe, no offfense, just had little luck with ridding all of my fish of the ick, and always had a problem with new introductions. In my case, I feel like I am just going to have to learn to live with it, and create the environment mostly healthy for my fish and corals and inverts to fight together. I have done my best at keeping the tank ick free, but never get it totally clean. I hope the UV sterilizer will be the answer.
good luck dude!
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
good and bad news. good news first, i managed to catch all my fish except the tang, they are doing much better now. bad news, found the tang dead. it was a huge shock to see him like that
 

noah's nemo

Member
Sucks,sorry man.For some reason tangs just don't do as well as others,it seems,when they get the ich.No matter how nice and fat and healthy they look.I lost one too awhile back.
 
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