white spot ICH!@#$%@$

dflip

New Member
Have my tank for about 8 months. never had to medicate, but my Cole Tang has a bad case of white spot (ICH). where do I start.
Should I buy a small tank for medication purposes? Woke this morning and he's hiding out in the rocks. How long does he have if not treated right away. May not be able to do anything until tomorrow morning.
Any tips? Thanks:(
 

j21kickster

Active Member
If you have only fish i would recomend using hyposalinity. I will explain later tonight how this works b/c now i have to leave for work, hopefully someone will be able to explain soner than that.
 

carrie1429

Active Member
Yes using a hospital tank would be the best way to treat the fish. From my experience medications do not work well, the best treatment for ich IMO is hyposalinity, lowering the salinity to a level witch the ich cannot live. This is done in a hospital tank with no LR, LS anything except for fish because other live things can't handle low salinity. Fish can live with ich for at least 2-3 weeks, depending on how long the fish has already had the ich for.
Hyposalinity may take a little while but it is effective if done right. You should move all your fish from your main tank(hopefully you don't have too many), even though only one fish may have visible signs of ich that doesn't mean the other fish don't have it as well, once one fish has it then its too late, it has allready infected your tank and ich cannot live without a host fish so if you take out all the fish the ich will die off. After you move the fish into the hos. tank you slowly lower the salinity level over a week doing water changes using freshwater (no salt) until the level is at 1.009. While the fish are in the tank you need to check the water parameters often because the low salt level can mess up you Ph so its good to keep an eye on that. You leave the fish in the low salt level for about 3 weeks, don't worry about anything in the main tank, inverts, coral, ect. ich only effects fish. Once there are no visible signs of ich after a long time then you slowly raise the salinity the same as how you lowered it. While the fish are in the hos tank it is good to feed them garlic soaked foods, this helps them get rid of the ich. Once the salt level is normal again you should leave the fish the hos tank for at least 2 weeks to make sure the ich is gone and that your main tank is rid of it.
Hope this helped you. :)
 
S

sinner's girl

Guest
Carrie's answers was good, but if you have any other question or are unsure of any of it go to Disease and Treatment board, search for ich, under Beth or Terry, they have explained exactly how to do it,
good luck
 

sgt__york

Member
Carrie -- good answer and thorough, except one thing.
CATCHING the fish! hahaha
I think the corals woulda be easier to catch *eg* lol
I say hospitalize all the corals, and treat the main tank! *joking*
One serious question tho - once you remove ich - it can ONLY be brought in from another piece of rock or livestock, correct? If you have removed the fish for a duration of one life cycle (thus killing all the critters) and it is killed on the fish - there would be no resaon for that fish (no matter how prone they are to getting ich - like the bue hippo) to get ich again, correct??
 

carrie1429

Active Member
Yes it may be easier to catch the corals but what about the LR and LS? The low salinity kills everything but fish. So everything on your LR and in your LS would die, it can be quite a pain to catch fish in a reef tank. And the fish can get ich again even if no other livestock is brought in, a fish can catch ich more than once and yes big temperature changes is a part of causing ich, but mostly it comes from stress or another fish that was brought in the tank without being quarantined.
 

wrassecal

Active Member
I've been through this once and my first response would be medicate yourself and get the fish into hypo in a hospital tank.
I don't know how bad your case of ich is, but if you can not catch the fish or do not have a hopsital tank you can immediately start to treat the fish food with garlic extract and do you have cleaner shrimp? They will help too.
The disease forum has lots of info on both of these approaches and combinations of them. DO NOT try hyposalinity in your main tank, you'll kill off almost everything but the fish.
Check yourself
daily for white spots and medicate as necessary as you will probably be as stressed as the fish by the procedures and worry.:rolleyes:
 
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