ich

[Zekester]

I'm wondering what you all think the best treatment for Ich is in a reef tank. The clowns I brought home from the meeting are showing signs of ich and in the past i have dosed coral vital and soaked food in garlic but I dont have any CV.......

[wes]

quarantine in hypo for 4 weeks. that's what I've started on with the clown I got. :-) Actually, I'm starting with just a heavy UV on a small QT tank. There's a lot of ich posts on here if you search back a bit. Basically there is no treatment in a reef tank but letting the tank run fallow for over a month or getting the fish as healthy as possible.

[sneeze]

LMK if they cause any problems or don't make it through. i guess i didn't see anything on them. then again, they were in my sump with white surroundings.

[sneeze]

yeah, that freaks me out
i just checked out my tank and the other fish don't have cysts or anything.
like i said, let me know if something goes wrong, i'll make amends

[Zekester]

prolly just stress induced they look happy and active this morning

[Chad Vossen]

what i generally do is set up a 10 gal tank with a cheap filter and heater and treat the fish with copper meds. cupramine is what i use. after their treatment, they live in the 10 gal tank to make sure all is good for 60 days while the display tank remains fishless for the 60 days. after 60 days the ich parasite and its eggs/larva starve to death and the tank is ich free and ready for your now ich free fish to be re introduced.

i have done this once before, never seen ich since.

or you can just make sure the fish are as stress free as possible with plenty of healthy food. sneese, your fish may have ich, expessially if you dont medicate all new fish before going into the display (petco fish normally carry ich). the deal is that your fish are not stressed to the point they succumb to the parasite. fish naturally fight off the parasite until their immune system is compromized (often stress related). the parasite does not want to kill its host, but live off it as long as possible. unfortunately in a closed environment such as the aquarium, ich gets out of control in the presence of sick fish.

this is only what i understand about ich, i may be off on a few details but the treatment for ich above will work as it has for me.

[wes]

his fish came from a breeder, where I imagine they're well treated. Stress can certainly bring up latent ich parasites. Be VERY careful about assuming ICH has gone away, read about its life cycle first. It can come back with a VENGEANCE.

[Zekester]

thanks good info

[sneeze]

isn't it true that ich is present in most systems? we just keep our fish healthy enough that they fight it on their own. or am i wrong?

[wes]

yes, it can come in via many sources, but there are ich free systems. Good QT goes a long way to getting an ich free system. Then again, there are a ton of systems that are fine and ich only comes up when something stresses the fishies.

[kpete4]

I have heard from more than one reef person that ich is present in all saltwater all the time. I'm under the impression that you cannot have an ich free system. Ich is in all ocean water, just not as concentrated. Again this is what I have heard

I would really like to know the answer to this question if anyone has any scientific something more than hearsay

[wes]

look for the last ich thread. ich is a parasitic proatzoan and it can be eradicated.

[hypertech]

My feeling is that though possible, it is very difficult to have an ich free system. You would have to QT or treat everything from snail and hermits to all your corals to completely eliminate all possibilities of introducing it into your system.

[morty]

I've posted this link a couple times:

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

I don't think ich is always present in a tank. But the article suggests that ich can create a cyst that imbeds in a fishes' gills and can remain dormant more or less indefinitely, until the fish is stressed, at which point the cyst "senses" this and hatches. I think this is what leads people to believe that ich is present everywhere. So it may be possible to add an ich-free fish to an ich-free tank, but one of your existing fish has been holding a dormant ich cyst for months and gets stressed when the new fish is added, so it's cyst hatches and the tank gets an outbreak. And it will appear that the ich came from the new fish but in reality it may have come from one of your healthy fish. I'm not saying this is how it always works, but this can be inferred from the article.

I think the only way to completely eliminate it (and I do think it's possible) is to incite any dormant cysts into hatching before placing a new fish in a system. I think quarantining in a hyposaline tank may do this (qt process at first stresses fish, any ich cysts hatch and die in hyposalinity, then later completely ich free fish gets added to system). But I think this would have to be done from square one.

Edit: Sorry, it was actually the following article that suggests that ich can remain in an indefinite dormant state in fishes' gills. Also the article below suggests that FW dips are a good means of treating ich, which I don't really agree with. I think the above article is a better reference for treatments and myths.

http://saltaquarium.about.com/library/blank/blichcycle.htm

[wes]

I like the article you posted before... I had thought that the gills was one of the later places crypt would attach, as that would seem to be the most detrimental. I'm also not sure on the differences between crypt and amyloodyin(?) (velvet) exactly are...

[Chad Vossen]

i dont know if i trust the 2nd link you posted, it has no posted author or References.

plus, it has information that conflicts with the first link. which does have references and an author (atj).

first link:
"Many fish collected for marine aquariums will not be carrying "Ich". Incidence of C. irritans in wild fish varies widely and may be geographically related. Some authors have found few infected fish, if any, in the areas they have examined (Puerto Rico: Bunkley-Williams and Williams, 1994; southern California: Wilkie and Gordin, 1969) . Others have found that low levels of infection are not uncommon (e.g. southern Queensland; Diggles and Lester, 1996c). Keeping multiple fish in holding tanks and at aquarium stores increases the chances of a fish carrying "Ich" parasites, but it is still possible to acquire a fish that is not infected with "Ich"."

second link:
Most (wild captured) fish carry the Cryptocaryon parasite in the their gills in the Tomont Stage 1

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i absolutly beleive that ich can be defeated with a quarantine tank and patients. for a truely ich free tank, you would acquire all your rock, inverts, corals, then remove the fish and treat them for ich (even if their healthy), and leave them out of the display for 60 days. as long as you dont add anything (never know if there is ich living in the tank you just got that frag from!), you should never have ich again.

i do believe i am ich free, however it is possible with all my trading and buying of corals and stuff, i may have reinfected my tank. fortunately my two clowns are treated well and are healthy enough to hopefully resist any ich infection.

i really hope i make sense, otherwise i just missed family guy for nothing!

[Zekester]

I did all I could and I've lost one but the other seems to be holding on, he's active and eating well......fingers crossed

[wes]

big w/c in a bare bottom can help, too. Or placing sand and removing it every couple days. Be aware that whatever system they are in is infected now, for at least a month. In such a closed system, it will come back, and as I said before, it'll be worse.

[Chad Vossen]

I did all I could and I've lost one but the other seems to be holding on, he's active and eating well......fingers crossed

if your able to toss together a quick quarantine tank, i can provide the cupramine. ill have it in the car with me, give me a call if you decide to use it or pm here if you dont need it.
i also have a copper test kit from salifert which i never really figured out how to use...
10 gal tank + 16$ topfin powerfilter + lots of waterchanges (unless you sacrifice some live rock rubble) = quick hospital tank to medicate the remainder clown.

you know what your doing, that clownfish had the best chances of survival in your care. its unfortunate things went bad so fast. hopefully the remainder will pull through.

[wes]

I've got mine in hypo right now, done a couple dips and he's seeming to respond, so here's hoping. not eating much, but eating. also a 100% w/c tonight, so hopefully that'll help. wish me luck!

[sneeze]

yeah, i still feel really bad. keep me updated

I've got mine in hypo right now, done a couple dips and he's seeming to respond, so here's hoping. not eating much, but eating. also a 100% w/c tonight, so hopefully that'll help. wish me luck!

[wes]

no problem dude, I'm not upset in the slightest. It takes a hard lesson to learn that qt and watching livestocking carefully is key to keeping marine fish healthy long term... way more involved than freshwater. Everyone's gotta learn, it's about making mistakes and really learning from them. The stress of being caught/moving can sometimes be enough to bring out a latent ich problem, so it's always a good call to qt, even if just a week.

[sneeze]

so i made the decision to pull all my fish from my tank and treat them. hypo, copper, WC's, and plenty of time. i guess i'm not looking forward to a month of 2 ten gallon tanks sitting next to my display. oh well, tis the price i pay for ignorance

[Chad Vossen]

so i made the decision to pull all my fish from my tank and treat them. hypo, copper, WC's, and plenty of time. i guess i'm not looking forward to a month of 2 ten gallon tanks sitting next to my display. oh well, tis the price i pay for ignorance

dont do hypo and copper at the same time, im sure you knew this, but just making sure.

also, a month isnt going to do anything, needs to be 60 days before the ich starves to death in the display tank. other places say something like 55 days, but whats another 5 days to make sure, vs having to do it again? if you put the fish back into the display after only a month, the ich will remain in the display, though you may not notice any outbreaks until the fish are stressed, which may be never.

as wes said above, its a hard lesson. i went through 3 16$ clownfish before i invested in a hospital tank. ever since the hospital tank, i have lost no more fish. nowdays, i will not accept new fish unless i have a hospital tank set up and running. many times have i seen a cherub angel at petco but had to refuse it because i dont have a hospital tank...

much diff than my freshwater tank, i buy fish and just toss them in the planted tank. freshwater fish dont seem to ever get sick in a planted tank and when their fed frozen food! they just get super fat, and breed a bunch.

[Chad Vossen]

I've got mine in hypo right now, done a couple dips and he's seeming to respond, so here's hoping. not eating much, but eating. also a 100% w/c tonight, so hopefully that'll help. wish me luck!

stemming from my experience with freshwater, 100% water change can sometimes be stressful for the fish too. im confident you matched temp so i dont think there is any problem. if your doing hypo, why did you do a 100% water change?

[wes]

they just get super fat, and breed a bunch.

man, I wish this was my life... (or is it?)

I also wish I only lost 3 clownfish to ich... I had an outbreak once in the beginning and lost a clownfish and damsel, then about a year later, another one when everyone got stressed that knocked off many of my favorites... ie, my avatar. *sigh* it takes patience and mindfullness to do so many things correctly.

[Chad Vossen]

man, I wish this was my life... (or is it?)

I also wish I only lost 3 clownfish to ich... I had an outbreak once in the beginning and lost a clownfish and damsel, then about a year later, another one when everyone got stressed that knocked off many of my favorites... ie, my avatar. *sigh* it takes patience and mindfulness to do so many things correctly.

a trait of any successful reefkeeper is patience. nothing good ever happens fast. its only the bad things that happen fast.

most of my "non-reef-keeper" friends have mentioned to me that im the most laid back person, and that im always so calm. one of my lady friends took me with her when she went shopping for baby cloths, she was surprised that after 2 hours, i didn't complain at all.