ick attack

[kjswift]

purchased some ick attack for my problem. it is supposed to be 100% reef safe and the guy at alamo said they use it in their tanks. every thing seems fine except i got some awesome zoos from tim marvin and they have been closed since i added it to my tank. any suggestions?

[Ram_Puppy]

mmm... I think most people will agree that adding medicines to your display tank gives us all the heebejeebies...

If the zoo's are the only thing acting unhappy, and you can, I would move them to another tank if you can (being concientious of acclimation) run carbon on the water in the other tank to clean any residual trace up...

The other option (the one I would probably take (being that I over react) would to be change a nice portion of the display tanks water, run a ton of carbon, and find another way to defeat the problem.

Personal opinion, regardless of whether it is a store you trust or not, research it before you use it. Don't take some kid at a fish stores word that it was ok in their reef, every reef is different.

hope that helps, and good luck.

[BA]

i agree i would be a little worried as well......

[kjswift]

i tried to catch tang for r.allard and he ended up on his side on the bottom of tank behind some rock. he got majorly stressed out and we left him alone. i added the ick attack and it went away for 2 days, i am afraid to use it agian though. the tang is covered in ick and does not look well at all. im trying to treat him without having to take out all my rock to catch him. going to try a cleaner shrimp tommorow.

[BA]

..oh man...feel ur pain...

[Richard]

If you are talking about Herbal Ick Attack then I have been told by several people that it is reef safe. I have not used it in a reef system but I did try it in a fish only tank but it did not work. It smells like garlic plus some other spices, probably be good on brisket.

[Reef69]

well...honestly..there are only 2 ways to kill ick..cleaner shrimps dont kill it, they prevent it..nothing is really reef safe..ick atack and parasite free will raise your PH..the only thing to kill ick is copper and hyposalinity..good luck

[DeletedAccount]

Cleaner shrimp, neon gobies... MelaFix... Garlic... None of these CURE the problem, but greatly lessen it and the effects of it. Ich will be around. I think most of us have a fish or two that will break into a little ich when they get stressed or the tank gets off balance. If you can get the fish strong and happy enough it can normally fight it off by itself, with the help of the above mentioned "natural" helpers.

I would run carbon, do a water change, and then work on getting the tank stable and happy. Keep the fish eating. The Garlic helps here. A fish that won't eat will not have the energy to fight off a problem. The MelaFix may be a snake oil, but I have had GREAT luck with it. I use it anytime my critters have scratches, ich, or just look weird.

[btacker]

Do you put MelaFix in your reef tank or do you do it in a hospital tank as well?

[pilot_bell777]

I had a bad case of ICH from a Powder Blue.....learned my lesson on quarantining fish from this one. It whiped out my whole tank except for two Chromis (couldn't have killed the cheaper fish and left the expensive ones alone). I moved the Chromis to a hospital tank and treated with copper, then put them in a qt tank for about 5 or 6 weeks and let the main tank go fallow. Raised the temp a little ( to 80 and lowered the SG to 1.017) and let the tank sit fallow for as long as I kept the fish in the QT tank. My corals did fine through all this. In the hospital tank I kept the temp for the first three weeks at 83 to 84 degrees and the salinity at 1.010 and then in the last two weeks I raised the salinity and lowered the temp. The fish are back in my main tank and doing great, no signes of ICH anywhere. Just what I did and it worked, go the method off of Wet Web Meadia. I tried what my LFS said to use with my reef at first called Kick Ich and it did absolutly NOTHING but make my wallet a little lighter. Still have a half of bottle if you want it.