Ich

[fishcrazy]

A week or two ago I bought a powder blue tang that looked very healthy. However, after a day or two in my tank he started to get white spots on him, ich I guess. All my other fish were fine, but then my maroon clown started showing signs of the same thing. Now the powder blue died yesterday and the maroon clown died today. I think my percula has started showing signs, is there anything I can do to stop this chain reaction???

[Ross]

Pull him out and put him in quarantine ASAP!!!! He needs to be treated with copper or hyposalinity!

[fishcrazy]

By the way, I have no quarintine tank

[Reef69]

you got PM

[fishcrazy]

I could use my ten gallon for QT, the question is, what salinity, L.R. or not, New water, main tank water or a mix of the two??

[Reef69]

No live rock...filter without carbon, no skimmer..no sand or anything..just a piece ov PVC where the fish can hide..salinity at 1.009 .. and copper..mix tank water and RO water until you reach the salinity desired..ACCLIMATE SLOWLY TO THE 1.009.

[fishcrazy]

Thanks! Will this continue to spread to other fish?

[Reef69]

Not if you get him out quick. If your other fish are healthy they will be fine.

[Instar]

Most likely it will continue to spread because its in the tank now even if you do treat a fish or two. Ick with a new tang is very normal and normally doesn't kill 2 reasonably well fed and heathy fish in a week so you should be looking at another cause/disease just in case. Cause can be as simple as temperature swings in the tank when the weather changes suddenly. Even though tangs can bring in ick, he was probably housed in with other fish at the place you got him from. Since it snagged your clowns first, I would be suspect you have oodinium or some other nasty thing until proven otherwise. It may have already been in there and the tang just triggered this event? Temperature is an issue, so it should be stable from day to night, even when the temperature swings with the weather. If it is ick, and the fish are otherwise healthy, it can be controlled by simply warming the water a little and keeping it stabile with and without the lights running. Before treating with copper, be sure the fish you are treating can take copper. It would be a good idea to get someone who knows fish diseases to take a look during a visible outbreak. They may be able to tell you for sure at that time if its ick or not.

[Kylaohhh]

I brought home a copper band that had the same issues. The easiest way to treat without quarantine is to boost the immune system. I cured mine by soaking mysis in Zoe, Zoecon and garlic and then feeding in small quantities several times a day. I took a very small container half full of tank water and then added frozen mysis. I added a few drops of each product, covered it and placed it in the fridge to thaw and absorb the vitamins and minerals. Since garlic not only attracts the fish but also acts as a natural parasite remover and immune system booster, all the fish benefit before the spread of any type of parasitic outbreak. Spoon or dropper feeding is the best method for this so you can prevent over feeding your tank. Only feed what the fish can consume before it hits the sandbed and feed them about 6-8 times a day.

Just my two cents worth.

[GaryP]

You had a maroon clown and a percula in the same tank? In the future you might want to re-think your stocking strategy. Its not a good idea to mix clowns. Diseases like Ich are often the result of environmental stress that causes a lower immune response. What surprises me is that the maroon got sick first. A maroon is more aggressive then the percula. In either case I'm sure they weren't happy being in the same tank together.

Powder Blues are very suseptible to Ich in the first place. I would almost expect it in a newly introduced fish and be prepared for it. In general, I would suggest you might need to do a little more thorough job of researching fish before making a purchase. Like all Tangs they stress pretty bad when moved but my experience has been they are worse then other tangs such as yellow and purples.

[fishcrazy]

Tried for hours to get the clowns out! NO LUCK! The tank is to big and has to much live rock. I bought some garlic and put it in the brine shimp while it thaws and feed it via an eye dropper. I'm pretty sure they will still die but I guess it's worth a try. I only had the two different clowns because I broke down my nano and needed to put my percula somewhere. They all seemed very happy. In a tank of this size the temp doesn't very much, plus I have a chiller and a heater to ensure it stays between 75-78. Will this continue to spread? Should I worry about buying any more fish, expecially tangs? I knew powder blues are more sensitive however the tank has been cycled for a few months and all corals are growing beautiful, so I took the chance, beside I didn't get a tank that size and put all this money into it just to have the same boring fish! So am I cursed for the future of this tank? People say to Quarintine a fish before putting it in a tank but if the fish has been at the store for a while and thriving in there tank, whats to say it's going to develop something like ich?? Plus who keeps a Q.T. big enough to house a tang? Q.T.'s usually don't have all the best hardware so the fish will most likely stress out more in a little unstable Q.T.

[GaryP]

The alternative is to only buy fish from an LFS that qarantines their fish. Unfortunately there is only one LFS in this area that does that. When Sales and Service was open they quarantined. Now the only ones that quarantines is CB pets. They not only quarantine but they also treat for the common parasites such as Ich with hypo and copper.

I think most tanks have some Ich in them. It comes with the territory. The trick is to keep the fish healthy and stress free so that they are resistant to it. The only outbreak of Ich I have had was due to high temps. I solved that problem with extra cooling. It sounds like you have that under control too. I guess the thing to ask is what other sources of stress do you have that could be the cause? Over stocking is one. Having 2 species of clowns in the same tank is another. Water quality issues may be another potential source of stress. You just need to evaluate your system and see what the cause may be.

[satx-94integraLS]

my understanding about ich in freshwater is it is ALWAYS in the water and you cant really do anything about it aside from keeping pristine water.

not sure if the same applies to salt, but im sure it does since we get our water from the ocean in one way or the other :)

you can run a UV sterilizer and that may help, but like i said, getting your water quality up to par will generally keep most parasites out.

/over 8 years breeding cichlids

[fishcrazy]

Thanks Gary! I think I might know the cause. I had a big anenome die in the tank not to long ago and it raised the nitrate and ammonia levels. I have since done two water changes (20%) and changed the filter every 3 days since the dealth. Will continue to test the water and wait until things are back to normal before buying any more fish.

[Ram_Puppy]

SATX, the only relation between saltwater ich (several kinds) and freshwater ich is htey look similar, (if memory serves).

Fishcrazy, do you only have one net? I find catchint these little buggers is easier if I scare them with one net and catch them with another. Also, putting th enet in aabout 15 minutes before you want to catch them seems to calm them down a bit as it becomes 'part of the scenery' so to speak.

If you can get all your fish into quarantine and let the tank run w/ out fish for 6 weeks you can hopefully break the ich cycle in your tank.

[GaryP]

There you go. When those things die they toss out all kinds of nasty toxins. If you are using those small carbon cartridges on a HOB filter, they get exhausted real quick. In that situation I would suggest pounds of carbon, not a few ounces.

Rule of thumb to most SW problems: When in doubt, suspect your water quality and I don't mean just what your test kits tell you. The test kits only scratch the surface of what is in your water. I've never seen a Salifert "anemone toxin test kit."

[GaryP]

double post.

[Ram_Puppy]

And get a good quality carbon too, you get what you pay for!

I currently use the Tri-Base carbon from CB Pets, it costs a little more, but it is very good stuff.

[Reef69]

Sean- Garlic DOES NOT CURE ICH, Thats just a myth.. You only have 2 options : Copper and Hyposalinity..

A big miskate people do is underestimate fish's immune system..they do have one and it works, LOL.. If your fish are eating and are healthy, ich wont get to them..I think ich is an oportunistic parasite that takes advantage when their immune system is down, and i strongly believe it fluctuates when they are stressed..

My best advice to you?..Buy fish that are QT-ed..CB pets do this and some other LFS will do it for you..I would go with CB pets, their fish are always eating and free of diseases.

[Richard]

my understanding about ich in freshwater is it is ALWAYS in the water and you cant really do anything about it aside from keeping pristine water.

not sure if the same applies to salt, but im sure it does since we get our water from the ocean in one way or the other


It really depends on what you define as "ich" as to whether it is always present.

Freshwater ick is short for parasite Ichthyophthirius multifilis (ich because nobody can pronounce that name). This parasite is not always present and can be erradicated entirely but their is another freshwater parasite called tetraheyma which is pretty much always present and takes advantage of the fish when it is stressed. Tetrahyema looks identical to ich unless you look at it under a microscope. If you ever had freshwater ick that was REALLY hard to get rid of and took out fish very quickly...that was probably tetrahyema.

Saltwater ick is generally defined as the parasite cryptocaryon irritans. It is not always present and can be completely erradicated with the proper use of copper, which is the only 100% effective treatment I know of. It is the marine counterpart to freshwater ick but is 100% unrelated to it and is a good example of concurrent evolution in that it looks like freshwater ick and also has almost the exact same life cycle as freshwater ick. There are several protozoans that are analogous to freshwater tetrahyema that are probably always present and produce the ick like symptoms when the fish are stressed.

Keep in mind that these are microscopic parasites so when you are looking at white spots on a fish you are not looking at the actual parasite. Instead you are seeing the fishes immune response to the parasite which is mucus production around the parasite which is embedded in the skin of the fish. This is why you might here someone say they did a fw dip and the ick was all gone but then returned the next day or two because the fw washed away the mucus making the white spots but not the actual parasite.

This is why there will always be the debate of wether ich is always present or not. People just are not necessarily talking about the same parasite. So to me it's not worth getting involved in such arguments. Also the reality is that most of us (myslef included) do not follow strict enough quarantine and often introduce cryptocaryon into our display tanks and so it will always remain in the system unless the system is kept fallow for a minimum of 4-6 weeks. In this case, we have to rely on the fishes immune system to overcome cryptocaryon which involves keeping the water quality high and feeding the fish well. It also helps NOT to introduce too many fish at one time since fish are never completley immune to cyrtocaryon. So introducing too many new fish may provide enough of a vector to overwhelm the fish that were able to resist the parasite.

Quarantining to give 100% guarantee that cryptocaryon is not present is quite difficult. You would have to qt EVERY fish under copper treatment for at least four weeks since copper only kills crypocaryon in it's free swimming stage. Hyposalinity is usually very effective but not 100% of the time. You would also have to qt every piece of coral and liverock since it is possible to bring in cryptocaryon on those too. Not real likely but possible.

Here at the store we do a brief qt on susceptible fish, use hypo and copper as needed, to reduce the odds of sending cryptocaryon and other parasites home with the fish but we can't offer a guarantee on that. Most people aren't willing to pay for that level of qt and even if they were, I'm not sure it can be done at the retail level. Probably something that has to be done at the hobbyist level.

[Richard]

Did I pull a Gary and kill the thread? LOL

[TheOtherGuy]

Very good explanations.

[GaryP]

Did I pull a Gary and kill the thread? LOL
I think so. Richard, I just try to keep the disease threads alive until you jump in.