Ick in my FOWLR!

[Rychek]

I've got a 55 gal FOWLR (hopefully will be a reef in the not too distant future) that has been infested with ick. The tank is home to the following fish:

Sm. Powder-Blue Tang (I know, tank is too small. I've got a 90 gal that just needs drilling before I migrate everything)
Lg. Mandarin (I've got a Aquafuge just for his dietary needs)
2 Sm-med O. Clowns.
Sm. Sailfin (lawnmower) Blenny
Med-lg. Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (has worked wonders already)
Sm. Emerald Crab
Snails and red legged hermits.

I have a 20 gal quarantine tank, but I'm very hesitant to put all of my fish in such a small QT, especially the tang. All of the fish are eating well and full of vigor. I've been providing spirulina enriched frozen brine, mysis shrimp, blood worms, formula 1 and 2 pellets and Nori.

My main concern is my QT. Would it be a bad idea to put the clowns, blenny and mandarin in a 20 gal tank for a few weeks of treatment? What should I do with the tang? I'm tempted to sell it if anyone would be willing to buy a tang with ick (but otherwise healthy).

I'm off to bed for the evening (morning comes too soon on Mondays), so I won't be responding tonight, but thanks in advance for your constructive comments/suggestions. :)

P.S. I'll post water parms tomorrow after work.

[Kristy]

Mandarins have a protective slime on their body that help keep them from contracting ich, but they are very sensitive to any "treatment" medications and will die from them. If you do decide on the QT, leave the mandarin in the main tank.

If everyone is eating well, as you mentioned, you may be able to ride this one out, just feed as often as you can. Some believe soaking the food in garlic to be a miracle cure to ich, supposed to stimulate better appetite, so it certainly canot hurt. We put in a UV sterilizer and never saw ich again.

[Rychek]

I'm inclined to attempt riding it out. Once the initial outbreak is suppressed, will pristine water and low stress keep the fish from relapsing?

If I leave the mandarin in the display, I won't be able to completely eradicate the ick by "fallowing" the tank. It looks like a UV would be useful.

[Bill S]

Try doing a search on Ich. Erik did a good writeup on it. General consensus of the experienced folks is just keep feeding them, keep the water parms in good shape. The jury is out on garlic, but it won't hurt.

[BA]

even thought it might not have prevented it, a UV would deff be a good idea for a future upgrade

[Bill S]

I just removed my UV from my system...

[Rychek]

What is the rating on your UV?

[second_decimal]

if you are unable to get the ich under control, this might help.
http://www.aquariumspecialty.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=284&products_id=1613
i have heard very good things about garlic as well. the uv light is a definite plus. ich can be brought under control but dont let it get out of hand. due to the cyclic nature of ich, you may notice everything getting better, only to have it break out even worse. you should be able to dose the main tank. it will keep the stress level lower than moving everyone to qt.

[Bill S]

Just a personal opinion - I wouldn't add that to my tank on a bet.

[tropicana]

I had Ick on my Yellow Tang, and Lionfish at one point. I Freshwater dipped each for 12mins, also, fed with garlic juice, and bought a UV light (18w on a 55g) It might take a little bit but once its gone, the UV usually helps keep it from breaking out again, even under stress. Keep feeding LOTS AND LOTS of green to the tang, as thats its natural food and it will eradicate him of ick if eating tons of greens. Try to feed as little as possible of frozen foods, as the meaty foods for the tang is like cake for your kids.

*edit* Also Dont add ANYTHING to your Display tank!

[Bill S]

Hmm. Where did you hear/read that frozen foods are bad for tangs?

Personally, I would never FW dip a fish for Ich. It's my PERSONAL OPINION (and I may be wrong...) that dips (and the catching process) just stress out a fish even more.

I just removed my UV unit from my system - it certainly doesn't keep my 6 year old blue hippo from getting Ich every time it freaks out - which is about once a month or 2.

I don't feed garlic unless I have a fish that isn't eating - I use to tempt a fish to eat, but that's all.

[second_decimal]

perhaps i should not really partake in this conversation. i dont mean this i a bad way, but if you have ick that "freaks out" every month or so, you have a problem.
my understanding is that this is a fowlr tank not a reef (even if it was though), dosing in the tank should be fine. if you check out the rest of the website that the link came from you would notice that unlike marine depot or others, these people have items that are for serious hobbists only (since i can only assume that a casual hobbiest would not spend 2000 on a skimmer) nor would they be able to properly dose zeovit etc. etc. if they offer a medication that is reef safe, you can be assured it is. freshwater dips are terrible, even though they may work, they only do so if the fish doesnt die in the process. what ever route you choose to go, good luck.

[Bill S]

Ich treatments are and will continue to be debated. If you wish, you are free to come and visit my systems and tell me what I'm doing wrong. My hippo that I've had for about 6 years is psycho. Great fish, with a great personality, but any change to his/her environment freaks it out. The result is generally a minor outbreak of Ich - almost exclusively isolated to this fish (every once in a while, another of my tangs might have a few spots - but very minor if at all). I've tried running UV, but what the heck, it's a big system and there's NO WAY it can be completely eliminated.

In my over 35 years of experience in this hobby - from the very beginning ages when every tank was treated with copper as a matter of maintenance - it's been my very limited experience that Ich is a pest, and not much more. Well fed fish, in high quality water, with little stress in their environment will nearly always recover on their own. Without dips, treatments, garlic, etc. Again, jmo/experience.

Yes, I had read the info on the product before posting AND I'm familiar with the website. With any additive/medication, there's always SOME side effect(s). Have you successfully used this product? If so, why not relate your experience with it? You recommend a product, yet we know nothing about you or your experience...

BTW, welcome to MAAST.

[second_decimal]

Ich treatments are and will continue to be debated. If you wish, you are free to come and visit my systems and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

didnt say you where doing anything wrong.. i said you have a problem.


My hippo that I've had for about 6 years is psycho. Great fish, with a great personality, but any change to his/her environment freaks it out. The result is generally a minor outbreak of Ich - almost exclusively isolated to this fish (every once in a
while, another of my tangs might have a few spots - but very minor if at all). I've tried running UV, but what the heck, it's a big system and there's NO WAY it can be completely eliminated.

indeed ich is ever present.



In my over 35 years of experience in this hobby - from the very beginning ages when every tank was treated with copper as a matter of maintenance - it's been my very limited experience that Ich is a pest, and not much more. Well fed fish, in high quality water, with little stress in their environment will nearly always recover on their own. Without dips, treatments, garlic, etc. Again, jmo/experience.

i dont have 35 years experience i guess my first sw tank was started about 20yrs ago. but regardless, you are 100% correct.



Yes, I had read the info on the product before posting AND I'm familiar with the website. With any additive/medication, there's always SOME side effect(s). Have you successfully used this product? If so, why not relate your experience with it? You recommend a product, yet we know nothing about you or your experience...[QUOTE]


i have not used this product and, in this case, only considered the source. have you had some negative experience with this product that you would dismiss it? what i said " if you are unable to get the ich under control, this might help." still holds true. i did not make a recommendation (which i would not do since i have not used it) nor did i present it as a foolproof solution. it is an option though and a very viable one at that. if i was going to use a medication, i would dose this. (thats an opinion, not a recomendation) i would research it further (like i do almost everything) and weight the risks, which, in an fowlr tank should be minimal.

lets be clear here, i was only offering options. instead of considering that options indeed exist, it was met with

[QUOTE=bstreep;593617]I wouldn't add that to my tank on a bet.

hence my reply that perhaps i should not partake in this conversation.




BTW, welcome to MAAST.

thank you i may just stay :)

[Bill S]

OK, if you've been in this for 20 years, how many Ich "cures" have you seen come and go?

I spent a little more time searching on the Medic product and... well, let's just say there aren't a lot of folks saing good things. The best I could find was: "for the same $40, I bought a quarantine tank, heater and light from Petco"! An email from the company was posted, and the best they could say was that it might "help control" but not cure a current outbreak. And, if you GAVE it to me, I STILL wouldn't put it in my tank... The adage: "don't dose what you can't test for" still applies.

[second_decimal]

lol i guess your right. i was just reading that same email. just goes to show you.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/vendion/1ptgno.gif always research before... not afterwards.

[bigmoe21]

blue tangs are so weird...look nice but are just so scared of everything

[Bill S]

Also, while searching, found a LOT of info on UV. Consensus - that means most, but not everyone - believes UV won't prevent Ich. You just plain CAN'T kill them all - and it only takes a few survivors...

I'm a molecular geneticist by education. I remember a friend doing a study on a toxic plant from Africa - a fairly common household plant popular a few years ago (looks like green sticks growing, no leaves). It was used for poison darts. He did some dilution studies on it. Diluted 1 drop to a liter (20,000 to 1), diluted it again, and then once again. That's 8 to the 12th power. Killed a goldfish in less than 10 seconds.

[second_decimal]

fish can develop an immunity to ich (probably the case in your tank bill) i found some info on that here http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1330102

[Richard]

That product is just an oxidizer. Cleans up the water a bit and maybe the fish get over it. The risk with oxidizers is that you dose too much and kill some things. There is no magic oxidizer that knows only to oxidize bad protozoans. You can do the same thing with potassium permanganate which would cost alot less. Even cheaper would be hydrogen peroxide or even bleach. Just better get the dosage right. I'm not recommeding any of those just pointing out that you don't have to spend $35 for an simple oxidizer. But putting a little in a bottle and selling it for $35 is a good idea LOL.

Steven Pro wrote a nice two part article on treatment options some time ago. Part two covers the options normally recommended in forum land. MIght be helpful to put the articles in the library forum if you can get permission or at least make a sticky with the links to the articles.

PART 1 (http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php)
PART II (http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.php)

[Bill S]

Interesting post, Richard. We DO need to see if we can make it a "sticky". BTW, didn't you and Mark dip fish - especially CBB - for flukes?

Back to my hippo - when I say he/she gets regular outbreaks, these ARE minor - and the fish eats just fine. Only rarely do any of my others have ANY spots - if they do, it's just 1 or 2. The hippo will have 10 or so on each side. Interestingly from Steven's article, the hippo sleeps in the SAME place every night...

[Richard]

Interesting post, Richard. We DO need to see if we can make it a "sticky". BTW, didn't you and Mark dip fish - especially CBB - for flukes?

We put just about all fish in fw for 15 minutes upon arrival. Not a single shipment where I couldn't find various types of flukes and parasitic copepods/isopods in the dip water afterward. Most of these types of parasites are not easily visible and they usually don't become so much of a problem that they kill the fish but they are a stressor that can cause the fish to be more susceptible or have more problems overcoming to ich.

Unlike Steven Pro I do not recommend fw dips to treat ich. They have not been a very reliable way to treat it IME. FW dips are part of my standard acclimation though. In most of the negative experiences I've heard of the fw dip was either not done correctly, not done long enough (most people do 1 or 2 minutes which is pointless IMO), or done as a last resort. The problem with doing them as a last resort is the fish is already very weak & stressed so they're not going to handle it very well. I use fw dips as a first resort (kind of like a preventative) when they are strong and they can handle the fw dip without a problem. I've fw dipped a fair number of fish (maybe a couple thousand, not sure really) in this way, never lost one from it.

Quarantining is of course the best option as far as keeping ich out of the display so you never have to deal with it there. That presents some problems too especially with bigger tanks. I'll use you for an example Bill, if you would have quarantined everything (fish & coral & rock) in your 215 for no less than 4 weeks how long would it have taken to get your tank stocked?

[Bill S]

Richard, re-read the dip part of the article. Steven does NOT recommend FW dipping for treatment - ONLY for new fish.

Yes, quarantining would have been a beast. Actually, it probably wouldn't have been feasible, as I have a bunch of tangs, and wanted most of them added at the same time. I have a 55, but putting a bunch of new tangs into a 55 would have been like WWIII.

Still, I'd like it better if I didn't have occasional minor outbreaks. That being said, I don't have plans to add any more big fish to the tank, and just a couple of weeks ago I re-aquascaped 1/2 the tank and I like it a LOT! Those are the triggers...

[Richard]

Oh thanks for pointing that out. I had read the first couple sentences and then moved on since I thought he was saying something contrary to what my experience has been. Should have read the whole thing. His experience is pretty much exactly the same as mine.

BTW, I got the advice on FW dips on new fish from the former owner of Aquarium Sales & Service. They were THE sw shop in SA for around 20 yrs. I would guess he has done it on tens of thousands of fish.

[Rychek]

I think "aquascaping" was what really set my tang off. My intent wasn't to aquascape though. I was trying to catch the mandarin. :rolleyes:

So far all of my surviving fish are eating well. Those that were showing signs of ich are showing improvements as well. The only digression I've noticed it that my lawnmower blenny has started flashing. I haven't noticed any spots though.

Thanks for the links and discussion everyone. This thread is proving immensely helpful. :)

[Rychek]

Update...

Due to digressions in the ICH batte I moved all of my fish (tang, 2 O. clowns, mandarin and blenny) to a 20 gal quarantine tank. the first day went well and the fish were looking good, but I woke up this morning to find all but the blenny dead. I didn't have time to do any testing, but I'll do that when I get home. More info to come...

[BA]

wow sorry to hear that :(

[Rychek]

I think my fish suffocated. I think it was a matter of too many fish with ICH (less effective gill function) in a small tank with insufficient aeration. I'm inclined to think this because the blenny was breathing rapidly when I found the other fish dead. I added a Maxi-Jet and opened the air valve most of the way then went to work. When I got home, the blenny was breathing normally. Also, the dead fish had their gills splayed out like they weren't getting enough oxygen.

[SKNR]

Rychek, I am sorry to hear that.

[Richard]

Sorry to hear that. It does sound like insufficient aeration.

Just for future reference, one really good and cheap way to provide lots of aeration is a cheap air pump and some rigid airline (no airstone). That will keep the surface churning and provide lots of gas exchange.