Ich problem, questions?

[Ron]

I bought a coral beauty Saturday and think it now has Ich. I brought him home acclimated him and put him in my qt. he had no spots at that time. With in four hours he had two spots on his cheek. He is not eating and also not flashing or breathing fast. Within four hours, those spots disappeared but now there are several more very small spots starting to appear.

10 gal tank made from water from the dt.
amm 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate about 15
phos 0
Sg 1.022
temp about 79

I have read all of the main threads on this forum and several others including the sticky here. I am confused when I read other peoples responses it Ich questions here that go something like this, "so you think you have Ich? The first thing you need to do is read the sticky. The next thing you need to do is ignore what the sticky says and do nothing but feed your fish and hope for the best, because unlike the sticky says, Ich happens".

Chose to try a copper treatment and bought what I could find on Sunday. Mardel coppersafe which is a chelated copper and an API test kit. I got home to find that the original spots were gone and decided to wait a while and see what happens. Then about four hours later started to see some new spots.

Decided to go ahead and treat with copper but when I went to test I found the test kit to be missing the color chart. I just feel good about following the box directions with out being able to test.

So I guess what I am wanting to know is what are most of you doing to a new fish in a qt? My dt has been up for six months and has a lawnmower blend two pj carsnals and two sw mollies I used to start it. None has had any problems. But I had a coral beauty in the past and it died of Ich very quickly in the dt and then infected all of my new fish from then on. So on this new build I decided to qt.

i just don't want to kill this fish or infect my main tank.

I know it was a long read. Thanks for the help!

Ron

[Regric25]

Welcome to MAAST! Good thinking on the QT tank. Let us know how the copper goes. In my bouts of ick I used to give them Focus and Metronidazole by Seachem. It worked great for me. The Metronidazole is the medication and the Focus is used to bind the medication to the food and make a paste. I also mixed in some garlic extreme. This along with lots of small feedings to help keep its appetite up should help out a lot. I chose to go this route because I am an idiot and did not quarantine and 2 tangs in my DT got ick and I had coral. Sometimes the first instinct one has when their fish catch ich is to catch it and quarantine the fish but in my experience it seems to stress out the fish even more and can make it worse. Good Luck to you.

Almost forgot to give links to the meds

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Metronidazole.html

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Focus.html

[alton]

The above post is excellent, the only thing I would add is before you put him back in your DT make sure he spends a couple of weeks in copper free water. Ich is like the Flu, caused by sickness, being around another fish that have it, and or weak immune system. I like Zoe along with garlic for building up there system. As long as they continue to eat you have a fighting chance.

[Ron]

Thanks for the replies!

Well he was covered with spots this morning, so I went ahead and used the CopperSafe per the package instructions. Didn't try to test. I'm taking that thing back since it was missing the color chart.

Nine hours later nearly all the spots are gone, but still not interested in eating, even after adding garlic.

We'll see...

[CPLHESS]

GARLIC SOMETIMES ADDS TO INTEREST IN EATING BUT ITS KINDA A FISH SPECIFIC AND PERSONALITY SPECIFIC TYPE OF THING FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND...CUPRAMINE IS THE BEST AS FROM MY EXPERIENCES...WEVE ALL LOST FISH AND HAVE ALL MADE MISTAKES.... AS FOR ME PERSONALLY I USUALLY LOWER THE SALINITY...STAGING IT OUT OF COURSE FROM THE MAIN TANK AND START WITH LOWER CUPRAMINE LEVELS AND THEN RAISE THEM...TILL DIRECTED...THEN EVEN AFTER I NOTICE NO SPOTS ...I BEGIN TO STAGE THE COPPER DOWN TILL THE READINGS ARE CLOSE TO ZERO OR ZERO...MONITOR THE FISH FOR ANOTHER FEW DAYS IF ALL SEEMS WELL I SLOWLY REACCLIMATE HIM/HER BACK TO THE HIGHER SALINITY LEVEL BEFORE REINTRODUCING TO THE MAIN...OF COURSE THIS IS JUST WHAT I PERSONALLY DO...OTHERS MAY HAVE SUCCESS WITH BETTER IDEAS...GOOD LUCK...AND AS FOR THE FEEDING THINK OF IT LIKE U ARE SICK...U LOSE UR APPETITE AS WELL...AS DO FISH...DONT OVERFEED...I USUALLY UNDERFEED WITHIN REASON...HOPE ALL GOES WELL

[Kristy]

LOL, I like you already Ron! You are so right about the "read the sticky / disregard the sticky and do what I do" comments! I know of only one person who really attempted with strictest diligence to follow the foolproof fallow tank suggested in the sticky, and he still ended up getting ich in his display tank after all those months of quarantining. I think most of us just don't have the patience to follow that advice, or else just aren't alarmed enough by ich to do so.

I've had ich in our tanks many times, usually just a very mild case of it, especially because we keep a couple of species that are notorious for getting an ich relapse whenever the slightest stressor comes along (powder blue tang in one tank and a puffer in another). We follow the "feed more to keep their strength up" advice - not really more in quantity, but more in frequency, so the overfeeding is not a concern. We also find that keeping a UV sterilizer on the tank keeps the ich outbreaks to a minimum. In a newly established tank where parameters are less stable, ich is much more of a threat than a more mature stable tank where we find it's not much of a concern. Good luck and keep us posted on how your fish do.

[kkiel02]

I completely agree with the above posts about feeding more, using the UV, etc. I used cupramine for my 100g qt. The copper, if at the appropriate level will kill the parasite once it leaves the fish.

But....Ive come to the realization that ich is going to be in my system wether I like it or not. Ive tried to rid my tank of it but it quickly popped its head back up when I reintroduced the fish after leaving the tank fishless for 8 weeks(this was not enough time). http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f184/how-long-can-ich-live-without-fish-129661.html <This is a fairly good thread to read about ich as well as the sticky on our site of course. :)

I say that first sentence in the above paragraph because I dont have the patience/time to have every coral, live rock, live sand, fish or any water from another system quarentined for the ~72 days it takes to make sure everything is completely ich free. I know Im kind of playing "russian roulette" with my tank but I've been very lucky slowly introducing fish that have been at the LFS for awhile and look very healthy. Oh and make sure they eat at the store. Anyways hope this helps and just remember this is just my experience with ich and like anything else in the hobby there are many ways to go about it. This is probably why you get so many options on what to do with ich. lol

Keep us updated...

Oh and Kristy were you talking about me? I was just curious if anyone else went through all that hassle too. haha

[Kristy]

Oh and Kristy were you talking about me? I was just curious if anyone else went through all that hassle too. haha

Yep, you're the guy! I was glad to see you chime in here. :)

[Ron]

Doing better now. We discovered that he is shy and only eats when he thinks nobody is watching. Gonna keep him in the QT for a few weeks, but i just wonder if the stress of moving to the display will cause a relapse.

Thanks for all the replies and support!
Ron

[FireWater]

It could cause extra stress, but if you still follow the care that you are currently it should be fine. Great examples of care have been posted so there is not much to add to it and you are taking the extra steps needed.

I have had fish in my tanks that are perfectly fine and then all of a sudden the ich happened, like others have said. Keep the fish and environment healthy and you should be ok after the move back to the display.

[Ron]

Everything was going great till last night. He was eating really well and looked good. Then, yesterday I guess we had a bacteria bloom of some kind. Started getting some white dusting on the glass. I did a twenty percent water change. By last night he was going down fast. Breathing heavy and panicking. Dead this morning. The water is milky white and can't see to the back glass.

Any ideas?

And thanks again everybody for the help. Maybe better luck next time.

[alton]

Did you buffer the tank with something? Sorry about your loss glad you had a QT tank so not to mess up your DT. One thing I have done with angels is before they go into QT they get acclimated to the QT tank water and then they go into fresh water where I use tap water with the chlorine taken out, temp the same as QT tank and PH for 20 minutes. It sounds very harsh but so far I have not lost a one (9 angelfish so far) that doesn't mean there will be a first but I feel much better knowing the freshwater dip kills a bunch of stuff before my fish goes into QT.