EMERGENCY : Urgent Help Needed : Ich in my aquarium

[Rain 625XXL]

HI guys, hope you all can direct me in the right direction. I have searched the forum buy thought I might open a new thread in case if there are new products in the market that haven't been discussed in the forum before.

I have a redsea 625 and everything was going fine for more than two months now. Never had any issue with ammonia and fish were all fine and happy. I will list live stock below.

1. 7 Cromers
2. 1 Black ice clown fish
3. Sailfin tang
4. Sand shifting yellow headed goby
5. Blenny
6. Coral goby
7. Blue tang
8. Cole tang
9. Lipstick tang
10. Yellow tang
11. 6 line wrasse

Only added the blue tang, cole and lipstick tang to the tank today and also installed a 57w UV sterilizer to the tank yesterday as advised by LFS. Everything went well and all the new fish added to the tank faced a bit of aggression from the yellow tang but within a few hours they were all swimming very happy all over the tank and even started eating quite well (blue tang eats like a pig). However, came home tonight and noticed a bit of odd behaviour from my sailfin tang. Had a close look and saw white spots all over her body. It is the same on cole tang as well. None of the other fish seem to have any white spots on them. Sailfin seems a bit stressed and breathing heavily and the cole tang is doing his usual thing gracing looking for algea.

I am extremely stressed and don't want any of this beautiful fish to die. I don't even have a QT due to space issues. Is this the end or is there anything that I can do to get through this? Any help is much appreciated. Since it is a new tank, I only have one hammer frag and no other corals. Thank you.

 

[brandon429]

All fish have to be removed


tank ran fallow for eighty days, qt fish put back, no other way. There’s no feed, bottled cure that will work, only the thing you don’t want to do will work.

nobody will adhere to the reco am aware, they’ll take garlic instead


fish lost within a month or so. Fallow, qt, only way in the fish disease forum that works so on this post, thats the same standard


we may get alternative possibilities, but they’re not being ran in the fish disease forum...that’s fallow and qt for a reason.

 

[JaaxReef]

Agreed on this. QT everything and run the tank with no fish for 76 days.

I went through the very same thing with a fish that was “Quarantined” by a popular reputable vendor online about 4 months ago. Ich showed up on the new fish about 2 days after adding that fish and it slowly spread to the rest of my tank. Never will I make the mistake of not quarantining on my own even if they claim that the fish is clean. No QT process is 100% fail proof. Putting all my fish back after QT and seeing them healthy the last 4 months has been priceless. It’s a PITA, but worth it.

Also, if they are breathing heavily upon the first sighting of the spots, it could be velvet... which kills way faster than ich. How small are the spots and how many are there? If you can’t count them, it could be velvet. Same treatment, but you would need to act fast or you will start losing fish quickly. Possibly doing a freshwater dip on the fish that are hit the hardest before adding them to QT with Copper Power at 2.5ppm will give them some relief to breathe.

 

[Rain 625XXL]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the quick response. I have taken a picture and added it here. Please let me know what you think. I am gutted that this happened straight after I told myself 'I really like the way this tank looks with the current fish seection'. Absolute love the way the blue tang swims around. I will have to read a few articles on how to setup a QT. My wife is gonna kill me. She already complaints about me spending too much time on the tank...lol

 

[JaaxReef]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the quick response. I have taken a picture and added it here. Please let me know what you think. I am gutted that this happened straight after I told myself 'I really like the way this tank looks with the current fish seection'. Absolute love the way the blue tang swims around. I will have to read a few articles on how to setup a QT. My wife is gonna kill me. She already complaints about me spending too much time on the tank...lol

I’m not the best at identifying ich vs velvet, but those dots look really small and there are a lot of them... could be velvet. Do any of the fish shimmer or look like they have a coating under 100% blue light?

Good luck with the QT process hopefully you can get it set up and grab some media from your current tank to avoid an ammonia spike. Start ramping up the Copper Power right away just in case it is velvet.

Just tell your wife it is all about the health of your animals and you don’t want to waste the money and time you have already spent.

Good luck!

 

[Rain 625XXL]

Hi Guys, thought I might add an update here.

Spent thr whole day Saturday setting up a QT. With the available space I could only fit a small tank and i went with an Aqua one Reefer 180. Got it setup and added the Sailfin tang first with the intesion of transferring all the other fish later that night.

Unfortunately, by the time I got back after running a few errands, the Sailfin was already dead and was flat on the bottom of the tank. I have transferred all other fish into the QT now after removing all the rocks from the tank. Kole tang also has spots on him bit non of the other fish got any spots on them. I guess it is just a matter of time. Hopefully copper will kill the ich before it spreads.

The copper solution that i have recommends .
0.20 copper in the tank. This is a very tiny amount and I was wondering if this is gonna be effective with the level or ich that I have atm. I have heard some using 2.5ppm copper in the tank. I dipped the kole tang in fresh RO water. Something I didn't do with the sailfin because he was already looking very stressed and was breathing heavily even in the main tank. Didn't even try to run and hide when I put the net in to grab him.

I am also dosing medic in my display tank and have also given it a good clean white all the rocks were out. Very stressful couple of days looking at all the fish go through this process.
Any help is much appreciated.

 

[JaaxReef]

So sorry you lost the sailfin. Looked like a nice beautiful mature pet.

Given the timeline (and initial impressions of photos), I would say it is velvet. Ich doesn’t kill that fast at all. Glad you at least have the rest in copper now!

Depending on the type of copper (Copper Power vs Cupramine) it is definitely a different level in the tank. So .2ppm is probably correct for the product you have.

You did the right thing catching them all and getting them in QT. If it is velvet (which I’m confident of now), it would slowly take down your entire tank one fish at a time very quickly. Hopefully the Kole Tang pulls through now that he is in copper.

Best of luck and keep us updated!

 

[Rain 625XXL]

So sorry you lost the sailfin. Looked like a nice beautiful mature pet.

Given the timeline (and initial impressions of photos), I would say it is velvet. Ich doesn’t kill that fast at all. Glad you at least have the rest in copper now!

Depending on the type of copper (Copper Power vs Cupramine) it is definitely a different level in the tank. So .2ppm is probably correct for the product you have.

You did the right thing catching them all and getting them in QT. If it is velvet (which I’m confident of now), it would slowly take down your entire tank one fish at a time very quickly. Hopefully the Kole Tang pulls through now that he is in copper.

Best of luck and keep us updated!

Thanks mate and yea, I was pretty gutted to see the little fish lying flat on the bottom of the tank lifeless. It was such a beautiful fish. I honestly thought it was going to come out of it as it was still swimming ok. Maybe the tank transfer and everything else was too much to handle in the conditions it was in.

I have attached a picture of the current setup below. I still drop a cube of frozen shrimp in the DT just to keep the cycle going. Also had to go a major water change in the QT as the ammonia was most 0.8ppm. My lfs gave me some pre cured bio media free of charge to add in the QT but what I think is, there is too much bio load in the little tank and bacteria is still probably playing catchup or the copper may have destroyed the good bacteria as well.

I am not sure if this is velvet or ich tbh. I have read a bit about the two and I can definitely count the number of spots on the fish which makes me think that this is ich. Maybe the sailfin had ich for sometime and I didn't notice. If had a very strange behaviour the few days before its death. I didn't take much notice as it was always very shy and only stayed in certain areas of the hiding behind rocks. I only noticed it having spots because it kept coming to the too of the tank for air something it hadn't done. Hopefully the kole tang pulls through. So far his breathing is normal and also eats food.

Do you think I should keep on adding medic to my DT as an extra safety measure or just let it be without adding anything?

How long should I keep the fish in the QT? Some say two weeks would do and some say at least a month. I am in no big hurry to get them out of QT but the number/type of fish i have in there with the size of my QT worries me that it might stress the fish out too much.

 

[Uncle99]

You must use the recommended dose of copper, lower amounts likely ineffective.
For fish, I treat for 20 days after the last spot gone.
For DT, I go 70ish days fallow.
I do 10% water change every second day and I vacumn up any left over food and waste to keep ammonia in check.

Nice QT man, crap, I just used an old 20g.

 

[Rain 625XXL]

You must use the recommended dose of copper, lower amounts likely ineffective.
For fish, I treat for 20 days after the last spot gone.
For DT, I go 70ish days fallow.
I do 10% water change every second day and I vacumn up any left over food and waste to keep ammonia in check.

Nice QT man, crap, I just used an old 20g.

Thanks mate. I was going to buy a smaller tank but since I have a blue tang and a few other tangs I thought I'd buy the biggest I could get for the available space. They had a few bigger tanks there that would have been ok for the space but they were way more expensive. I will eventually move this tank to the garage as I start clearing things out. Having just moved into this house we have stuff all over the place.

A longer but narrower tanks would have been ideal. I did a 50% water change yesterday as the ammonia was 0.8ppm but today I am going to do two smaller water changes one in the morning and one later at night just so that it doesn't stress the fish too much. Ammonia reading now is 0.4ppm. Fingers crossed. I dont want the fish to survive ich but die later due to ammonia poisoning.

 

[Rain 625XXL]

Also when you say 70 days for the DT, do you mean 70 days without fish or can I add the fish after 20 days and then keep dosing the tanknwith medic for the next 50 days? Cheers

 

[JaaxReef]

Thanks mate. I was going to buy a smaller tank but since I have a blue tang and a few other tangs I thought I'd buy the biggest I could get for the available space. They had a few bigger tanks there that would have been ok for the space but they were way more expensive. I will eventually move this tank to the garage as I start clearing things out. Having just moved into this house we have stuff all over the place.

A longer but narrower tanks would have been ideal. I did a 50% water change yesterday as the ammonia was 0.8ppm but today I am going to do two smaller water changes one in the morning and one later at night just so that it doesn't stress the fish too much. Ammonia reading now is 0.4ppm. Fingers crossed. I dont want the fish to survive ich but die later due to ammonia poisoning.

Sounds like you are on the right track. I agree regarding 70ish days fallow period as mentioned before. The longer you go the less chance the parasite survives. No point continuing to dose Medic to the DT.

I still think it is velvet, given how quickly it started impacting breathing based on the symptoms you mentioned and killed your fish. Usually ich takes weeks, not days, to take a fish out because of its lifecycle.

If you can find Biospira, Dr Tims One and Only, or Brightwell MicrobacterStart XLM, that would help give the bacteria some assistance.

Good luck. You will like having a QT.

 

[kartrsu]

It has been discovered by @Humblefish that if you can raise the temp to 80.6F, you can speed up the life cycle of ich and velvet such that you only need to go fallow 6 weeks, providing you have no dead spots in the tank.

 

[Rain 625XXL]

Just a little update...

My battle with ammonia has finally come to an end after 5 days. It took a whole bottle of bacteria and more than three 10%-20% water changes a day to keep the ammonia level low in the tank. Max it got upto was 0.8ppm. Also had to do a couple of 50% water changes in the first few days to keep level very low in the tank and finally this morning the battle was won and the reading was 0ppm.

Fish had a few stressful days in the tank the first few days with all the water changes,etc and lost one cromer during this whole process. It didn't have any signs of ich so I reckon it died due to stress and ammonia in the tank the first few days.

White spots on kole tang are completely gone now and even though the blue tang started getting a few spots around Tuesday, those seem to have disappeared as well. All the other fish are also doing fine but struggling in the little tank for space. Can't wait till they are back in their bigger tank. I keep them well fed and also add a couple of cubes of frozen food into the display tank daily to keep the cycle going so that I don't get another ammonia spike as soon as I add them back in the DT. I am also going to add a whole bottle of bacteria in the sump the day before I release them to the tank.

Also installed one of my mp40s from the DT in the QT as I noticed a lot of food scraps and other dirt particles floating around with nothing in the tank to stir them up to the surface to get cleaned up by the overflow. Had to dial the MP40 back down to like 10% to make things comfortable for the fish...lol

 

[Thaxxx]

Make sure you isolate your QT from your DT. Maybe put a divider between the two. Also don't use any of the equipment from your DT on the QT. That's a easy way to get cross contamination. I know the QT is medicated, but why take any chances.

 

[JaaxReef]

Just a little update...

My battle with ammonia has finally come to an end after 5 days. It took a whole bottle of bacteria and more than three 10%-20% water changes a day to keep the ammonia level low in the tank. Max it got upto was 0.8ppm. Also had to do a couple of 50% water changes in the first few days to keep level very low in the tank and finally this morning the battle was won and the reading was 0ppm.

Fish had a few stressful days in the tank the first few days with all the water changes,etc and lost one cromer during this whole process. It didn't have any signs of ich so I reckon it died due to stress and ammonia in the tank the first few days.

White spots on kole tang are completely gone now and even though the blue tang started getting a few spots around Tuesday, those seem to have disappeared as well. All the other fish are also doing fine but struggling in the little tank for space. Can't wait till they are back in their bigger tank. I keep them well fed and also add a couple of cubes of frozen food into the display tank daily to keep the cycle going so that I don't get another ammonia spike as soon as I add them back in the DT. I am also going to add a whole bottle of bacteria in the sump the day before I release them to the tank.

Also installed one of my mp40s from the DT in the QT as I noticed a lot of food scraps and other dirt particles floating around with nothing in the tank to stir them up to the surface to get cleaned up by the overflow. Had to dial the MP40 back down to like 10% to make things comfortable for the fish...lol

Glad your other fish are recovering (still sorry about the sailfin). You just have a long fallow period of fish in QT ahead of you, but I will be worth it! You saved those fish!