Fish have ich

lyscer · Aug 3, 2015

so I just lost a fish and I wasn't sure what it was but now 2 of my other fish have tiny white spots on them. I am going to try and fire up a hospital tank tomorrow. I ran out of salt on Saturday and bought a new bucket from Amazon but it is in transit so I have to go to the LFS tomorrow and buy some salt water to replenish what I take out of my tank.

Going to fill it with water from th DT
#1 going to put my filter sock in there from the DT been in the DT for 4 days (longest thing I have)
The tank I have for qt is a 29 gallon bow front I am hoping this will accommodate my fish
-- davinci clown
-- Flame Angel
-- Hifin goby
-- Blue Chromis
-- Small Hippo Tang
#2 - Aquaclear hob filter that I am going to use for oxygenation of the water
#3 - 250 w heater (scary big) for this but it is what I have extra at the moment
#4 - Maxijet 900 for water circulation within the tank
#5 - 1.5" pvc elbows and a couple of 3/4" couplers
#6 - Sticky thermometer
#7 - Bought some Kordon Rid-Ich Plus (all petco) had. I just placed an order on amazon tonight for a bunch of meds (can be found in my other thread) but this stuff looks like it will be a good start.
#8 - Picking up an ammonia badge tomorrow; Petco didn't have any and my go to store is closed on Mondays

Anything I am missing or overlooking? I would really hate to kill all my fish. I plan on following the prescribed treatment on the #7 item and then letting my DT tank be fish-less for 60 days.

Can the banded pistol shrimp carry ich as well? I know that you aren't suppose to treat inverts, I am just wondering if I need to put him in a separate tank on his own to make sure that I do this properly.

Joeganja · Aug 4, 2015

Invertebrates don't get Ich. ]Remove the fish and place in a quarantine tank. Do not add any sand but do add live or dry for the fish to hide in. Place a heater and keep the temperature at 80 degrees farenheight. Keep the lights on a low and only feed garlic added foods or soak frozen food with Garlic Xtreme by Kent Marine or Garlic Guard by Seachem. I reccomend using Copper Power as the medicine to treat ich as it works well and I've had great success especially with Tangs. Run good flow and don't use any carbon or activated carbon in the filter for the quarantine. I reccomend using sponge filters or just running a pump instead of a filter. Keep the fsh fed. Keep them in the quarantine tank for about 4-8 weeks based on the health of the fish and then see if there are any ich signs remaining. After the signs are gone remain keeping the fish in quarantine for about 2 more weeks just to be on the safe side. Also lowering salinity in your quarantine to 2.018 will slow the ich process of reproducing down. However lower the salinity of your quarantine while the fish are in it. Do not lower and then add the fish. Your fish may be in shock and stress out even more if you do. If your tank is overstocked and your quarantine contains alot of fish i recommend running two quarantine tanks. Now you will have high nitrates and nitrites do to no bacteria and pollution of your quarantine that is fine just dose Stability by Seachem and always test your water quality.

NanaReefer · Aug 4, 2015

No offense intended but IMO there are several things wrong with the above suggestions.

The use of garlic has been proven to have no health benefits at all to our fish. Research it.

You're right with keeping your fish in QT for at least 8 weeks. Not 4-8 weeks. This allows your DT to fallow, thus starving out the parasite. Follow directions on medication always.

Do not lower salinity while using medication at the same time. Way to stressful on the fish! Hypo-salinity is an entirely different remedy for treating ICH. it is done very slowly over a period of several weeks. Eventually reaching a salinity of 1.008.

Your main concern in QT will be water quality. Keep extra makeup water handy. Quickest way of lowering possible ammonia & nitrate spikes.

Good luck and keep us posted [emoji2]

lyscer · Aug 4, 2015

Think I will have a tank crash with no fish in it for 8 weeks?

NanaReefer · Aug 4, 2015

No, not at all. Just keep up with regular maintenance if you have corals.

jared graves · Aug 4, 2015

lyscer said:
so I just lost a fish and I wasn't sure what it was but now 2 of my other fish have tiny white spots on them. I am going to try and fire up a hospital tank tomorrow. I ran out of salt on Saturday and bought a new bucket from Amazon but it is in transit so I have to go to the LFS tomorrow and buy some salt water to replenish what I take out of my tank.

Going to fill it with water from th DT
#1 going to put my filter sock in there from the DT been in the DT for 4 days (longest thing I have)
The tank I have for qt is a 29 gallon bow front I am hoping this will accommodate my fish
-- davinci clown
-- Flame Angel
-- Hifin goby
-- Blue Chromis
-- Small Hippo Tang
#2 - Aquaclear hob filter that I am going to use for oxygenation of the water
#3 - 250 w heater (scary big) for this but it is what I have extra at the moment
#4 - Maxijet 900 for water circulation within the tank
#5 - 1.5" pvc elbows and a couple of 3/4" couplers
#6 - Sticky thermometer
#7 - Bought some Kordon Rid-Ich Plus (all petco) had. I just placed an order on amazon tonight for a bunch of meds (can be found in my other thread) but this stuff looks like it will be a good start.
#8 - Picking up an ammonia badge tomorrow; Petco didn't have any and my go to store is closed on Mondays

Anything I am missing or overlooking? I would really hate to kill all my fish. I plan on following the prescribed treatment on the #7 item and then letting my DT tank be fish-less for 60 days.

Can the banded pistol shrimp carry ich as well? I know that you aren't suppose to treat inverts, I am just wondering if I need to put him in a separate tank on his own to make sure that I do this properly.

add ginger look it up. its not an exact science but it killed the ich in my tank with little to no ill effects

NanaReefer · Aug 4, 2015

jared graves said:
add ginger look it up. its not an exact science but it killed the ich in my tank with little to no ill effects

Like with garlic this has NOT been scientifically proven to be the case. Please read: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.htm

lyscer · Aug 4, 2015

The guy at the LFS told me that I could just treat with 1/2 dose of prazipro in my DT (to treat ich). and that my fish would surely die if I put all of them in a 29 gallon tank and I would be better off treating in the DT. He also told me that my tank would crash if I let it go the 8 weeks with no fish. I am going to go with the advice given here that Prazipro does not treat ich and that I should treat in a quarantine tank so that my tank can let ich fill its course.

Here is a picture of my Quarantine tank that I just got setup tonight. I am currently mixing the water to replace the DT water that I fill it with. I will try to catch my fish tomorrow and will start putting them into Quarantine because my blue tang has a significant amount of white spots and my DT lights are out for the night and all the fish are in hiding.

I still need to put my powerhead and pvc pipes in the tank for the fish to hide in.

sawdonkey · Aug 5, 2015

Your fish should be fin with that QT. However, you need to act quickly. The longer you wait, the worse your chances to get these fish to live. Get that thing running and get those fish in there with copper. I prefer cupramine. You will need a copper test kit. Too much copper and you'll kill your fish. Too little and the ich will kill your fish.

You should plan on doing fairly big water changes every few days to keep the water quality good. You'll need to readjust the copper each time you do a date change.

Good luck. Ich is stressful, but can be beat. Like I said, you need to act fast. One day of ich ravaging a fishes body can be deadly. Don't wait.

Longnose Hawkfish · Aug 5, 2015

As long as you are keeping your water quality fine and feeding your fish they should be fine for a little bit before their condition worsens. Ich can be bad but some times the fish can survive with it. I would definitely QT your fish but I don't think time is your biggest issue. Set up everything right in the qt and then put the fish in.

Amoo · Aug 5, 2015

PraziPro - Flukes, Tapeworms, Flatworms, Turbellarians (More worms)

Even the manufacturer doesn't try to claim it treats Ich, because if they did it would be smeared all over the bottle http://www.hikariusa.com/solutions/healthaid/prazipro/

Don't worry though, they have a special med just for Ich

If you're still up, it is sometimes easier to catch fish at night as you can sneak attack them in the mostly dark.

lyscer · Aug 5, 2015

I thought about catching them at night, but they sleep deep within my rockwork which is bonded together I have a little trap that I am going to try and lure them into tomorrow. I plan on getting all of the water into the quarantine tank tonight and letting it run until the morning... I plan on starting on the water once I am done with this software release at work (yay for late night projects)

lyscer · Aug 6, 2015

I have a couple of questions on feedings. Think if I am feeding 5 fish this much food to feed daily while they are in quarantine. Should I keep some nori in there for the flameangel/hippo tang? I want to keep them fed but don't want to poison the water. I ended up going with a cupramine treatment for those that are curious.

Spar · Aug 10, 2015

most importantly when feeding in QT is to siphon out leftovers as soon as possible after. same thing with Nori, you may see leftovers floating around. you will get used to feeding only enough to not leave any remaining. cleaning up fish poop will just have to be a routine process regardless.

lyscer · Aug 13, 2015

Just wanted to give an update that the fish seem to be doing very happy. I took 3-4 days to move my cupramine level to .5 because I had 1 stragler fish in the display that I couldn't catch so I had to starve him out. So I put the cupramine level at .25 for the fish while we were waiting for the last one. Now that everyone is in the hospital we will start the 30 day timer to cure them of their parasites with cupramine. Then we will wait out the remainder of the 8 weeks to let the DT go fallow and then I will gradually add them back in with the flame angel being the last 1 to go back in.

I am worried about my black bar goby because he does not like his current living conditions. I make sure that he gets food when I feed them - but it will be interesting to see what happens as he is use to burrowing in the sand and not under pvc.

Edsel Santoni · Aug 17, 2015

Relocate the fish into a quarantine tank. Install a heater and raise the temperature from 80 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Have the salinity on the lower end of the range. Buy air stones as the heat will decrease oxygen solubility. Usually the chemicals, such as Ich+ wont work, but this treatment should do the trick. Also, quarantine all fish as some fish might have it but not visibly yet. After a while of no hosts being available, the ich will die off in the main tank.