Questions about ICH

[optimisticdingo]

So I'm a novice aquarist and have just encountered my first case of ICH. I don't currently have a quarantine setup so it looks like I'm going to have to go into ICH Management mode. I've seen many people say that if you just keep your fish healthy and happy that you shouldn't have problems with ICH flare-ups and it manages the disease. Others seem to think that you've got to eradicate ICH otherwise it will still live in your aquarium. In order to do that you've gotta go without fish for like 3 months in order to kill the parasite. Here is my question. If your fish stay happy and healthy and the ICH doesn't have anything to host to wouldn't that also kill them without having to remove fish from the tank? Or do the ICH still eat on your fish but they just don't cause the cysts to form on the fish because they're able to fight them off? I feel like I'm missing something here

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Ich management is just running a tank with fish that carry some parasites, but due to a variety of factors, the disease doesn’t progress to the exponential growth phase. These factors include: pristine water, great nutrition, immunity of the fish, siphoning tomonts out of the tank, UV and maybe other factors.
At any point, you can lose control. Then the number of infective theronts climbs and what is termed propagule pressure takes over - the fish get flooded with parasites and the management fails.
Jay

 

[IKD]

This may help

Ich eradication vs. Ich management

Ich eradication vs. Ich management The purpose of this article is to discuss the pros & cons of ich eradication and ich management, and present the best methods for implementing each. Ich eradication - Simply put, this method means doing everything possible to keep ich out of your tank. That...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[optimisticdingo]

Ich management is just running a tank with fish that carry some parasites, but due to a variety of factors, the disease doesn’t progress to the exponential growth phase. These factors include: pristine water, great nutrition, immunity of the fish, siphoning tomonts out of the tank, UV and maybe other factors.
At any point, you can lose control. Then the number of infective theronts climbs and what is termed propagule pressure takes over - the fish get flooded with parasites and the management fails.
Jay

What would you suggest in my situation? This is my first reef tank. I currently have to QT set up and just have one fish with ICH so far. It doesn't seem to have spread yet. I can get a QT set up but I'm afraid by the time it cycles the ICH will have already fallen off and reproduced. I'd dose the tank but have about as much money invested in coral as I do fish. So I'm conflicted. I can just let the ICH run its course and hope for the best, or medicate and kill my coral.

 

[Macbalacano]

What would you suggest in my situation? This is my first reef tank. I currently have to QT set up and just have one fish with ICH so far. It doesn't seem to have spread yet. I can get a QT set up but I'm afraid by the time it cycles the ICH will have already fallen off and reproduced. I'd dose the tank but have about as much money invested in coral as I do fish. So I'm conflicted. I can just let the ICH run its course and hope for the best, or medicate and kill my coral.

To me, you have to choose 1 route out of the 2 possible routes and go all-in to maximize your chances of success.

Its pretty simple, you pull all the fish out of your display and put them in quarantine and treat them, and do not put any fish in the tank for 76 days.

OR

You try the ich management route where you try to keep your fish as healthy as possible. The Ich will not ever disappear from the tank. The cycle will just continue forever. Your fish could have ich but not show much of symptoms. The issue with this is, once there is some sort of "stressor" event of any kind, and the fish's immune system lowers, they might not be able to fight the ich anymore and they could succomb to it (or any other disease for that matter really).

There's lots of discussion on this forum about ich/disease management instead versus full QT. Up to you to weigh the risks/pros/cons and determine what you are comfortable with.

 

[Bepis]

What would you suggest in my situation? This is my first reef tank. I currently have to QT set up and just have one fish with ICH so far. It doesn't seem to have spread yet. I can get a QT set up but I'm afraid by the time it cycles the ICH will have already fallen off and reproduced. I'd dose the tank but have about as much money invested in coral as I do fish. So I'm conflicted. I can just let the ICH run its course and hope for the best, or medicate and kill my coral.

Gotta get that qt set up. Could pull the fish out and do a freshwater dip, although that won’t kill ich that’s under the skin but may alleviate some stress. I had three ich wipeouts in my tank. Ich management ALWAYS fell threw

 

[Bepis]

To me, you have to choose 1 route out of the 2 possible routes and go all-in to maximize your chances of success.

Its pretty simple, you pull all the fish out of your display and put them in quarantine and treat them, and do not put any fish in the tank for 76 days.

OR

You try the ich management route where you try to keep your fish as healthy as possible. The Ich will not ever disappear from the tank. The cycle will just continue forever. Your fish could have ich but not show much of symptoms. The issue with this is, once there is some sort of "stressor" event of any kind, and the fish's immune system lowers, they might not be able to fight the ich anymore and they could succomb to it (or any other disease for that matter really).

There's lots of discussion on this forum about ich/disease management instead versus full QT. Up to you to weigh the risks/pros/cons and determine what you are comfortable with.

Problem with management is that as soon as your tanks is unstable your fish die whether it’s the summer and your tank heats up to 83 degrees, you do a waterchange and your parameters go wacky, or even if you overdose a little bit

 

[Macbalacano]

Problem with management is that as soon as your tanks is unstable your fish die whether it’s the summer and your tank heats up to 83 degrees, you do a waterchange and your parameters go wacky, or even if you overdose a little bit

Exactly the kind of stressor events I was talking about!

 

[Sam816]

If @optimisticdingo is not very comfortable with taking all the fish out and going fallow then you can take your corals( with rock where needed) out to the QT & treat the main DT. You have to be extra sure that the meds are out of the system before bringing your corals back though.

 

[Macbalacano]

If @optimisticdingo is not very comfortable with taking all the fish out and going fallow then you can take your corals( with rock where needed) out to the QT & treat the main DT. You have to be extra sure that the meds are out of the system before bringing your corals back though.

Personally, I would not recommend this for the following reasons:

- If using copper, pretty much everything in a Display will absorb it and leach it out later to poison future livestock
- Stressing out everything else in the tank, including the fish
- You will need to remove/stop other chemical/mechanical filtration in the Display
- I just think its much more work overall

 

[Sharkbait19]

I tried management and failed. I lost all my fish. Now, I have a QT always at the ready.

 

[Sam816]

Personally, I would not recommend this for the following reasons:

- If using copper, pretty much everything in a Display will absorb it and leach it out later to poison future livestock
- Stressing out everything else in the tank, including the fish
- You will need to remove/stop other chemical/mechanical filtration in the Display
- I just think its much more work overall

surely its too much work. but I reckon given a choice between 'doing a lot of work' and 'staring at an fishless tank for 76 days' almost every one will chose the former.
also, i think catching and moving fish to a relatively smaller tank will alleviate the stress. corals handle such a transition much better and can still thrive in smaller tank.

 

[Sam816]

I tried management and failed. I lost all my fish. Now, I have a QT always at the ready.

put some mollies(if u haven't already) in it to keep the filtration media active

 

[optimisticdingo]

My friend has a small 10 gallon QT he's gonna let me borrow. I'm gonna take some of my live rock from my DT and put it in there to help with filtration and bacteria. I bought some ICH-X and am going to attempt to catch my Coral Beauty with ICH and keep her in QT for a few weeks and treat her with ICH-X. After that, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. I know that ICH is already in the system since my Coral Beauty has had a flare-up but I don't think I can house all of my fish in a 10 gallon QT for 2 months.

These are the fish I'm currently housing in my 40-gallon breeder

• Coral Beauty Angelfish (Sick)
• Ocellaris Clownfish
• Red-Eye Wrasse
• 3 Bangai Cardinalfish

I don't really wanna build a larger QT as I don't really have anywhere to put it in my house so I'm thinking this is the best option

 

[Macbalacano]

My friend has a small 10 gallon QT he's gonna let me borrow. I'm gonna take some of my live rock from my DT and put it in there to help with filtration and bacteria. I bought some ICH-X and am going to attempt to catch my Coral Beauty with ICH and keep her in QT for a few weeks and treat her with ICH-X. After that, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. I know that ICH is already in the system since my Coral Beauty has had a flare-up but I don't think I can house all of my fish in a 10 gallon QT for 2 months.

These are the fish I'm currently housing in my 40-gallon breeder

• Coral Beauty Angelfish (Sick)
• Ocellaris Clownfish
• Red-Eye Wrasse
• 3 Bangai Cardinalfish

I don't really wanna build a larger QT as I don't really have anywhere to put it in my house so I'm thinking this is the best option

Very good instructions on here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ich-eradication-vs-ich-management.188775/

 

[Jay Hemdal]

What would you suggest in my situation? This is my first reef tank. I currently have to QT set up and just have one fish with ICH so far. It doesn't seem to have spread yet. I can get a QT set up but I'm afraid by the time it cycles the ICH will have already fallen off and reproduced. I'd dose the tank but have about as much money invested in coral as I do fish. So I'm conflicted. I can just let the ICH run its course and hope for the best, or medicate and kill my coral.

If you could post pictures of your fish with ich, I could get some idea as to what stage the infection is at.

Personally, I ALWAYS opt for eradication, full quarantine. Remember, ich is just one possible parasite. There is a fluke known as Neobenedenia - there is no management for that, just one egg in your tank and you can get a full blown infection. Quarantine also screens for other protozoans, and allows the fish to acclimate to life under your care.

Jay

 

[optimisticdingo]

So I figured I would share a bit of an update to my ICH Situation. I got a 10 gallon QT tank set up but have been unable to catch all of the infected fish. We caught the coral beauty angel very easily, unfortunately, the infection was too far and she passed away after 1 day in QT. The Red Eye Fairy Wrasse was unable to be caught. She was too fast and too smart for us so we attempted to trap her to no avail. All of the ICH had fallen off of her so we thought she might be fine. However, today she is completely covered in ICH from head to tailfin, but still seems to be acting fine. I figure she's got a few more days before she passes. The infection has spread to other fish at this point. My lawnmower blenny died today as a result.

Without being able to catch the fairy wrasse I've made the tough decision to let the parasite run its course. I'm removing the fish that are currently unaffected, and easy to catch, to the 10 gallon QT tank and medicating them. All of the infected fish are going to stay in the DT until they pass. The DT will then remain fallow for a few months to allow the ICH to die while the remaining fish stay in the QT. All I can say is that this whole thing really blows. Not sure what exactly caused our fish to get stressed out to the point of ICH but we can only hope to do better next time. We will be incorporating a full 2 week QT for all new fish coming in with copper medication in the water to remove any parasites before adding to the DT. We've learned our lesson, unfortunately, we learned it the hard way.

 

[IKD]

So I figured I would share a bit of an update to my ICH Situation. I got a 10 gallon QT tank set up but have been unable to catch all of the infected fish. We caught the coral beauty angel very easily, unfortunately, the infection was too far and she passed away after 1 day in QT. The Red Eye Fairy Wrasse was unable to be caught. She was too fast and too smart for us so we attempted to trap her to no avail. All of the ICH had fallen off of her so we thought she might be fine. However, today she is completely covered in ICH from head to tailfin, but still seems to be acting fine. I figure she's got a few more days before she passes. The infection has spread to other fish at this point. My lawnmower blenny died today as a result.

Without being able to catch the fairy wrasse I've made the tough decision to let the parasite run its course. I'm removing the fish that are currently unaffected, and easy to catch, to the 10 gallon QT tank and medicating them. All of the infected fish are going to stay in the DT until they pass. The DT will then remain fallow for a few months to allow the ICH to die while the remaining fish stay in the QT. All I can say is that this whole thing really blows. Not sure what exactly caused our fish to get stressed out to the point of ICH but we can only hope to do better next time. We will be incorporating a full 2 week QT for all new fish coming in with copper medication in the water to remove any parasites before adding to the DT. We've learned our lesson, unfortunately, we learned it the hard way.

Sorry for the rough ride you’ve had (and will have for a bit). Sounds like you’re doing the right steps as you can. Definitely read up on the ich lifecycle which will explain the disappearance and reappearance of it on your fish.
Stress may allow ich to take a stronger foothold, but it wouldn’t cause ich to appear. It was carried into your tank at some point but going fallow for 76+ days will give you confidence it is out of your tank.
Best of luck and stick with it!

 

[optimisticdingo]

Sorry for the rough ride you’ve had (and will have for a bit). Sounds like you’re doing the right steps as you can. Definitely read up on the ich lifecycle which will explain the disappearance and reappearance of it on your fish.
Stress may allow ich to take a stronger foothold, but it wouldn’t cause ich to appear. It was carried into your tank at some point but going fallow for 76+ days will give you confidence it is out of your tank.
Best of luck and stick with it!

It's been really frustrating. Our corals have been doing great but our fish have just had problems. We bought a Blue-Headed Fairy Wrasse and he somehow thought it was a good idea to perch on our heater and ended up burning his gills. Then, we got our first Coral Beauty Angel and a Firefish. Both were swiftly killed by a rogue emerald crab that somehow took a liking to fish, even though there was plenty of algae in the tank to clean up. Once we restocked from that incident, we had the ICH outbreak. It's just been one thing after the other. Our water parameters have stayed consistent throughout but we've just been having crazy problems.

However, the bright side is that we've started seeing Coraline algae growth, our Hammer Coral and Frogspawn have really taken off, our Zoanthids are starting to spread to neighboring rocks, my Ricordea mushroom has split for the first time after 2 months in the tank, My candy cane corals are starting to slowly sprout new heads after only a few weeks in the tank, My Palythoas are open and looking good, my Acan has significantly grown in size, my Fox coral has doubled in size, and my velvet mushrooms have started to spread as well. My coral game is on point, now if I can just get the fish to survive I'd be in good shape.

 

[Sharkbait19]

In my experience, the most difficult part of fish is ensuring they're parasite and disease free. Corals seem to actually be more forgiving to pests. That is especially hard in SW tanks because many specimens are directly from the ocean.
Good luck. Sorry for your losses. I know the feeling, it's tough. But in time, you'll have some healthy and happy fish.