battle of the ick

[djpj001]

hello there I'm currently having an ick problem in my tank- I'm using a super concentrated garlic solution from kent to treat the tank. I've had I lot of mix reviews about ick treament solution like ick attack but some say there's no proof of these medical solutions working. Beside using a UV strylizer and performing a quatrine on specific fish that have ick. Is there anything else to fight ick in the tank. I heard using gobies is pretty good to clean the substrate from ick is that true. I would appreciate any input on this subject. For now I guess I'll keep feeding my fish with a mixture of garlic solution.

Thanks everybody

regards,
DJPJ

 

[scuba22]

I'm a fan of flagyl or similar reef - safe treatments.
it worked for me

 

[blondie323]

I hear the cleaner wras will do a good job, in fact I have to pick one up myself. I have ick for 3 weeks now and it claimed my royal gramma. I need to get it under control befor my yellow tang become a meal for my crabs. I have been treating the tank but it just won't go away. I will need to look into the garlic solution as well as i have never tryed that.

 

[lcstorc]

I would be hesitant to add any livestock to a tank where you know there is a problem.
I do however have 2 fire shrimp and a cleaner wrasse in my tank. I absolutely love to watch them clean the fish.
Be careful on the cleaner wrasse though. I have heard of a false cleaner wrasse that can be quite agressive. The mouth is apparently shaped differently with the top jaw extending out a bit more kind of like a shark's mouth.
Wish I had a true solution to offer.
Peace
Lynn

 

[cheeks69]

The only way to rid your tank of the Ick parasite is to quarantine and treat all your fish with copper or hyposalinity. Those reefsafe medications don't work, they are just not strong enough and I really don't trust any so-called reefsafe medication.

Cleaner wrasses are not recommended since they are specialized feeders and often will die of Ick themselves !

Fish often succumb to cryptocaryonosis despite the presence of biological cleaners such as cleaner shrimp or cleaner wrasse. While cleaners will exhibit their instinctual "cleaning" behaviors, do not assume that they eat trophonts, or eat them in sufficient numbers to affect a cure. "Cleaner" species of fish are also subject to infection.

Alexandra Grutter studied the stomach contents of the common cleaner wrasse or Labroides dimidiatus and found that their diet consists of gnathiid isopods, scales, copepods and non-parasitic copepods (Grutter, 2000). Cryptocaryon irritans was not found in the stomach contents indicating that it is not a part of their diet.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2004/mini4.htm

 

[Woodstock]

Great info Robert!

 

[lcstorc]

Great info!
Thanks
Still love watching my cleaner wrass and fire shrimp cleaning the fish though and mine eat every type of food I feed the rest of the fish as well. In fact my cleaner wrasse is the first one at the nori when I put some in the tank.


Peace
Lynn

 

[fiveldsp]

In a reef tank with a live stock including, skunk shrimp, sebae anemone, mithrax crab, hermit crabs, serpent star fish, sand sifting star fish, along with damsels, triggers, clownfish, gobies and corals... how is treatment of ICK effective? Catching the fish is not an option unless if the entire reef is torn apart to get them. The corals have already expanded and reproducted themselves to the point of being permanently attached to the live rocks of the reef. It's a 125 gallon tank with a 20g refugium. We are currently running a 36w coral life UV Sterilizer since the first symptoms of the disease appeared yesturday. What methods can we attempt on the display tank to help the chances of the fish with catching them not being an option. Most of the shrimp appear fine at this point, but our neon goby is showing the white spots and his swimming has become slightly disoriented at times.

 

[PhilOlsen]

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/just-starting-out-sw-beginners/15599-ich-myths-facts.html


Also, one thing I did not mention (due to 10,000 character limit) is A UV is NOT a cure for ICH, it will kill the parasites that are waterbourne, but not all the ICH parasites go thru the UV. They also cling to rocks, substrate etc, a UV will have no effect on those parasites. It is not a cure either, the parasites that are one the fish will have 0 exposure to the UV.

 

[bluespotjawfish]

Didn't know that about the UV Sterilizer. I still like it to reduce the amount of stuff running around in the tank, as well as adding a 1/2 dozen cleaner shrimp. I haven't had much luck with the cleaner wrasse. Seems every time I add one of those they have brought in as much disease as helped. They are cool to watch though.

I also have a 125 gallon mixed tank (until this past weekend, when it became a fish only tank). When I decided to go mixed, I had to make the decision that my fish are secondary and if they get sick they die. I don't ever medicate, and netting them for a quarantine would be next to impossible. I will use stresscoat. I have had a few mild outbreaks of ich over the years, generally when my UV bulb needs replacement or when I have neglected my tank in other ways. However, my otherwise healthy and unstressed fish typically recover on their own with these little additional helps, and frequent WCs and I have rarely lost a fish to disease (even fewer now that I have had my tank for a while and rarely introduce new fish). If a particular fish is low on the pecking order in my tank, they typically have not recovered because they are already under stress in the tank. I have a few inexpensive fish in the tank specifically to take that role.

BOL

 

[sasquatch]

The Basics. If you have Ich in the display it will remain in one form or another until the tank is hostless.if you cannot quarentine your occupants you will have to live with a parasite that will from time to time flare up. Good nutrition,garlic,uv, etc will help but never eradicate. Badly infected fish can be "cleaned up" by freshwater dips(follow instructions exactly) but this is also stressful and may lead to an early demise.
Fiveldsp, you only need remove the fish for 6 to 8 weeks,it may be hard to get them out but it can be done, the stress of an Ich outbreak is way worse than going to QT tank and when its done its done Steve

 

[bluespotjawfish]

Agreed. It stays there waiting for the opportunity to show its face (i.e. a new fish under stress, a change in temp...).

 

[BoomerD]

It does have to have some kind of fishy host to survive however. That's why to eradicate it totally from your tank, ALL fish have to be held in quarantine, and the tank allowed to be fallow (NO FISH) for a minimum of 6 weeks. That allows all the various stages to to through their life, and die with no new host.

 

[fiveldsp]

I understand the only cure is to remove the fish... my problem is I don't know how to catch the fish without completely destroying the reef we have spent over six months assembling piece by piece. We have corals that have fused themselves into seams of rocks and so on. As soon as a net is even in view of the tank, our neon goby and green banded goby disappear into little holes in the rocks, the damsels all shoot into caves and crevices and the triggers go into their homes and extend their fins to lock them into place. I know you guys said that it's hard but possible, but could you please give us some advice on how to catch small and fast fish in a complication arrangement of immovable live rock?

 

[sasquatch]

I call it STARVATION INCENTIVE, dont feed for a couple of days and find a way to keep your fish net in the water a few inches below surface, feed a little into the net but dont attempt to catch, soon the net will become the FOODPLACE, then when everybody is all secure at ease and feeding, scoop! dont rush it, you may require more than one attempt,it can be done. Steve

 

[bluespotjawfish]

So brave! BOL.

 

[lcstorc]

My lfs has a acrylic fish trap that he rents to customers. We used it to remove a number of no longer wanted damsels to return to the store. It took some patience and we had to let the fish get a bit hungry first, but it did work.
The hard part was that in my case I was trying to catch specific fish. If you wanted to catch all the fish I would think it would be even easier. Just close the trap each time a fish went in and remove them one by one.

 

[cheeks69]

I understand the only cure is to remove the fish... my problem is I don't know how to catch the fish without completely destroying the reef we have spent over six months assembling piece by piece. We have corals that have fused themselves into seams of rocks and so on. As soon as a net is even in view of the tank, our neon goby and green banded goby disappear into little holes in the rocks, the damsels all shoot into caves and crevices and the triggers go into their homes and extend their fins to lock them into place. I know you guys said that it's hard but possible, but could you please give us some advice on how to catch small and fast fish in a complication arrangement of immovable live rock?

I just took my tank apart to remove a Damsel that was harming my Crocea Clams and it's definitely not a fun thing to do. AFA the corals that have encrusted that's not a problem you make Frags...lol

My advice is if you don't have a Quarantine setup then don't do it ! By removing all your fish and placing them in an uncycled tank and in all likelyhood a small setup will be a recipe for disaster, you'll end up with a serious ammonia probem. IMO if it's not a severe outbreak and this tank is well established your fish should recover with proper diet and the addition of garlic to their food.