Fighting ich with kick-ich / garlic & vitamin c

Dmitri Morozov

New Member
Couple of days ago I've noticed my powder blue has some signs of ich on him while other tangs looked okay.
I did a research on the cure for parasite and figured to go with kick-ich program.
Having to catch 10 fish in a large tank with 200lbs of live rock seems challenging

Day 1 of using kick-ich was yesterday and in addition I'm using garlic with fish food to boost their immunity system.

Prior using kick-ich I had to turn off the skimmer for the duration of the program as well as removing active carbon and turning off GFO reactor.

Everything looked to be going great until I desired to add vitamin c in the system.
I've checked parameters.
Alk-9
Calc- 460
Ph was at 8.2
Orp was at 416

I read that recommendation for vitamin c was 30ppm
I took 3 teaspoons of sodium ascorbate vitamin c and dumped it all into overflow and went to sleep.

Over night I looked at the fusion app and was shocked...
Orp dropped all the way to 103
Ph dropped to 7.76

I didnt know what to do and was hoping for it to balanced in the morning.

This morning I've used ph booster and got it up to 8.15. Orp went up a bit from 103 to 246

Right now I'm kind of in the dark, not knowing how this will affect corals and fish.

Anyone here have had experience with using kick-ich and also dosing vitamin C ?

Thank you



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DaveK

Well-Known Member
In my opinion, you are basically wasting your time using products such as kick-ich and or dosing vitamin C. Save your fish, time and money by doing this the right way.

We get questions on this disease more that any other SW disease. The bottom line is this is what you need to do, no excuses.

Set up a quarantine tank.
Remove all fish from the display tank to the quarantine tank.
Treat using hyposalinity or copper in the quarantine tank.
Treatment time is 8 - 10 weeks.

For more in depth knowledge here are some serious threads on the disease and treatments -
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/curing-fish-of-marine-ich.52236/
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/marine-ich-myths-and-facts.23132/
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/fish-with-white-spots-that-went-away.57175/
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/copper-treatment-use-problems.23130/
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/a-hyposalinity-treatment-process.23131/

While you treating the disease properly, make several large partial water changes in your displey system to remove the kick-ich and vitamin C you have added.

There are no "reef safe" cures for this disease that are effective. Never treat a fish disease in the display tank, always remove the fish to a quarantine tank and treat there.
 

chipmunkofdoom2

Well-Known Member
As much of a pain as it is, Dave is right. There's no good way to treat ich in the display. A dedicated QT and serious medications are required to beat this parasite. You'll also need to let your display run without fish for the length of the QT so that any of the parasites that remain in the tank can't find a new host to infect.

These types of quick-and-easy cures are attractive because they can be used in the display, but those of us who have been at this for a while haven't seen the greatest success rates with them.
 

Exterminaans

New Member
I've read the above threads, all very good. Hopefully I didn't miss what I'm about to ask. Does anyone have any answer on the following two questions?
1). The Hyposalinity treatment says to lower the salinity to the proper level in 36-48 hours. That's great, but not specific enough for my taste. Can someone elaborate? How fast is too fast, within the above time frame? Can I safely lower the salinity a full point in 5 minutes and do those "lowerings" once every 3 hours? Is a point per 5 minutes (just as an example) too fast? 2 points per 3 hours? 5 points in 5 minutes every 16 hours? That's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Obviously some of the above mentioned examples are almost certainly too fast, but there should also be a rate/frequency of freshwater doses that would result in diminishing returns as far as safety goes and just make it more of a pain than necessary.
2). Does anyone have an idea as to why the post recommends NOT using some sort of a circulation pump?
 

Dmitri Morozov

New Member
I've read the above threads, all very good. Hopefully I didn't miss what I'm about to ask. Does anyone have any answer on the following two questions?
1). The Hyposalinity treatment says to lower the salinity to the proper level in 36-48 hours. That's great, but not specific enough for my taste. Can someone elaborate? How fast is too fast, within the above time frame? Can I safely lower the salinity a full point in 5 minutes and do those "lowerings" once every 3 hours? Is a point per 5 minutes (just as an example) too fast? 2 points per 3 hours? 5 points in 5 minutes every 16 hours? That's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Obviously some of the above mentioned examples are almost certainly too fast, but there should also be a rate/frequency of freshwater doses that would result in diminishing returns as far as safety goes and just make it more of a pain than necessary.
2). Does anyone have an idea as to why the post recommends NOT using some sort of a circulation pump?

My understanding is, if you lower salinity too fast it may cause a stress to the fish. Stress for fish usually means they more venerable to get sick. In this case your fish already has parasites.
You have scale it out, what's more beneficial a faster treatment or is the outbreak minimal where you would want to take slower, less stressful to the fish, approach.




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DaveK

Well-Known Member
... The Hyposalinity treatment says to lower the salinity to the proper level in 36-48 hours. That's great, but not specific enough for my taste. Can someone elaborate? ...

The calculation is really rather simple.

For hyposalinity you want to reduce the normal SG of 1.025 to about 1.012. That's about a 50% reduction in salinity. You want to drop it by .013 over 48 hours, which translates to a .001 drop over about 4 hours. (3.69 hours if you do the calculation)

If you wanted to do this in 36 hours you'd do a .001 drop about every 3 hours. (2.77 hours if you do the calculation)

This doesn't mean you need to go to the tank every 4 hours and do this. What you can do is drain out the amount of water you need to replace, and then slowly drip in the fresh water over that period.
 

subsea

Member
Not sure I agree with your fallow tank and quarantine cure. I have seen an ich outbreak after 90 days of tank fallow.

The single most important aspect of managing ich is a healthy fish immune system, not stress from copper treatment. I have not seen ich on fish in the ocean. For a healthy immune system in fish, I feed live gut bacteria from oysters, clams or mussels. The slime coat is the primary defense against ich.
 

subsea

Member
Uncle,
After PaulB first started talking about fish immune system, it was related to HTLL disease. As he pointed out, it was not a disease but a symptom of being in captivity, most likely related to substandard nutrition. It was an easy enough fix to get live mussels from the seafood market at HEB. When I discussed intestinal cavity bacteria with a PHD microbiologist friend, I was surprised at how much of a role gut cavity bacteria have in the wellness of the human anatomy. Many immune system responses are regulated by gut bacteria.
 

Uncle99

Well-Known Member
Very interesting stuff Subsea.
But way out of my scope and experience.
Just a hobbyist having fun and not sure I have a complete understanding of these complex ideas.
But I love to learn
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
It boggles my mind that after the 46 years that this hobby has been in the US, people still get ich on their fish. :confused:
 

subsea

Member
Even after doing this for 45 yrs, I still have fun. However, the intricacies of how nature works all its details fascinates me. Nothing happens in a vacume. A reef tank is an eco system that is holistic in nature. Different components of the biological filtration system are interconnected and dependent on each other. Each component generates food webs that constitute a mature tank.
The only system that I have with a sump is a 75G Jaubert Plenum on top with a 30G EcoSystem mud/macro refugium that has been set up for 25 years.
 

Uncle99

Well-Known Member
Subsea, I appreciate you sharing your insight with me and the group. Size matters only with how fast water can change and cost. Mechanics are the same. Cheers
 

Uncle99

Well-Known Member
After 25 years, still got ich on a kole tang after 30 day quarantine, transferred to my gramma, but all else seems fine. Been a week now, hopefully this mess is over.
70 g still appears to small even for the kole tang species
Back to the drawing bored. Even experienced hobbyists can have a turn with ich as we test the limits of our passions
 

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
After 25 years, still got ich on a kole tang after 30 day quarantine, transferred to my gramma, but all else seems fine. Been a week now, hopefully this mess is over.
70 g still appears to small even for the kole tang species
Back to the drawing bored. Even experienced hobbyists can have a turn with ich as we test the limits of our passions

It happens.
 
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