Ich

[weihsiang]

Hi,

Do any of the bros here have experiences of curing ich in your reef tanks.

My Sunburst and Flame kena and but are still feeding.

My solution is to throw in a uv filter to keep the count in check while waiting for the fish to heal itself.

Any inputs ?

[yikai]

there are way too many articles on ich and treatment options..

go and do a search please.

and wrong section btw. moved for you.

[nemo22]

My opinion is HYPO,

Drop to 1.009 for 40days.

[yikai]

40days is too long bah.

3 weeks to 4 weeks hypo is enough

[weihsiang]

Am also putting garlic and vit c into fish food to boost their own immunity.

Pardon for askin, I understnd hypo is effective. But is there any long term side effects on corals and inverts ?

[yikai]

Am also putting garlic and vit c into fish food to boost their own immunity.

Pardon for askin, I understnd hypo is effective. But is there any long term side effects on corals and inverts ?

there are alot of threads on hypo here. you should really go and do a search for faster answers.

hypo CANNOT be done on invertibreates and corals. only fishes.

put your fish in hyposalinity of 1.010 or 1.011 and keep it there for 3 weeks. do not put liverock inside.

do regular water change to keep the ammonia 0 and nitrite 0.

also, not all fish respond well to hyposalinity. must read up on individual fishes before carrying this treatment out.

[mantalover]

Questions:

a) When Ich or whitespots infest the fish in tank, I believe parasites will reside in the tank looking for new host, whilst I QT my fish for treatment. My question is will the corals in my main tank be infected by these parasites? Or are these parasites infectious in fish only.

b)UV treatment: How effective are they? It kills both good and bad stuff, so do we then need to repopulate the tank with good bacteria after UV treatment?

rgds, leslie

[LaW]

Questions:

a) When Ich or whitespots infest the fish in tank, I believe parasites will reside in the tank looking for new host, whilst I QT my fish for treatment. My question is will the corals in my main tank be infected by these parasites? Or are these parasites infectious in fish only.

Fish only.

b)UV treatment: How effective are they? It kills both good and bad stuff, so do we then need to repopulate the tank with good bacteria after UV treatment?

UV zap both good and the bad, but good stuff already residing on ur LR and filter media so no need to purposely add bacteria for that reason. However, it is still good to add new strain/generation of bacteria into your system for diversity.

Think it this way too, UV decrease free floating bacteria. You won't want these bacteria, especially the bad ones, to have higher chance of landing it on your fish's wounds. so UV is recommended by me on a normal system.

And a personal side note, hypo is best done on a longer duration for atleast 4 weeks. 6-8 weeks prefered.

Though hypo is effective, it can have its downturn as well. I personally had done 8 weeks worth of hypo of 1.009 with reference from a refractormeter, the ick still strikes back after i start rising the salinity.

Recommendation: do a cleaning on sandbed and rocks while doing hypo to increase your kill. (FOR: Main tank with rocks and sands)

[yikai]

a) ich only infects fish. if your fish have ich, as long as you have fish in your tank, regardless wether they are showing visible signs of the white spots or not, they are still infected. the only way to remove all traces of ich parasite is to remove ALL fishes, treat them, and let the tank be fishless for 3-4 weeks.

UV only kills stuff that come into contact with the UV light. this means only free living parasites and other living microorganisms living in the water will be killed once they come in contact with the UV rays.

The population of bacteria occurs mainly in your rocks, sand and mechanical filters. whatever that's in the water is negligible and will not be affected.

[yikai]

hypo should be done in a barebottom tank. the smoother the surface, the less chance the ich parasites cyst can attach after infecting your fish, making it easier to siphon out.

sand, rocks etc are not needed in a QT tank.

[mantalover]

THanks guys. The tangs I got (White face surgeon, Sailfin and White Tail) will have white spots. These are the only fish I got. The rest are inverts

Not sure if it is Ich or Marine Velvet. difficult to tell since both are white spots...But they are swimming well and feeding very well. Not sure if I should QT them at this stage and simply turn on the UV, that came integrated with my TECO chiller)

In anycase, will try Hypo on these tangs if it worsens.. Hopefully it works...

[Morpheous]

If hypo does not work n ur fishes are still scratching, chances are u have flukes.

[yikai]

flukes will die in hypo too if i'm not wrong.

[sun2000]

THanks guys. The tangs I got (White face surgeon, Sailfin and White Tail) will have white spots. These are the only fish I got. The rest are inverts

Not sure if it is Ich or Marine Velvet. difficult to tell since both are white spots...But they are swimming well and feeding very well. Not sure if I should QT them at this stage and simply turn on the UV, that came integrated with my TECO chiller)

In anycase, will try Hypo on these tangs if it worsens.. Hopefully it works...

If it is velvet I don't think hypo will help. Maybe Q the tank ( ie no fishes in tank for 6 to 8 weeks) to let the ich die off naturally ( no host in the tank). Q the fishes in another "clean" tank and perhaps use a copper based treatment (cupramine) that will address both ich and velvet... just my opinion. This way it will not effect you coral and you can clean out both systems at once. Temptation is to reintroduce the fishes too quickly back to the main tank before the ich in the main tank dies off. Then the ich will just host back on the reintroduced fishes and the whole thing starts all over again...

[andy.tcsam]

can raise temperature through a heater so as cure the white spot problem

[Terryz_]

can raise temperature through a heater so as cure the white spot problem

This does not kill the ich, it will only increase the metabolism of the ich... so that the life cycle is shorter and it will help the ich reach the free swimming stage faster when they are the weakest so that they can be killed with medication and UV...

[FuEl]

Hyposalinity is effective against ich and flukes. Hyposalinity does not affect velvet, the general cure for velvet is copper, malachite green, formalin or quinine sulphate. The effectiveness of UV is based on turnover rate. Optimal turnover rates are said to be 12x the tank volume per hour. This is one reason why small UV units do not work well to control pathogens in large systems. The more pathogens UV can kill before they infect your fish, the more time your fish can build up its immunity to fight off the pathogen.