reoccurring ICK problem

[herman]

Ive had Ich problems in my tank. But they never lasted longer than two lifecycles of the parasite. And I do NOT use any Chemicals.

I think that most people panic when they see the spots and start treatment right away. This does not help you very much. It will just further stress the fish. Stress is not the direct cause for ich per say. Stress, bad water parameters are just some causes that weakens the immune system of the fish making them suseptible to the parasite.

There are 4 basic stages in the Protozoans lifecycle. I will keep it simple.
1. When you see it on the fish it is a result of the protozoa boring into the fish. Treatment Useless
2. They then ate enough and encyst. Treatment useless
3. Most of the cycts fall off the fish. Treatment useless
4. The eggs hatch and you have freefloating "Ich". This is the stage when they are most vulnerable. This is the time when you treat the Ich.

If the Ich does not find a host (fish) it will die usually in two days. The sure way to get the parasite out of your tank is to remove the fish after the parasite has fallen off. you put the fish in a QT tank its a good idea to run a UV strerilizer and increase the temperature to speed up the lifecycle of the parasite.

Ideally you would have another tank to move the fish into when the cysts fall off the fish. In this third stage you can apply small amounts of the medication.

Place fish back in the main tank and you should be ok. Keep your water perfect as not to stress and weaken the fish.

KNOWING YOUR ENEMY IS THE BATTLE HALF WON. Dont just look for the easy way out with medication cause most of the time you will lose. That was the exttremely short lehmans version.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Ive had Ich problems in my tank. But they never lasted longer than two lifecycles of the parasite. And I do NOT use any Chemicals.

I think that most people panic when they see the spots and start treatment right away. This does not help you very much. It will just further stress the fish. Stress is not the direct cause for ich per say. Stress, bad water parameters are just some causes that weakens the immune system of the fish making them suseptible to the parasite.

There are 4 basic stages in the Protozoans lifecycle. I will keep it simple.
1. When you see it on the fish it is a result of the protozoa boring into the fish. Treatment Useless
2. They then ate enough and encyst. Treatment useless
3. Most of the cycts fall off the fish. Treatment useless
4. The eggs hatch and you have freefloating "Ich". This is the stage when they are most vulnerable. This is the time when you treat the Ich.

If the Ich does not find a host (fish) it will die usually in two days. The sure way to get the parasite out of your tank is to remove the fish after the parasite has fallen off. you put the fish in a QT tank its a good idea to run a UV strerilizer and increase the temperature to speed up the lifecycle of the parasite.

Ideally you would have another tank to move the fish into when the cysts fall off the fish. In this third stage you can apply small amounts of the medication.

Place fish back in the main tank and you should be ok. Keep your water perfect as not to stress and weaken the fish.

KNOWING YOUR ENEMY IS THE BATTLE HALF WON. Dont just look for the easy way out with medication cause most of the time you will lose. That was the exttremely short lehmans version.

Herm sums it up right. This is more or less the most effective way of treating ich for your fish and YOUR TANK.

A perfectly heathly fish can be infected even though a stressed fish is n-times more likely to get infected. Unlike many dieases, ONCE INFECTED, a healthy fish does not have ANY machanism to kill the ich except a better health immune system to stay alive while nutrients are being drianed from the host. A not stressed fish has much less chance of secondary infections which usually associated with long time ich infected fish.

Just to make Herm's method more complete, make sure the display tank has been fishless for no-less-than 30 days, while you are doing treatment in stage #4, because some strains of the ich can last 28 days in the life cycle. Also if you have an extra canister filters(provided that you use it properly), it's a good time to use them in all phrase of the treatment, the hospital tank, the temperary holding tank and the display. It sucks up a lot of the free swimming babies and cyrsts. And due to short life cycle of the free swimming stage, the sucked up ones will not be able to find a host.

 

[Cibo]

I have a clown that was getting ich what i did is as soon as i see the first white spot i gave a 5min water dip then put fish back in the tank the next time i see a spot fresh water dip after a week or so no more spots no ich for about 4 months, I dont know how you fish will take frsh water mabey another member could advise but clowns are hardy..


good luck

 

[marrone]

Fresh water dips don't work as you need to give your fish a fresh water bath. Even then this will not get rid of the ich that is inbeded into the fish.

It is not good to treat your main tank but depending on the amount of fish and how many of them have ich you may need to. Once again if it's ich Hyposaility will work but it does take a long time and you need to make sure you SG is below 1.009, you should use a refactormeter to measure your SG as if it's off it's not going to work. Copper is probably the best thing to use but you need to make sure you have a good test kit and the treatment in at the correct level. Just like Hyposality if it's not correct it's not going to work.

Also it's good to leave a light on near the tank at night, the tank lights don't need to be on. When the lights go off the fish aren't as resisitance and the ich can have an impact on the fish health making it even weaker.

As for moving fish from one tank to another, you need to remember that ich spores don't all come out at once but over a 7-10 day period. This method, move fish around between tanks, has been around for a long time and the results of getting rid of all the ich can take along time and the chance of not getting rid of all the ich is still there. As for using medication some times you don't have a choice as some strains of ich are very hard to get rid of and can wipe out your tank, even when using cooper. You need to indenfity what you have and then determine what the best treatment that is needed.

QT fish is very important and more and more people are skipping this process. Fish should be QT for at least 2 - 4 weeks and if some thing comes up then treated. There are a lot worst things that you can introduce into your tank than ich and by not QT a fish your taking a chance of infecting and killing your other fish.

 

[inline6]

Not one visible sign of ICK today. Keeping my fingers crossed and using mega doses of garlic and vitamin C.
We shall see if this treatment works......stay tuned.

 

[inkblue]

tHis is great inf0 herman... can you add timeLine

Ive had Ich problems in my tank. But they never lasted longer than two lifecycles of the parasite. And I do NOT use any Chemicals.

I think that most people panic when they see the spots and start treatment right away. This does not help you very much. It will just further stress the fish. Stress is not the direct cause for ich per say. Stress, bad water parameters are just some causes that weakens the immune system of the fish making them suseptible to the parasite.

There are 4 basic stages in the Protozoans lifecycle. I will keep it simple.
1. When you see it on the fish it is a result of the protozoa boring into the fish. Treatment Useless
2. They then ate enough and encyst. Treatment useless
3. Most of the cycts fall off the fish. Treatment useless
4. The eggs hatch and you have freefloating "Ich". This is the stage when they are most vulnerable. This is the time when you treat the Ich.

If the Ich does not find a host (fish) it will die usually in two days. The sure way to get the parasite out of your tank is to remove the fish after the parasite has fallen off. you put the fish in a QT tank its a good idea to run a UV strerilizer and increase the temperature to speed up the lifecycle of the parasite.

Ideally you would have another tank to move the fish into when the cysts fall off the fish. In this third stage you can apply small amounts of the medication.

Place fish back in the main tank and you should be ok. Keep your water perfect as not to stress and weaken the fish.

KNOWING YOUR ENEMY IS THE BATTLE HALF WON. Dont just look for the easy way out with medication cause most of the time you will lose. That was the exttremely short lehmans version.

 

[pmui]

i say copper and Q.T. the fish B4 it get into the main tank. I battle it and won!

 

[kimoyo]

Cupramine aka copper but don't buy seachem's copper test kit because it doesn't work (there's a thread on RC about it). It won't show that you've added the copper and you can overdose your tank.

 

[marrone]

You shouldn't treat a fish in QT unless it starts to show some thing. QT is just to give the fish time to settle down and for observation to see if the fish has some thing. Once you see it has some thing then you can start to treat. You don't need to treat a health fish.

 

[marrone]

Cupramine aka copper but don't buy seachem's copper test kit because it doesn't work (there's a thread on RC about it). It won't show that you've added the copper and you can overdose your tank.

If your going to test for copper get the best kit that's out there and that would be the Lamotte Copper kit. It's very important to make sure you have the right amount of copper in the tank, to little doesn't do anything and to much can kill your fish.

 

[marrone]

tHis is great inf0 herman... can you add timeLine

This link will show you similar to what Herman posted and it also contains charts, table and diagrams. It list a # of different methods to get rid of ich.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

 

[kimoyo]

You shouldn't treat a fish in QT unless it starts to show some thing. QT is just to give the fish time to settle down and for observation to see if the fish has some thing. Once you see it has some thing then you can start to treat. You don't need to treat a health fish.

I agree with pmui. I know we've discussed this before but I would qt and treat with copper before the fish goes in the display. I've seen tanks where 1 fish will be covered with ich and none of the other fish show signs. Does this mean the other fish aren't carrying any ich? I don't know, so for me its better to be preventative and not infect my tank. I've never had a problem with treating with copper and I think most of the issues would be caused by overdosing or letting the water quality get very poor in the qt.

I'm taking similar approach to corals by dipping everything before it goes in the tank.

 

[marrone]

I agree with pmui. I know we've discussed this before but I would qt and treat with copper before the fish goes in the display. I've seen tanks where 1 fish will be covered with ich and none of the other fish show signs. Does this mean the other fish aren't carrying any ich? I don't know, so for me its better to be preventative and not infect my tank. I've never had a problem with treating with copper and I think most of the issues would be caused by overdosing or letting the water quality get very poor in the qt.

I'm taking similar approach to corals by dipping everything before it goes in the tank.

Once again you don't treat a fish unless you know what it has. The QT is used to observe the fish and see if it has some thing. Once your determine if it has some thing you should treat then and with the correct mediciation, some times copper isn't what it needed.

Also you should QT the fish for atleast 2 - 4 weeks, which in that time you can see if the fish has some thing. At that point you can then start to treat. Most people don't QT their fish long enough. It's also not the same, dipping corals and QT fish.

 

[inkblue]

s0 NO copper in QT :scratchch:bagfish:

 

[marrone]

s0 NO copper in QT :scratchch:bagfish:

A QT should just be for quartine and once you have determine that the fish does have some thing you should then treat the fish in a hospital tank, with the proper medication. You need to remember that copper works on a lot of things but not everything. So if your fish has some thing that copper doesn't work on your just stressing out your fish even more and will then still need to treat with some thing else to cure it anyway.

I think the big problem is that most people that QT their fish don't do it long enough. You really need to do it for atleast 2 - 4 weeks as many things can develop and some of them are a lot worst than ich. There is a person in Boston who didn't QT his fish long enough and he had a bad break out of gill flukes and since his tank was large, I think it was in the 300 - 400 gal range, it's a real problem.

 

[jhale]

putting copper in a QT right away would be like going for a general examination and the Dr. sending you for Kimo treatment without even looking at you.

 

[regal]

When I used to quarantine the new fish, I placed it in a 35g tub with a UV running. If there is ick, I even lower the salinity (hyposalinity treatment for ick) to 1.009 measured by a refractometer. The key is to keep up with the water quality by doing freq. water changes since most of us don't have a biofilter or good skimmer to run the QT.

 

[kimoyo]

Go over to Cali_reef, look at his FOWLR tank which has about 35 fish. Look at the one angel that has ich all over it and then look at all the other fish with no signs of ich showing. Then explain how your positive none of the other fish have ich because they are not showing symptoms (which the white spots are).

Or explain how ich can be in a tank, go away for months, and come back later with no new introduction of anything.

So if your fish has some thing that copper doesn't work on your just stressing out your fish even more and will then still need to treat with some thing else to cure it anyway.

You keep saying this but provide no prove. At correct levels why are the fish being stressed by the copper. If one overdoses/underdoses on salt fish could die.

Since I treated my fish with copper last year they have been fine. Have you lost a fish to a copper treatment?

putting copper in a QT right away would be like going for a general examination and the Dr. sending you for Kimo treatment without even looking at you.

I don't think so.

 

[marrone]

You keep saying this but provide no prove. At correct levels why are the fish being stressed by the copper. If one overdoses/underdoses on salt fish could die.

Since I treated my fish with copper last year they have been fine. Have you lost a fish to a copper treatment?

Paul first copper does bother fish but they can take at certain leves, some better than others, and it does kill the parasites that are on the fish and in the tank. It does stress the fish out as it has an effect on the skins and scales, fins and gills but compared to the parasites it's better.

People have loss fish due to high doses of copper, some fish can't handle copper. I think you need to understand that copper does work in killing parasites on fish but it's also has an impact on fish also. It burns their fins, skin and gills and causes stress.

Copper can be a good product to use but it can also be very dangerous to fish, even at the correct doseage, and shouldn't be used just as a pre-caution.

 

[marrone]

I don't think so.

To treat a fish for some thing it mayn't have is just completely wrong. It's just that plan and simple. Specially with some thing that has an impact on the fish, it's skin, scale and gills.