Will ick just run its course or is it better to treat it?

[Anonymous]

My pinktail trigger and harlequin tusk have ich. They swim around as normal, and still eat like pigs, but they've got it everywhere. Can I just let this run its course, or should I treat the tank? If so, with what? None of my marine fish have ever had ick before...

The water tests fine, BTW, with Nitrate at less than 5ppm. Temp 77, SG 1.025, pH 8.2.

They are both around 6" and are in a 5-foot, 110 gallon tank.

Not exactly a reef question, but a common fish question that I wanted the answer to. Thanks in advance.

Peace,

Chip

 

[FMarini]

It all depends what you want as an end result?
It sounds like your fish might be healthy enuf that they might be able to fight it off, and therfore you "could" wait it out.
Alternatively if this is an early stage of infection then these fish will get reinfected and it should come back worse in a few days.

So either darwinian survival of the fittest, or your can start a quarentine tank use hyposalinity and treat all your fish, leave you main tank w/o fish for 4weeks
your call
I think you know my choice
frank

 

[Reef Fever]

Letting it run its course will work. The problem is, the end result is probably dead fish! 8O

I fed garlic-soaked food to my butterfly when he started showing a couple of spots and it is gone in about a week. The orchid dottyback had one tiny spot, but it is gone too.

 

[dsb1829]

I have tried many routes of treatment. IMO letting it run it's course will only work on light infestations. In my reef tank my fish will show a spot or two from time to time, but in their tank it will go away in a short period of time without my intervention.

However if your fish are already covered in parasites you really should take preventative measures. Either quarantine the fish (kind of hard to set up a Q-tank for 2 6" fish :? ) or treat them in the display system. If there are no corals or inverts you can even run a hypo treatment on the tank. Only problem with hypo is that it will only treat certain parasites, not fungal infections, or other secondary infections that could occur. Other option is to catch the fish and do short duration concentrated antibiotic dips.

So my recommendation in your case is to treat the fish. This sounds like it is too far advanced to ride out

 

[JohnD]

My hippo tang got ich many years ago. I put him in a Q-tank and treated with copper. In a week he looked great and was back in his tank.

The real question is: Why did the fish get ich in the first place? The answer is some sort of stress. I know what caused the stress in my hippo's case. It was a one time occurance of me moving tanks. The move took longer than I expected (it AWAYS does) and I did not have a heater in the holding tank.

You need to figure out what is stressing the fish and to try to remove that stress.

HTH

 

[john f]

"Why did the fish get ich in the first place? The answer is some sort of stress. "

Not really correct. The stress may have precipitated the outbreak, but stress does not cause Ich. Cryptocaryon cause Ich. Your fish had an outbreak of Ich because you allowed cryptocaryon entry into your system.
How? Either thru introduction of infected fish or corals/live rock that had cryptocaryon tomonts on them.
A totally stressed fish can't get Ich if cryptocaryon is not present in the system.
It is impossible to keep fish for any length of time without them experiencing some kind of stress. Better to avoid introducing parasites from the initial setup forward so that when these stressful events do occur the fish will not get an Ich outbreak.


John

 

[mwm6]

We recently had a "planned" power outtage (Utility Co Working On Lines) that lasted 10 hrs. The only operative equip was 2 battery air pumps. Temp dropped from the norm 82 to around 75. This caused the tangs in my 180 to get ich. I fed with garlic soaked food and all tangs are free from ich after about 1-1/2 weeks.

This was the second time I've tried garlic soaked food - so far, so good.