Ich -- current best treatment?

[SevTT]

Heya. So, the hippo tang I bought two days ago, which appeared perfectly healthy, has now come down with ich. It's in QT in my old reef tank (which has had most of the organisms moved out of it, and all the fish,) along with two flasher wrasses I bought at the same time, neither of which is showing any signs of disease. As far as I could tell yesterday, there were no signs either.

ON the one hand, I want to scoop the thing out and give it a freshwater dip, maybe with some methylene blue mixed in, now. OTOH, the thing has been severely stressed -- it's spent most of the last two days crammed in, between, or under a rock, and is only now beginning to act normally, so I'm kinda loathe to scoop it out and stress it out more.

 

[jrobbins]

metheleyene wont help, nor will a fresh water dip. there is a ton of info on this site and elsewhere regarding treating ich. long story short, copper is the only real way to do it.

 

[KathyC]

The best info I can give on here:
http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/marineich.html

Must have a copper test kit to be sure you are doing the correct dosage at all times or it is ineffective.

Chleted copper is easier on the fish - Copperpower is the brand you'll find mostly at LFS's.

I assume from what you wrote that your QT has been up for awhile & is cycled?

 

[SevTT]

The best info I can give on here:
http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/marineich.html

Must have a copper test kit to be sure you are doing the correct dosage at all times or it is ineffective.

Chleted copper is easier on the fish - Copperpower is the brand you'll find mostly at LFS's.

I assume from what you wrote that your QT has been up for awhile & is cycled?

Yeah. It's basically my old reef tank; I'm switching over to a 65. The only thing left is the sand, snails, some LR, and a few corals I hadn't bothered to take out yet, but which I could easily remove. Still, I was hoping to avoid a copper treatment. *sigh*

Been doing some research, and I think I'm going to try a formalin/malachite green dip while it's still hopefully in the early stage, before the cysts should have a chance to ripen. Hopefully I can pick something up tomorrow.

 

[NaClH2oTANK]

so, you plan on adding this tang to your reef tank?
first off, a quarrantine tank should have no substrate. the parasites will breed in it.
second, even if you rid it of ich, the parasites are present in your reef tank.
the best shot you have is to keep your tank parameters, especially the temperature, constant.
i know its harsh, but survival of the fittest works. if its going to survive in a tank, it will. if it doesnt, on to the next fish.
also, I am not familiar with the flasher wrasse, but isnt adding a wrasse to a reef tank not recomended? they dig and disturb the rocks etc.

 

[SevTT]

metheleyene wont help, nor will a fresh water dip. there is a ton of info on this site and elsewhere regarding treating ich. long story short, copper is the only real way to do it.

The problem's that the information is a real pain in the arse to find, since 'ich' is apparently too short of a term for the search engine to parse.

 

[yiliyang]

Hi:

I do not claim to be an expert on ich, but I have beaten it 2 times in the past. 5 years ago, I got a hippo that came down with the ich 2 days in my tank. I had lots of corals in my tank at the time so copper was not an option. I added garlic juice! I was feeding frozen mysis shrimp at the time, I mixed in fresh garlic paste I made with the mysis and fed my whole tank. Ich was 100% cleared after about 5 days. If your hippo is still eating well, you have a good chance of saving it.

good luck.

 

[KathyC]

Cryptocaryon irritans

A dip will only stress the fish further. There is NOTHING that will kill Ich parasites while they are encapsulated.
They can only be killed while they are freeswimming.

There are also only 2 sure methods - copper or hyposalinity (that is also on the link I gave you earlier)

Adding garlic to a tank may possibly improve the immue system of a fish, but more over it will help keep the fishes appetite up, so they will not starve to death while the Ich progresses in it's life cycle.

The only reason people think their fish is 'cured' of Ich in a short period of time is because the cycts fall off the fish (on their road to reproduction), and they think (mistakenly) that it is gone.

If a dip got rid of Ich, we'd all be using that as the cure. It will not work

If you are going to treat with copper in your old tank, you need to remove the snails - the copper will kill them. Best the sand also be removed as it will absorb the copper medication and reduce the dosage.

 

[JimmyR1rider]

did you try searching marine ich? I used that on google and it came up with lots of pages

 

[SevTT]

Hi:

I do not claim to be an expert on ich, but I have beaten it 2 times in the past. 5 years ago, I got a hippo that came down with the ich 2 days in my tank. I had lots of corals in my tank at the time so copper was not an option. I added garlic juice! I was feeding frozen mysis shrimp at the time, I mixed in fresh garlic paste I made with the mysis and fed my whole tank. Ich was 100% cleared after about 5 days. If your hippo is still eating well, you have a good chance of saving it.

good luck.

It's eating better -- it only recently stopped hiding. I've already started mixing in a part of a clove of crushed garlic with its food. However, I'm still investigating using another, more proven method to eliminate the ich. Still, it can't hurt, and now instead of mysid shrimp, my fingers smell like an italian seafood dish after I feed the tank.

 

[SevTT]

Update: I got a better look at the fish, and it looks like most of the white spots might just be due to damage to the fins from cramming itself in a hole in the rock -- it's just white spots on the fish. On the other hand, there -are- a couple of things that could be ich cysts on a couple of parts of the fish. *sigh* Maybe by tomorrow I'll know if it's ich or just scrapes and a couple loose scales.