Ich Attack!

[cheseboy]

All of my biological conditions have stabilized but now I have another problem. My clown fish now has Ick on him. I don't understand I gave him a freshwater dip before placing him in the main tank. What should I do now. Obviously I want to kill all the living parasites in the water with something. Then can I cure the parasites on my clown with fresh water dips? How should I go about curing this?

[Fishfirst]

I'd use a dip in freshwater combined with methaline blue half dose treatment of the dip water. freshwater dips do not kill every parasite on the fish most of the time, but they do kill a lot of them, and even if it does, you can get the parasite from cross contamination, and from water on liverock, corals, and other inverts.

[cheseboy]

Originally Posted by Fishfirst

I'd use a dip in freshwater combined with methaline blue half dose treatment of the dip water. freshwater dips do not kill every parasite on the fish most of the time, but they do kill a lot of them, and even if it does, you can get the parasite from cross contamination, and from water on liverock, corals, and other inverts.

I don't have saltwater methylene blue yet. Would maracide work? I also need to get some 8.2 buffer but other than that I'm good. So you think a dip every day or so with no meds in the tank should eradicate the disease, or should I put some copper in the tank? I don't have anything in my tank except for acrylic and equipment. So hopefully my equipment won't absorb copper. Since I have heard substrate and ornaments absorb copper.

[cheseboy]

Bump______

[SeaSpydr]

cheseboy...

A freshwater dip is only going to kill ich that are on the fish. You still face free swimmers in the system and larvae that hatch. I have some questions for you...I'm new to the forum so I haven't seen any of your other posts.

How many gallons is the tank?
How long has it been up and running with fish in it?
Type filter?
Does the tank have live rock?
What are the current water parameters? Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, salinity, and temp? Numbers please.
What other fish are in the tank?
How long have you had the clown?
Do you have a quarantine tank?

This will help me get a mental picture of the system and analyze what you can use for treatment.

[leveldrummer]

welcome spydr, good to have more salt fans in here. not enough in my opinion.

[Fishfirst]

yep welcome... as for the ich and the fw dip, I'd opt for not using maracide, not sure if thats safe off hand. Also, SeaSpydr is right, it only gets the ich off the fish, temporary relief, which maybe enough to turn the little guy for the better, however I would still quarentine with a bare bones 10 gallon system and treat with medications... careful though, try not to keep him in the medication solution for very long, clowns tend to be a little more sensitive to meds than most other hardy marine fish.

[TheOldSalt]

It should also be mentioned that Clowns very frequently get their own "Ick" called Brooklynella, and freshwater dips have no effect on it. You need medicine for that. Telling the difference by sight is a tricky thing to do, but when dealing with clowns, you should always consider the strong possibility of "clownfish disease" along with Amblyo & Crypto. ( icks )

Anyway, if there's nothing like coral or coral sand or liverock in this tank, then you can use good old Coppersafe in this tank. Treat for a month, then do your big water change and get on with your life. After that, run all your new fish through right-and-proper quarantine.

[cheseboy]

You'd never guess what happened. I came back the next day after I saw the ick and it was gone. Not a speck on the fish. My guess is that he healed himself just as he would in nature. Since I don't beleve that all the parasites would burst out of the fish at the same time but obiviously I can not be sure that the ick is totally gone. If my fish dosen't have white spots in the next 2 weeks or so I'm going to asume that my fish is fine.

[fishfingers]

How's the ich going?

Just incase it came back:

If your fish's ich has suddenly disappeared then it is more likely just in the free swiming stage. This is one of the many stages of ich's life cycle. Your best bet to cure your fish of it would eb to treat all your fish using the hyposalinity method. This is the most effective method you can use for treating ich. Teh down side however is you need a quarentine tank to do it! IME garlic is an effective method for the removal of ich in a marine tank. Also, IMO FW dips cause unnecessary stress to the fish and are ineffective in the removal of ich from a tank anyway.

If you want anymore info read this great article of ich written by a very knowledgable Aussie reefer: http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...marineich.html

[TheOldSalt]

Oh, and I thought that we were going to get along... oh well.

I have personally freshwater dipped nearly 3000 marine fishes, and have lost only 20 or so of them from doing it, with most of those being due to something stupid I did. Dips are safe & effective. Well, okay, it's good for use in the quarantine period, but you are correct in that it is useless for tanks already infested. The goal, of course, is to keep the tank from getting infested in the first place. Marine fish freshwater dip themselves all the time, by the way, whenever they can find some freshwater.

Quarantine really is absolutely essential if you want to avoid problems, and more accurately, proper quarantine is what is needed. Incomplete processing is just a waste of time.

Hyposalinity is useless against Brooklynella & 'bodo, "the brackish ick," and it does more harm, over time, than a freshwater dip ever could. Yes, it helps relieve osmotic pressure, but the fish like the osmotic pressure, and their kidneys & livers are built for dealing with it. Extended periods in hyposaline water can & will result in cellular damage. Since it's not so easy to determine which kind of "ick" you have, and since you should always assume that you have them ALL anyway, hypo is not the logical choice. It is still a popular one, though, despite it's flaws, but I can't recommend it in the face of better alternatives.

Garlic--> I agree. This is one of the best discoveries we've seen in years. I know the lady who came up with it, and frankly I never would have given it any credence exept for the fact that she's come up with so many other nifty things that have also been proven to work. Kelli also invented practical pufferfish dentistry, by the way. So, I tried Kyolic garlic and found it very, very useful if not especially convenient. A month of that should clean up any tank just fine.

An Ultraviolet Sterilizer would also go a long way toward eliminating the ick in a tank, and is reef-safe until you want to breed your inverts, but by that time the nasties should be long-gone anyway.

[fishfingers]

I don't see why we can't still get along TheOldSalt . I'm still learning you know and I am happy to take your opinions and advice onboard! But remember we don't need to agree on everything!

For one, I agree with you on your point of freshwater dips. I use them as well (they were particulary helpful for curing a fungal infection on my coral beauty's eye) and I agree that they are effective for curing some illnesses. What I meant was they are ineffective for curing ich, as the parasite reamins in the tanks. And there is no point in doing them if your just going to put the fish back into an ich infested tank anyway! And yes the best method to combat any type of disease is prevention!

The advice I gave was based on the assumption that what cheeseboy's fish had was "common" whitespot (if there is such a thing?) and I just gave him the best advice I could on the knowledge I have. In fact I'm surprised you say hyposalinity is a popular method! On the other american dominated fish forums I'm a member of people have never heard of it!

Well I'm glad we agree on some things!