ich and the options??

[Bigrockindaddy]

New to the board. First post yeah. Nuts already about my fish and corals..
So I got ich and my reliable lfs guy says put the temp up to 82 and start treating with ich attack from kordon. 7 day treatment then partial water change 25%. No protein skimmer running the first 6 days. Went to another well reputed lfs and the guy tells ,me get the water temp back down to 75 or 76 degrees gradually and let the cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasse do there jobs. IT appears now that my ich is gone with the first treatment option. However which guy was right? or Is it both right and just an opinion?
I did the first treatment not the second.
Also here is the information on my tank.
135 gallon 30 gallon sump 162 lbs live rock 100 pounds live sand
2 250 watt metal halides
2 blue actinic both timered
protein skimmer wit two bags carbon on the bottom of sump
antartica 1/4 hp chiller
pair of maroon clowns
foxface
coral beauty
flamenghi? tang spotted cool looking fish
lawnmower blenny
4 green chromies
cleaner wrasse
two fire shrimp
one cleaner shrimp striped one
20 hermit crabs and 20 assorted snails
one bubble tip anemone
open brain coral
red polyps coral
one frog spawn very cool
How long after an episode before I can add more coral, live stock and minimize to how many?
Also I am treating it for flat worms not a bad infestation but I don't want my corals to be affected by these little hitchhikers.
lastly ph 7.9
just put in some buffer after the reading
nitrates and nitrites are good
calcium? is 450 I think that is what he said today.
So this is my first post trust me there is a lot more to come.
Folks feed my brain..... Thank you all

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Both are wrong.

Read this post...

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27003

... then read these articles...

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.php

Get the fish ONLY into a quarantine tank at normal temperature and start a hyposalinity treatment. Here's a good article on it...

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

While the fish are undergoing the hypo, leave your main tank fishless for 8 weeks to break the life cycle of the ich.

The reason all these other remedies "appear" to work is because of the life cycle of the little ich bugger. My bet is you'll see it reappear within 7-10 days, at which point your LFS will probably tell you you're not doing it right. Or point out somewhere on the bottle where it says something to the effect that certain "strains" of ich are immune to their wonder stuff in a bottle.

Either hypo, or copper, are your best bets. But both are a pain because they require you to separate your fish from your inverts/corals. And that's why the other stuff sells so well.

 

[returnofsid]

I agree with NOT treating with any medications in a reef system. QT the fish and treat them separately. Hyposalinity treatment is very effective. The additional benefits of this is that while the fish are being treated for up to 8 weeks, the reef tank will remain totally fishless for the same 8 week period. Ich need a fish host to survive. During this fishless cycle in the reef tank, the Ich that's in there will die.

 

[SeaMonster]

Cleaner shrimps do not eat ich.
cleaner wrasse will eat some parasites, but will die shortly after unless you put in some effort to train it to eat dead food.

best advice I got on ich was that every tank has ich, just keep your fish healthy and strong and they will fight it on their own.

 

[returnofsid]

I believe that the theory that all tanks have Ich has been disproven...finally. I do agree that keeping fish healthy will go a long way towards preventing Ich.

As for cleaners...I do believe that Cleaner Shrimp will help out with Ich, Cleaner Wrasses will as well, but as SeaMonster mentioned, they'll quickly die if no parasites are available for them. Cleaner Wrasses should be left in the ocean!! Studies have shown that even with Cleaner Wrasses that eat other foods, without parasites to eat, they waste away. However, a Cleaner Goby is also a great cleaner and isn't an obligate cleaner, meaning they will eat other foods as well and other foods will keep them healthy.

 

[Scooterman]

QT, IMO your best option, QT anything wet!

Heck I QT LR now days LOL, when you invest lots of money into your tank, like thousands, last thing you want is stuff or critters that will cause you nightmares. JMO take it for a grain!

 

[Bigrockindaddy]

So I need a qt tank to do this right?

How should I have that set up .
20 gallons? big enough
live rock? live sand?
bare?
protein skimmer or basic filtration?
i know obviously no corals and such
but what is a proper qt tank set up so you can hospitalize fish
and still do proper hyposalinity or copper if necessary?
By the way did I say thank you guys for the info?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

You need to actually do some homework and read the links Kurt left. If you need more, there are many as "stickys" under Lee Birch's forum on fish

Sadly, there are no shortcuts...

Read this post...

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/...ad.php?t=27003

... then read these articles...

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...ture/index.php

Get the fish ONLY into a quarantine tank at normal temperature and start a hyposalinity treatment. Here's a good article on it...

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...osalinity.html

 

[returnofsid]

The size of QT you'll need really depends on the amount of fish and size of fish you'll have to QT. Other than that, I would suggest you read the links that were provided. Lots of great information!!

 

[mattleycrue76]

Rmember that if you're doing copper pretty much your only filtration will be from water changes because the copper will kill any bacteria on your rock, filter sponges, glass etc. I wouldnt use a skimmer unless you don't plan on using that skimmer in a DT again. Therefore a 20g seems way too small for all the fish you listed. I spent some time reseaching this topic when I was haveing a bout of ich on my blue hippo tang and decided to use a product that was recommended to me by several people with large and expensive reef display who had used it successfully and were nopt selling it (in other words had no reason to lie about their experience). So far it has worked for me but only time will tell. For now I have adopted the stance that hypo and copper come with their own set of risks and stress for the fish. Therefore if I can keep my fish healthy and their immunity up by other means I will do so.

Ich occurs in nature and nature has developed ways to cope with it. I am not bashing the traditional means of copper/hypo, I'm just saying that there are many pepole who have tanks with healthy fish that probably have ich laying dormant somewhere in them.

Bottom line: if YOU like the result and your fish are happy then I don't see the need to change anything.

Disclaimer: if you see me posting up about a big outbreak of ich in my tank at a later time don't bash me to hard. I may very well end up having to do the traditional treatment. I'm just going to wait and see if this works first

 

[azgard1]

By the way "Bigrockindaddy" Welcome to Reef Frontiers !

 

[Bigrockindaddy]

I think its back

Small clown white spots all over.
Time to qt him or all the fish? They have all been through that previous treatment I discussed.... Help.....

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Small clown white spots all over.
Time to qt him or all the fish? They have all been through that previous treatment I discussed.... Help.....

Hate to be a nag, but you need to read the instructions in those links as nobody can help your fish but you and you will fail unless you are educated on how to correctly do QT and hyposalinity.

 

[returnofsid]

Once again, it's your option to treat the infected fish only, or all of the fish. Ich has a life cycle that puts it in the water colum and on the substrate for a good portion of it's life. Treating the individual fish will not remove the Ich from your display tank. Best to treat ALL fish in QT with hyposalinity. Read up on it. If not done correctly or for long enough, it will be very ineffective.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

As Herefishyfishy mentioned, those that have responded to you have done all they can. It's up to you now...

Or you can just continue doing nothing, or trying out the multitude of miracle cures in a bottle. Those are your choices.

 

[Bigrockindaddy]

OK You all seem like you are definitely right

Small clown passed. I am going to qt the rest of the fish
20 gallon with some small pvc pieces as structure. What about the blenny. He eats algae. qt him? Whats he gonna eat? is a basic filtration and persistent water changes enough. Should I go ahead and do a quick freshwater dip?
So many questions. I read the articles and think the best course is main tank fishless 30 days and qt them the rest of the time. shoudl I get a 30 gallon with
the fish I have. Corals and anemone should be fine right as long as I feed em. The hermits and snail will be ok?

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

You need to do 6-8 weeks on the main with no fish. Not sure why you're settling with 30 days. Hypo is really not that stressful on the fish. I've done it with a goby for 7 weeks and had absolutely no issues.

Quarantine ALL fish. It's the only way you're going to get rid of it. I'll let others that have a blenny chime in on feeding, but if you leave it in the main it defeats the whole purpose.

Whatever the treatment (hypo or copper) a freshwater dip is kind of pointless. Either treatment will kill the ich, so the only thing a freshwater dip will do is stress the fish.

All the inverts in your main will be just fine. Just keep feeding them. And the crabs and snails will fend for themselves quite well, as they normally do!

Sorry for your loss, but you CAN beat it. It just takes some work and time.

 

[returnofsid]

As Kurt mentioned, you can beat this. I'd say 90% of us have gone through this. Don't know what all fish you have so I can't advise if you need to go with a 30 gallon or not. A bare bottomed tank with some PVC fittings for hiding places will be just great. Add a power head for circulation. As for the Blenny, try feeding it Nori while in the QT tank. Otherwise, if you have live rock that's covered with algae, add it to the QT tank. Just keep in mind that the hypo treatment will kill most if not all of the beneficial life that's in and on the rock. That'll be okay though.

As for Hypo, 30 days won't be enough. You need 6-8 weeks, as Kurt mentioned. It's also very important that your SG be at 1.009. Anything higher and the Ich may survive. This is actually not stressful for your fish at all, as long as changes are done gradually. The lower SG level actually makes the water more able to absorb oxygen. Thus the fish can breath easier.

IF you use copper anything that's in that tank, except fish, can NEVER go in your reef tank. That tank will also NEVER be safe for inverts or corals.