Looks like I have ich...

[aedeos]

I'm in bellingham, and Clark's finally got in a sailfin, which I've wanted since I started. I jumped on the chance, brought him home... and he was dead within a day. Not very cool. Now, I'm setting up a separate tank to house corals, inverts, etc. so I can treat my large tank for ich. It's a very disappointing discovery. I've also had trouble keeping anenomes, but I don't think that's a cause of ich, would it be? Does my plan of switching tanks seem sound? Any other tips or suggestions?

Also, I think I might need to be using a RO/DI unit for my tank. Does anyone around bellingham use tap water with treatment, or do you all have filters? My tank is looking good, but I want to take it to the next level.

 

[redvipe2010]

Your anemone problems is not causing ich. You do need to be using at a minimum RO water for anemones and coral. RO/DI is better.

How many fish do you need to treat for ich?

 

[aedeos]

13. 7 chromis, a damsel, maroon clown, hawkfish, coral beauty, and two eels.

It's in my main tank, so I'm going to transfer all the vulnerable stuff to a different tank.

Also, If I'm looking for a cheap RO/DI unit, how much would I be running? I only need to do aprx. 10 gallons a week in water changes.

 

[redvipe2010]

http://www.thefilterguys.biz/ro_systems.htm

How do you plan to treat ich? I personally would remove the fish, place in QT, let the main tank go fallow for a month.

 

[jnarowe]

If you rmaroon clown has Ich, you may be in serious trouble. They typically do not get Ich because of the extra slime they produce. Are you sure it's Ich? Can you take a picture so we can see it?

You don't neccessarily need to chemically treat Ich. In fact you may get better long-term results by proper nutrition and helping the fish' boost their immune systems. What I would recommend is to feed only high quality fresh or frozen food that has been soaked in vitamins and Garlic Guard. Then strain through a net so you are not introducing a bunch of PO4, and feed 3 times per day. After a couple of days you should see a remarkable improvement in fish health. Then continue multiple feedings for a few weeks, and once the Ich has been gone for a couple of months, you can go back to just daily feeding.

Water quality is gain a big issue. Trying to keep a reef by using treated tap water is really sub-par, and I think it will cause you a lot of stress. (and your animals)

Keeping anemones can be difficult. They are sensitive to water quality and light much more so than fish and even some corals. Without pictures it's hard to give good advice though, but I would bet water quality is probably the common denominator in your case.

 

[aedeos]

when I treated, none of my fish showed any signs of disease. the only reason I treated the tank was because it killed off the new fish so quickly that I couldn't even react before it seemed to late. all fish in there had built up their immune systems already, and now I'm just giving new fish a fighting chance.

as far as water quality goes, I plan on getting better water in there with time, but as with all things, that takes time and money. I'll hold off on an anenome until then.

 

[jnarowe]

treating the entire tank with any medicine that kills Ich with also kill virtually all crustaceans like pods, shrimp etc. so you may encounter a secondary die-off that will also effect water quality. As far as better water goes, I understand the money thing for sure, so I would just caution you against adding any invertebrates until you have that issue solved. Snails may be OK but my assumption is that their life span will be shorten significantly.

Going FOWLR (Fish Only with Live Rock) can be a good thing though in the sense that you can be sure to eliminate a variety of pests like red bugs and AEFW (Acro Eating Flat Worms). When you have been FOWL for a couple of months plus, and solve the water quality issue, you will have a nice mature tank to introduce corals and/or anemones.

Good luck!

 

[aedeos]

well, I've had some inverts in it for awhile. A brittle star, some snails, a horseshoe crab. All are doing well. I've been getting a couple corals as of recently, and they're doing actually surprisingly well. I moved all of those things to a quarantine tank while I did the treatment. Once it went through the 4 days of treatment prescribed, I added carbon filtration, did a 15g water change, then waited 24 hours for the meds to clear out. I won't lie, the corals look better than they ever did when in the tank suddenly. There's coraline algae suddenly growing rampantly and I'm insanely excited for how everything is progressing. It's obviously a work in progress, but it looks very good right now. My dendronephthya looks beautiful. I've just been very slow with any additions and let the tank go at its own pace.

 

[jnarowe]

Sounds great. I would love to see pictures.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Non-copper based treatments will not cure Ick and the copper ones will destroy your live rock. Need to cure the fish in a separate quarantine tank and let your display remain fish free (fallow) for 6 weeks. The Ick there will die out from starvation without fish.

 

[91YOTA]

here's a great article about controlling cryptocaryon irritans (marine ich) by one of our locals and former TOTM on RC here in nc

http://kipsreef.com/forum/showthread.php?t=220