Sick fish

[jesshimom]

Help!

I need some advice! I have a butterfly with the dreaded white spots all over him. He seems fine and is still eating with gusto. I have read all there is to read; and decided to take a wait and see approach but tonight came home to find spots on my favorite, my pink margin wrasse. So, I decided to set up the hospital tank I stupidly just took down last week and treat them. Here's my question. If I remove the two fish that have ich, and as all the articles said they fall off and recycle themselves (the great ciricle of life) I dont quite understand how my tank will rid itself of the ich it already is infested with. Am I making any sense?? The tank is testing fine and my water changes are up to date so I"m not concerned about my water.

Thanks for any insite!

Colleen

 

[Desolas]

will rid itself of the ich it already is infested with

If it is Ich, it requires a host fish to survive. If you remove the host fish, the hatched parasites will free swim for awhile, I think 16 weeks (not sure) and die unless they find another host to spawn on.

Healthy fish typically resist ich even in an infested tank, but if you have other fish in the tank it is probably wise to setup a seperate quarantine tank for them now, or leave them in and hope they are healthy enough to resist infection. You could try a cleaner fish like Neon Goby, they will eat the cysts off the infected fish, if allowed by the fish. Get rid of the parasite's food source, or introduce a predator, and it should slowly go away.

Also in a non-invert tank you can use a hyposalinity and temperature to aid in killing off ich.

 

[Solov]

That's correct - move all fish to hospital tank and treat with hyposalinity (slowly (20% water changes with RO/DI daily) reduce salinity to 1.009 ). Keep 1.009 salinity for 8-9weeks (at least 6 weeks after all visible signs of Ich disappear from the fish), then slowly (by adding saltwater as water evaporates) increase salinity to 1.025 and put fish back into the tank.

Neon Gobbies are good guys too and they will be happy to clean your fish, just don't expect all the fish allowing them to do so immediately.

Slightly raise temperature (to 82-83F) in main tank to speed up cyst life cycle, so they go through it in those 8-9 weeks for sure.

Add some bio-filtering for hospital tank when going with hyposalinity, because skimmer won't be very effective, and you don't have to worry about nitrates in FO tank.

Garlic soaked food rumored to help fish too, never tried that.

 

[jesshimom]

Thanks for the info.... I've been feeding garlic soaked food since I got these fish <garlic extreme > so I'm not so sure how effective it is. Like everything, what works for some, doesn't for others.

Looks like I know what I'll be doing tonight.....

Colleen

 

[DonW]

Ich treatments are questionable. A hospital tank is best. Kickich in the hospital works great also does copper but I prefer Kickich. It can also be used in your reef. Kickitch is one of those treatment that have worked well for some but not others. My belief is, if you catch it early it does a great job.

Don

 

[fishermann]

jesshimom are the clowns in this tank with the ich? You can get a 9watt uv and put on, I have had good success with uv. Go slow sometimes moving and stressing them is worse then seeing if it levels off and leaving them alone and let them fight it on their own with the help of uv and good tank conditions. If they are continuing to eat good I wouldn't panic. the ich well cycle itself out even with the fish in the tank if the fish fight it off on their own and with help of uv killing the cyst that gets sent through it. You saw my powder blue, he got ich as most tangs do, but in time and good food he kicked it on his own and as you saw he is a great fish and that was over a year ago. Watch feeding the garlic, i think it helps don't know for sure, but it can polute you water quality very easy so once a day woujd be all i would do it.

 

[fishermann]

colleen to add to the post above as i remember your conversation when you picked up the clowns, your tanks were pretty new. You should not have a butterfly, even one like a kleins in a tank less then a yr old. They require a well seasoned tank. Some people mite get away with it but you are asking for trouble. I would treat the butterfly in the hospital tank, as i would guess he is the one that is probably the problem. Wrasses are not usally pron to ich. i don't know what else you have in there. I would suggest in the future you use your hospital tank as a quarantine tank on any new arrivals, it well save you alot of headaches down the road. like i said above the ich well clycle out in time even with fish in the tank, but you need to get the one out causing it, which i would guess to be the butterfly, not knowing what all you have and how old your tanks are. John

 

[tanglover]

do ya'll know if melafix has any adverse reaction on kickich?

 

[fishermann]

don't know but you have to be really careful mixing things, i would really make sure it is okay before mixing.

 

[cdeakle]

This will answer all your questions:

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