Clown ich after 4 days! I need your opinion!

[razec]

I had a brand new tank cycled using the shrimp method for 3 weeks without any livestock.
Before I went to LFS to buy fish my tank was fully cycled and the readings were:
Amonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Salinity 1.027

I bought 2 clowns 3 days ago. Today I noticed that both of them have ich (white spots).

My question to you is:

Were this fish already infected, or they got the ich in my tank?

Thank you in advance

[ReefKeeper]

probably already infected and the stress of the move weakened their immune system and now they are showing the signs. take the fish out of that tank and put them in a QT tank, start adding a garlic supplement to their food and let the main tank sit fishless for 4-6 weeks (i would go 8 weeks to be safe). if you keep the fish in this tank and just treat them in there, the ich cycle will just keep repeating itself and you will never get rid of it.

[Bifferwine]

Any fish can get ich, some get it for apparently no reason. Sometimes even the slightest bit of stress (such as moving from the store to your home) can cause an ich outbreak. Clowns are very hardy fish and usually can recover from ich on their own.

I agree with what ReefKeeper said, you will need to quarantine your fish in another tank if you want to treat them. Do not treat your main tank with any sort of copper based medication, or you will contaminate your sand and rock and will never be able to keep any kind of inverts or corals in that tank.

Your other option is to just leave the fish alone and try to let them fight off the infection on their own. Feed them frozen food (no flakes or pellets, those will lead to algae problems), soak their food in a garlic extract before feeding, and as long as they are eating, the chance of them recovering is good. You will always have ich in your tank, it's just a matter of minimizing stress to prevent future outbreaks. You won't be able to prevent ich 100% of the time, no matter what you do.

[hibye]

1.027! thats pretty high salinty; that may be the problem there becuase most people keep it around 1.023 - 1.025.
and to treat him get a five gallon or bigger styrofoam box and keep temp at 79-81,salintity at 1.019,some dead rock, and feed formula 1 marine pellets,copper.for about 7 weeks and your fish will be 100% better

[ReefKeeper]

Originally Posted by hibye

1.027! thats pretty high salinty; that may be the problem there becuase most people keep it around 1.023 - 1.025.
and to treat him get a five gallon or bigger styrofoam box and keep temp at 79-81,salintity at 1.019,some dead rock, and feed formula 1 marine pellets,copper.for about 7 weeks and your fish will be 100% better

1.027 is not that high !! i keep my tank at 1.026.

do NOT use a styrofoam box !! the heater will likely melt the box !! just go out and get a cheap 10 gallon tank, NO live or dead rock (it will soak up the copper and become useless), salinity should be 1.024 - 1.026, feed them normally, but add garlic extract to the food. if you want to treat with copper, be sure you know what you are doing because you can overdose the tank and kill the fish.

i recommend doing a search on hyposalinity on marine depot, in Kelly Jedlicki's disease health and wellness forum ... Disease, Health and Wellness - by Kelly Jedlicki

[Bifferwine]

I agree, 1.027 is not going to cause ich.

I also agree not to use any rock in a quarantine tank. You can throw in some PVC for the fish to hide in, but any rock you put in will be contaminated.

[reeffreak]

I agree with Biff and Reefkeeper.Put them in QT(or not) and just feed frozen foods soaked in garlic and a vitamin supplement.They usually recover after they build up there immune system from the stress of a new system.

[yote]

Originally Posted by hibye

1.027! thats pretty high salinty; that may be the problem there becuase most people keep it around 1.023 - 1.025.
and to treat him get a five gallon or bigger styrofoam box and keep temp at 79-81,salintity at 1.019,some dead rock, and feed formula 1 marine pellets,copper.for about 7 weeks and your fish will be 100% better

I agree with Keeper.1.027 is not high at all.Thats where I keep my S.G.

[Doc]

HERFERT


Now then, since that is out of the way....

Since you only have 2 fish, and they both have Ich, there is no risk of it spreading to anyone else. I would not waste the energy on treating them outside the tank with copper. If there were other prized fish that you might lose, I would reconsider.

At this point, if they are eating, just leave them alone. I have had better luck with leaving the fish alone (if they are eating) and allowing them to get over the infection on their own. my trigger just got over a really nasty case without a drop of copper or meds. She just ate like a hog for 10 days and it was gone. The more they are stressed, the more likely they will die. Treating copper meds can cause stress as does fishing them out. Once they stop eating, they are as good as dead.

Good luck and get used to it. Ich is a problem for everyone but Dominick. Some how, he has been able to avoid Ich forever in his tank. Of course, he has had his struggles with other things...

-Doc

[reeffreak]

Why you wanna bring back that nightmare.Yes,so far,nothing has gotten Ich in my system including my beautiful Powder Brown which btw looks better than a sohal.