Ick Treatment

[RoyalT]

Get a cleaner wrasse. It will eat the ick off of the fish. It is actually pretty amazing and it starts immediatly upon arrival of the fish. Your tangs will swim right up to it and stick out a fin to let them eat it off. They should only cost about 10 bucks at your LFS.

My LFS has a 13 inch lion fish with 2 2 inch cleaner wrasse in the tank with him. Even the lion fish wont eat the cleaner because he knows who the doctor is.

[reeffreak]

Cleaner wrasse has dismal survival rates.No clener fish or shrimp is the ''cure all'' for ich....help perhaps.If you want a cleaner fish then get the cleaner goby and not the cleaner wrasse.

[Bifferwine]

Freak is right on, cleaner wrasses rarely live longer than a few months in captivity. My LFS won't even sell them to customers because of their dismal survival rates.

[Mtrueblood]

I do appreciate all the help that everyone has put in on the forum. I knew if I posted it on here that I would get some good responses. My fish seems to be fine and has been clear of all white spots for about 5 days now. I used some different methods that I read about and got from here. The one that seems to have done the best is Paraguard by seachem. I of course had to take all the inverts and corals out because I didnt know what the stuff would do to them. I also will be going to buy a cleaner goby like Freak suggested because like Freak and Biff both said I have found that the cleaner wrasse is very hard to take care of. Once again thanks for all the help.

[Bifferwine]

Glad to hear things have gotten better! Keep us updated on your progress.

[kosmo]

This is abit of a side note to help you avoid future break outs, its a small write up I did about a year ago in regards to the ich and QT tanks. Hope you find some useful info in it.

Cheers.

First a small introduction, anyone that has had experience with an aquarium will tell you about the bane of all marine hobbyists, disease or more specifically the Ich. Ich will appear as small white spots on your animal that if not treated properly can be fatal to your beautiful and expensive pets. There are many treatment methods available to aquarist wishing to treat the ich and each have positive and negative results. The following will be my methods for treatment and will address its pros and cons, I will also address some of the other methods and why I do not suggest them. Though ich is present in both fresh and salt environments, my expense lies with salt and thus the path of this guide will be Salt


What is Ich?
Ich is a naturally occurring disease that most all fish have been infected with at one stage in their lives. The ich is generally always present on a fish however a strong immune system will fight off the parasite. When a fish is stressed out or ill for other reasons, an ich out break can occur. When buying a new animal for your tank, always assume that it is infected and follow precautionary measure to insure your pet lasts more than a few weeks. Ich is small parasite that will attach it self to your fish and burrow under the fishes scales and feed off the animal. The ich parasite that can loosely be considered invertebrate (this will have significance later in this thread) and as such is very treatable. Ich is an extremely resilient disease that undergoes different stages in its life cycle. The entire cycle lasts roughly 10-14 days. However the cycle length can very based on temperature, colder temps will lengthen the cycles and warmer temperatures will shorten the cycle.
http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/3wdev/VITAHTML.../GIF/12P167.GIF

Ich is only susceptible to medication when it is in its free floating stage, the link above is a simplified explanation of the life cycle of the ich. As you can see the free floating stage is only 1 part of a 4 part life cycle. That being said with a cycle of 10 -14 days you can see your window for treatment is very small. If ich goes untreated It can and will kill your fish.

Treatment Methods:
There are only a limited number of options available to an aquarist in regards to treatment of ich. These treatments are as follows Medication, Fresh Water Dips, the might Quarantine Tank or a combination of all 3. The first treatment method is the most obvious, Medication. Ich medications are generally copper based meds that when introduced to a tank will kill off your ich infestation and not harm your fish. Now why is this important? Copper based meds kill ich and not fish… that’s good right? Wrong. As I mentioned before the ich can loosely be considered an invertebrate. Invertebrates as a whole are extremely susceptible to copper based medications. Copper of any kind added to a fish tank will kill not only your ich infestation but also any other invertebrate inhabiting your tank. (shrimp, crabs, corals, stars) you name it… its dead. Also copper has the nasty tendency to soak into the silicon sealant used in your tank and can almost never be removed 100%. So by adding a copper based med you have killed the ich and made your tank uninhabitable for any invertebrate for ever. Simple don’t use it. Some medications you will find are not copper based and are reef safe, however they (in my experience) are difficult to find and do a piss poor job.

Fresh Water Dips are exactly as they sound, when your fish is infected with ich, dunk it in a bucket of fresh water. A tropical fish can survive in freshwater for a limited amount of time however the ich in your animals gills will be flushed out and killed almost instantly. The down sides to this treatment is that it will cause a great deal of stress to the animal that is already stressed out to begin with, second it won’t kill ich that has burrowed under the fish scales and you’ll have to do continuous dips in order to save the fish. Blah blah blah its effective but generally a worst case option and will probably end up killing your fish.

Quarantine Tank.
This is the most effect way to treat Ich in my personal opinion. It is the most expensive option to set up, however it is as I said by far the most effective.

What you’ll need.
• 10+ gallon tank
• Salt
• Filters
• Heater
• Chunk of coral skeleton
• UV Sterlizer
• Copper Based ich medication
• News paper
• Water

The General Idea
the idea behind this tank is to get the ich when it’s most susceptible and most likely to occur. When you buy a new fish it will be stressed out and will likely have an out break. If this animal is placed in your community tank you have just placed a time bomb with one expensive investment. So you want to avoid doing this, what are your options? Well how about a second tank that takes the brunt of it? The general concept behind a quarantine tank is to isolate an infected animal and treat it and it alone. Keeping it separate in a small tank as apposed to the community tank will provide a number of things. It will prevent healthy fish form getting the ich, it will allow you to use copper based medications and not effect invertebrates, it in theory will starve out any ich in your community tank and will thus make it an ich free zone.

The setup is fairly simple, fill your 10 gallon tank with fresh water, I use bottled water due to its low mineral contents. Add salt and wrap the outside of the tank in newspaper so light does not get in also a light bar is not required. You will not use a substrate in this tank it will be a bare glass bottom. Both the news paper and bare glass will assist in cleaning the tank. In the center of the tank place your coral skeleton fragment, add filter, then let it cycle for a few days so all the salt is absorbed. The next 3 components are the most important to a successful quarantine tank. Place the heater in the tank and set it slightly above the optimal tank temperature of 75-77. I usually place my heater at 80. This increase in temperate will decrease the cycle time of the ich and give you more “free floating” stages, thus giving you more time for treatment. The UV sterilizer is a self-contained UV light and pump that will kill any free floating parasite in your water, the benefits of this are self explanatory and I don’t really need to go into any detail. Finally Copper based medications, I know I just went through a rant about how bad they are, and I still agree they are terrible…. In a community tank… By using the medication in a quarantine environment you limit the coppers exposure to your community tank to 0 and you are still able to treat ill fish with this effective medication. Keep in mind the only down side to copper is that it will kill all invertebrates in that tank. If the tank only has one dead piece of rock and a fish it will work wonders.

Now that you have it set up, here is how you use it. When you purchase a new fish instead of a 30 minute acclimation into your community tank, acclimate it to your Quarantine tank, after the 30min acclimation dump the fish in the tank and add some copper medication, and turn on the UV Sterilizer. That’s all there is to it, keep the animal in the tank for 3-4 weeks feed regularly and keep an eye on it. Nearing the end of the quarantine time start to reduce the temperature to the same as your community tank, once that is done you can remove the fish and place him into the community for all to see. NOTE: Only transfer the animal, do not transfer any of the copper medicated water!!! Fish only. Once the fish is introduced, tare down the quarantine tank, clean it out with a mild vinegar/water solution rinse it well and start over again for your next addition. This isn’t only useful for new fish, but also established fish that become ill. If you notice a fish rubbing on rock, or with white spots, scoop him out and put him in the quarantine tank, then follow the same process.

Naturally this is only used for fish type animals, placing a shrimp into a quarantine tank is a bad idea because you’ll kill it. This process is a long one, and can be a pain in the butt, however in the end it is worth it. You will have a stable community tank with zero ich infestation. This process is most effective when you are just starting your community, an empty tank has no ich and if you quarantine all your additions it will stay that way.


I rushed through this and its got some holes I’m sure. I’ll read over and edit over the next few days. Other than that, read, enjoy, ask questions, comment you name it. I’m here to help you.

Regards
Kozmo

[fatman]

I believe a light less environment is a stressful and unhealthy environment for fish when used over a long term (over 8 to 12 hours). Iwould use a moderate amount of overhead lighting or at least see that a lamp is near by the tank. I agree with the news paper but I would use it to avoid sressing the fish due to peoples movemoment around the tank. I would use a sponge filter for the tank and I would not botter with the cost of a UV filter for a quaratine tank. The flow rate through an average UV light of low wattage would have to be very, very, low to kill ick or nearly any form of parasite and the UV lighting tube or its cover tube would need to be kept sparkling clean to be for the light to be of any signifiacant assistance. Also UV lights are not cheap and as stated previously the UV lights usually supplied to the aquarium trade have small low wattage bulbs that are overrated in their performance capabilities. I would suggest all fish be quarantined in a hyposaline quarantine tank for parasite control for a period of 3 to 4 weeks and if ick appears externally visible on the fish I would then use copper and start a recounted for the time to be spent in quarantine. I would also recommend plastic flower pots and or acrylic or large PVC tubing for hiding places for the fish(es) in quarantine. A heater and mild aeration is also important. A small increase in temprtature to 78 - 82 degrees is also a good idea. I have not heard of silicone absorbing copper, but any carbonate based rocks or substrates (aragonite or crushed coral) will readily absorb copper and if a "live rock" or carbonate sand is added to a quarantine tank the copper level will need to be repeatedly tested and copper will need to be repeatedly added to make up for the copper absorption by the rocks/sand.