Ick Treatment

[Mtrueblood]

My blue hippo tang has come down with a case of Ick. What medication should I use in the tank that will get rid of the problem but wont hurt the corals or the fish. I was told at the LFS that Kick Ick would be good but could not garantee me that it would hurt the stuff in my tank. Pretty much they werent much help to me. If anyone could help and tell me the best medication that would help me I would apreciate it a whole lot.

[daugherty]

you need to get a qt tank and use copper in it. do not use any medication in the dt tank usually they will kill everything even if they say reef safe. you can get a ten gallon or a twenty galon tank cheap and use that for a qt. but it will take at least 6 weeks to get rid of the ich.

[Bifferwine]

There isn't anything you can use in the display tank that won't hurt your inverts or contaminate your live rock and sand. If you want to treat ich, you must do it in a quarantine tank. The only effective treatments for ich are copper and hyposalinity, both of which will kill your inverts.

That being said, hippo tangs are extremely prone to ich (they are disease magnets and most are very fragile fish; not hardy at all), and a 75 gallon tank is too small for one. If it gets over this bout of ich, it will almost definitely just keep getting it over and over again from the stress of being in a small tank.

Many people choose not to treat ich and give the fish a chance to fight it off by itself. You can do this by minimizing stress, keeping water quality high, soaking food in vitamins (like Selcon) and garlic extract (to boost the immune system), etc. But, since hippos are so sensitive to ich, this approach may not work for this particular fish.

[cgoodman381]

I had luck using a product called No-Ich.

http://www.fishvet.com/no-ich.htm

I used it on some clowns which are less prone to ich then yours, but it still worked great for me.

Also, garlic soaked food for immune system boost.

Edit:
I do have inverts in my tank including snails, starfish, some polyps and a skunk shrimp.

[fatman]

Hyposalinity or copper, both of which are best carried out in a quarantine tank. Your tank is small for a tang. It might prove impossible to prevent strain induced ich in a 30 gallon tank, and difficuly in a 75 gallon. How long ago did you introduce the hippo to the tank it is in, and how long has the tank been established? It is usually not recommened to treat only the effected fish if the ich has been present for any time at all.

[d.french]

i soaked algae strips in a jar of minced garlic and fed it to my fish since i added a new fish and almost all my fish come down with ick it was crazy never had that happen. Since tangs need algae and green food for healthy immune system and garlic is like really good for fish to it worked great, including the fact i have two cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasse which all also clean parasites off fish.

[Mtrueblood]

Ok check it out it has been a couple of days since I posted this problem, What I did was went out and researched what I was suppose to do. The thing that I have found and has helped significantly is an ich med. called Ich Attack. I also purchased a cleaner shrimp that has I believed been helping out with the parasites. The stuff that I have been putting in the tank has not hurt any of the corals or inverts that I have in there. Everything seems to be doing fine. I do have a quick question why is it that most keep saying that the tank is to small for a Blue hippo tang when all the websites and stores all say the min tank size is 70 gallon?

[Mtrueblood]

Originally Posted by fatman

Hyposalinity or copper, both of which are best carried out in a quarantine tank. Your tank is small for a tang. It might prove impossible to prevent strain induced ich in a 30 gallon tank, and difficuly in a 75 gallon. How long ago did you introduce the hippo to the tank it is in, and how long has the tank been established? It is usually not recommened to treat only the effected fish if the ich has been present for any time at all.

The Tang is in the 75 gallon, and it has been for about a week. The tank has been astablished about two months now I believe maybe a week short of two months.

[Mtrueblood]

Another thing that I was told to do but I didnt do for the fear of the fish was give it a fresh water bath, if the fish stresses out easily then that wouldnt be a good idea would it? That in turn would cause it to get more ick right?

[Bifferwine]

Not all websites say 70 gallons is fine for a hippo tang. Just like fish stores, commercial websites are interested in selling you stuff.

The site that I've found to be the most accurate regarding the care of livestock is MarineDepotLive. I look stuff up on that site all the time.

MarineDepotLive says they need at least 100 gallons:
http://www.marinedepotlive.com/ps_Vi...vendor%3d.html