any advice for ich?

S

sara_liz

Reefing newb
Hello,

I have a beautiful 55 gallon main tank with live rock and sand, a lionfish, juvenile french angel fish, juvenile queen angel fish, coral shrimp, anemone, snails, and sea urchins. A few weeks ago the fish started looking "ichy" with small white dots all over them and acting aggitated. I have ordered a UV sterilizer that is taking forever to arrive, so I moved the lion and two angels into a small quarantine tank and have started a round of Mardel Coppersafe to try and cure them. I hope it is not too late, the french and lion look pretty bad but the queen is still eating. I am going to crank up the heat in the main tank to 85 degrees or so to speed up the ich life cycle. Does anyone know if this higher temperature will hurt the remaining invertibrates and anemone in the tank? I also tested the waters and all levels are in the normal range and have been doing regular water changes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am new at this and hope to save my fish and put them back into my main tank and not have to deal with the ich anymore. Thanks!
 
Is most likley because a 55g is way!!!! to small for those fish even just one,and probably not going to go away from them being so stressed in a small tank
 
IMO moving a fish that is already suffering from ich will do more damage in the long run. It will stress the fish more causing them to get even worse, not to mention the copper will exacerbate their stress. Again, IMO the best course of action to take when a fish is showing ich is to leave them where they're at and make sure they're eating and stress-free. Unfortunately, like it was stated before your tank size was probably stressing them out a lot to begin with. For your display tank, if you want to get rid of the ich in there DO NOT raise your temp, it will hurt the inverts you currently have in your tank and is not good for them. If you leave your display without fish for 6-8 weeks the ich will die off on it's own. However, if you don't QT and treat all future fish you add for ich then when you add them you'll just be adding ich back into your tank.

For future reference, here's a good article to read about ich https://www.livingreefs.com/oh-no-have-ich-do-do-t30950.html
 
Thanks, the angels are smaller, around 2-3 inches but the lionfish is close to 5in. They all seemed to be really healthy and happy, eating well and not bothering eachother before all this happened. I got another angel from a friend that I ended up giving away but I think that is where the ich came from. I figured only having 3 fish in a 55 gal tank wasn't too many...I read books and stuff online about how many fish and what kinds you should have together and not have together but everyone says different things. I live in the FL Keys so I catch all of them, or other people do in the wild here and give them to me. So I will leave the main tank fish free for 6-8 weeks and treat treat the fish in the quarantine tank where they are in now unless anyone has better suggestions?
 
+1 valasaraptor
Wild caught fish cannot be put back. Please do research on the animals you remove from the wild. A 55 gallon tank is nowhere near big enough for an angel, no matter how small it is.
 
In the Keys as long as you have a vaild Florida Saltwater fishing license and abide by size limits you are allowed to gather many species of tropical fish and invertibrates, including angels. I have lived here my whole life and know all the laws and rules pertaining to fishing and water activities and am a captain and run a boat. I abviously wouldn't release a sick fish back into the wild, pretty sure valasaraptor meant put them back in my main tank anyway, not the wild. I actually got the angels from a friend who runs an aquarium business locally with legal permits to sell tropicals etc, she catches them locally as well. She has a medicated system for all of her fish, so I'm convinced she didnt give me any sick ones. The one other angel I got from a random friend's aquarium I believe started the ich. Anyway, thanks for all the "advice" on stuff I know more than all of you about...if you have any real advice for treating ich like I originally asked for it would still be appreciated.
 
While the ich may have been brought in from the angel you got from a friend, a 55 is far to small for all three of those fish, as the angels grow, I would imagine they'll start fighting. Healthy fish fight off ich on their own. The fact that your fish came down with it tells me that they are stressed
 
Im not quite sure what you are getting so upset about, like you said, you need a valid Florida saltwater fishing license to collect those fish, which backs up what I said.

Secondly, you asked about ich. We have told you about ich. There was an excellent article on ich posted for you in the fourth post. Also the main cause of fish getting ich is stress. Your fish are stressed because you have multiple angels in a tank much too small for them. 99.9% of us have ich in our tanks, but because we keep our fish in a stress free environment, our fish are healthy enough to deal with it. It like humans coming down with a cold. We tend to get sick when we are under stress.
 
The seemed all happy to me and eating fine before it happened but ok, i will trade them in for smaller fish and go from there, thanks! :-)
 
I think once you see the difference in behavior, you will be happy with getting smaller fish. Might I suggest a pair of clowns or a blenny? Both will do much better in a smaller tank and have great personalities.

Also there are dwarf angels that will do fine in a 55 gal. Some examples are the coral beauty, flame angel, rusty angel, and my personal favorite, the lemonpeel angel.
 
I did mean release them lol and just because they are eating doesnt mean they are healthy or stressed.We arent here to attack you just explaining the reason the ich most likley started showing
 

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