treating ich

[jkeating2005]

My pair of clowns seem to have ich! :grumble:

i have read alot about setting up a QT to treat it.

i have a 20L to set up with artificial hiding spots (PVC)

but i have a few questions?


do i use water from the display tank and then replenish that water?

i am going to use a copper based treatment, which is a good one?

how often should i be doing water changes?


thanks Everyone in advance!!

 

[daugherty]

yes use water from the DT and leave the DT empty for at least 4 to 6 weeks or you will be back to treating the fish again. you will need to buy a copper test kit to maintain the correct levels of copper to much can be fatal to the fish. no sand and no rock in the tank or the copper will ruin it and it will be garbage. just change water once a week and use water from the water changes from the dt this will help so that there is no cycle in the qt tank. any of the copper treatments are good you just need to maintain the correct levels of it. and do not run any carbon just a bio filitration will be fine.

 

[jkeating2005]

thank you for your reply!

i have no rock or sand in there!

i have a hob filter for the tank, this will be ok right?


thanks again!

 

[daugherty]

yep but you will only be able to use it for that tank after copper has been in the water copper leaches into everything and if used in a different tank it will leach out of the plastic into the tank ank kill inverts and or corals

 

[jkeating2005]

ok! that is my plan! i plan to have this tank only for a hospital!

 

[daugherty]

since you have it use it for all new fish that you get this way you can qt them with copper to make shure that you dont transfer other parasites to the dt no fish goes into my tank unless it has been in copper for at least 4 weeks. the pet store that i go to will not sell any fish until after they have had them for 4 weeks in copper

 

[jkeating2005]

that i will do!

one more question, should i be removing all of my fish from the tank and treating them all or just the two clowns?

 

[ccCapt]

Remove and treat all the fish.

And just let me add, not all copper meds are the same and not all copper test kits work with all meds. There is chelated and nonchelated copper and you must get the correct test kit for the type of copper you choose.
CopperSafe by Mardel is nonchelated and the API cu test kits is made to test for nonchelated copper.

 

[daugherty]

i would treat all of them and leave the tank empty for at least 4 to 6 weeks

 

[jkeating2005]

alright!!!

let the fish hunting begin!!

catching them all should be fun!

 

[daugherty]

you may have to take all the rock out to catch them

 

[jkeating2005]

every night when i feed them they come up to the net so i think i wont have a problem!

 

[Bifferwine]

Ich is a parasite that lives on your fish, so if it has infected your clowns, your other fish are infected too (and are at least carriers of the parasite). That's why they need to be treated as well. As long as there are fish in the tank, ich will survive. So removing all your fish from the DT and leaving it "fallow" for at least a month kills off any ich that remains in the tank.

Ich is an opportunistic parasite that usually cannot establish itself unless the fish are stressed and their immune systems are compromised. Some believe that ALL fish, whether they've been quarantined or not, carry ich, and only break out with the disease when they are stressed.

You should try to get to the root of your ich outbreaks and find out why the fish are getting sick. Is it your water quality? Are the fish fighting? Are they under/over fed? Usually if you can correct the stressor, they will stop getting ich altogether.

 

[Gooseman]

this may go against everything thats been said ... i just wanted to add that when my fish got ich about 6 months ago removing them from the tank wasnt an option ... 1) i couldnt catch the damn things 2) removing the LR wasnt going to work since i had coral attached to all of it 3) the stress of moving them may make it worse for them ... so i elected to ride it out and treat with extra doses of garlic at feeding time for as long as it took to get rid of the ich ... some ich attack(i know it doesnt always work) ... i also raised my tank water temp to around 83-84 degrees which causes the ich cycle to speed up and get over faster ... after all was said and done i only lost one fish of the 8 i had ... it was my ocellaris clown ... since then my tank has been ich free(knock on wood) ... i am sure it may happen again but that was how i made it through my ich attack ... every tank varies

 

[yote]

Sometimes the fish actually fair better when left to fight the parasites off themselves.

 

[Bifferwine]

I have never removed and treated my fish that have gotten ich, and I have not lost one yet. I advocate helping the fish recover on their own also.

 

[shane]

No i say you should find yourself a cleaner wrasse. I tryed everything when my hippo tang got white spot. Then i got cleaner. And dory has never been better and she looks great to. The wrasse also looks atfer a fairly big tomato clown and they love the wrasse for it So find wrasse he should get straight to work. My wrasse did.

 

[dustin_P74]

the only problem with getting a cleaner wrasse is that they quickly run out of food in a tank and then starve to death. if you do go the fish route get a cleaner goby, they are captive bred and much better for tank life

 

[Gooseman]

i disagree about the cleaner wrasse ... i have one and he is one of the most entertaining fish in my tank ... hes very healthy and eats mysis shrimp everyday at feeding time

 

[Bifferwine]

i disagree about the cleaner wrasse ... i have one and he is one of the most entertaining fish in my tank ... hes very healthy and eats mysis shrimp everyday at feeding time

Yours is one of the lucky ones. It is believed that only 1 out of every 1000 cleaner wrasses sold survive in captivity. I recommend a cleaner goby for this reason.