bswe22 Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 Well it looks like two of my fish have come down with a bad case of Ich. I have never had to deal with this before so I am wondering the best way to help my finned friends out. The first fish that has it is a Bi-color FoxFace. It is in a 55 gallon FOWLR tank. The other fish id my Coral Beauty that is in my 39 gallon reef tank. I am wondering if I should do a "fresh water dip" on both these fish or do I get out a 10 gallon tank and treat both fish with some meds (copper)? Whatever I do, I need to do it tonight when I get home from work. I am afraid I might lose these fish. Any and all advice is appreciated and welcome. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mohaynow Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 If they are eating well Then put some garlic stuff on their food like garlic guard or something like it. Other than that I would just let it run its corse, sometimes medicating just stresses them out more. I've had a few fish that have had ich since day 1, a year ago. As long as they are active and eating they should survive. Cleaner shrimp will also help you battle it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bswe22 Posted August 30, 2011 Author Share Posted August 30, 2011 They are eating OK. At least they did last night. I will stop by the LFS on my way home to see if they have any "Garlic Guard". If they don't eat tonight, then what do I do? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mohaynow Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I don't know much about medications but if you do medicate them then I would do a quaranteen tank like you put in your initial post. I am sure someone that knows more about medications will chime in with some helpfull advice. Wish I could help more. Good luck with the ich! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trautman Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 If you have a fowlr, then (depending on the inhabitants) I would just medicate lightly with copper. In the reef tank you should let it run it's course. And use garlic while you are at it. the copper will come out of the fowlr with water changes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burningbaal Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 what about malachite green? non-copper based...might help. It worked well on ich in a FW tank I used to have. I think it'd be reef safe, but not 100% sure. Trautman's right that if it's just verts in your tank copper in the 55 would be fine. cleaner shrimp are great too...you could definitely give that a try (maybe you already have one/more in the 39g?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trautman Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 malachite green is NOT reefsafe. and it stains everything green, not a pretty look. what is in either of your tanks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cellowithgills Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 No body in Eugene/Springfield that I know of carries Garlic Guard. I always get mine from Garrett in Salem. You can try a health food store and look for Kyolic. It's an aged garlic extract and it works very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burningbaal Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 malachite green is NOT reefsafe. and it stains everything green' date=' not a pretty look. what is in either of your tanks?[/quote'] thanks Trautman! I figured if I brought it up, someone would tell us. As for the staining, it always cleared with carbon in my FW tank, but not being reefsafe is a big deal, so thanks! I feed a variety of freeze dried mysis, bloodworms, frozen brine shrimp, algae wafers and omega pellets. the summary is that the omega one pellets have garlic in them, several other pellet foods do too. I don't buy anything alive (or rock or anything) at big box stores, but you can get omega one pellets with garlic at petco here in corvallis, so probably in eugene too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bswe22 Posted August 30, 2011 Author Share Posted August 30, 2011 If you have a fowlr' date=' then (depending on the inhabitants) I would just medicate lightly with copper. In the reef tank you should let it run it's course. And use garlic while you are at it. the copper will come out of the fowlr with water changes[/quote'] I don't want to put any meds (copper) in the 55 gallon tank because I plan on using it as the sump for my future 90 gallon reef tank. I do have a few 10 gallon tanks I can label as copper tanks. I also have a couple Aquaclear 30's i could use as the filter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bswe22 Posted August 30, 2011 Author Share Posted August 30, 2011 No body in Eugene/Springfield that I know of carries Garlic Guard. I always get mine from Garrett in Salem. You can try a health food store and look for Kyolic. It's an aged garlic extract and it works very well. i will try Market of Choice today for that. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bswe22 Posted August 30, 2011 Author Share Posted August 30, 2011 I'm thinking I might set up a 10 gallon hospital tank and medicate. Has anybody done the "Freshwater Dip" with success? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burningbaal Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I don't want to put any meds (copper) in the 55 gallon tank because I plan on using it as the sump for my future 90 gallon reef tank. I do have a few 10 gallon tanks I can label as copper tanks. I also have a couple Aquaclear 30's i could use as the filter. If you're planning on having a tank dry before being in a reef system, you can clear the copper from it. once you have it dry, add vinegar or even muriatic acid (home depot) at a pretty strong dilution (if it's glass I know the acid won't hurt it). the acid will leach the copper out of any glass/rock/sand/anything else. I would trust this to a ppt scale, btw (that's parts per trillion, not thousand). even if you had a really strong copper treatment in the tank for months, once you dry it out, rinse it and soak it for a few days in 'strong' acid (even muriatic acid is weak in my head because I'm used to working with the 12N HCl at work), all the copper will come out in your acid. after the soak, I would dump all the liquid and do a few rinses (just swirling over all the surfaces) with the same acid, maybe 3-5 times, then rinse with clean fresh water 3-5x. then fill it with freshwater and check the pH after 8-24 hours. if the pH is low, keep rinsing with freshwater and try it again. This will work and 3-5 acid rinses after the acid soak followed by 3-5 FW rinses should be more than enough. This is the type of protocol we use for analytical chemistry to clean for ppb and ppt(rillion) type purity. in true analytical fashion, we would rinse with organic solvents (alcohols, ketones, etc), but that is unnecessary for getting copper ions out. source: my career (anti-viral research, that's the human/animal pathogen kind of virus, not the computer kind) EDIT: I don't expect this would be an issue in an acrylic tank either, but I know glass is fine. this really isn't that hard, it's just a few $ at HD or the grocery store for the acid and a couple quick swirls of liquid. btw, if you really wanted to get crazy, you could do 3x or so acid rinse before the soak to get the bulk of it out, the soak is for the stuck-on stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mohaynow Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I would try having really low salinity (1.009) in the quarantine tank as well, sometimes this alone can kill off ich. Just make sure that you acclimate really slowly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impur Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 QT and treat or this will be a continuing problem. Your fish will never be fully healthy and will not thrive until you rid them of the parasite. BTW i used cupramine in my current cube when I had ich several years ago and decided to get rid of it for good. Now its my display tank and everything is doing great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 The coral beauty would probably do ok in the 10 gallon but I wouldn't recomend putting the fox face in it. It will likely die of stress and not Ich. Just my 2 cents but I would let it run it's course. It's not worth stressing out the fish any more than it already is. It's either going to recover from it or it isn't. It's as simple as that. This is coming from someone who has tried all sorts of things to save fish and have lost at least $800 in fish over the past two years. It sucks but it's part of the hobby. Were getting these fish from the ocean, there's a lot of stress as it is, why create more for the animal? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate213 Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I would try having really low salinity (1.009) in the quarantine tank as well' date=' sometimes this alone can kill off ich. Just make sure that you acclimate really slowly[/quote'] ^ Hyposalinity. Don't copper and hypo it will kill everything. One or the other, not both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelhead77 Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I'm thinking I might set up a 10 gallon hospital tank and medicate. Has anybody done the "Freshwater Dip" with success? IMO, You stand a pretty good chance of losing the fish if you do this. As others have said, it's best to just let it run it's course. As long as it is eating and swimming normal, it stands a very good chance of survival. Fish can and do fight this off everyday. Do not stress them by catching and moving them into unfamiliar, barren territory and then medicating them with what is essentially poison. Copper is like chemo for fish. A Freshwater dip can help, but, IMO, it stresses the fish too much. Again, it's best to leave it alone. Of course there are those that say if you don't leave your tank fishless for 8, 9, 10, 12 weeks (opinions vary) you will always have ich, and all your fish are doomed. Well, maybe, maybe not. Take a look at Prince, my Purple Tang: This was 3 years ago in my first tank. I did no treatments other than garlic to help make sure he still ate well. He was like this for about 2 weeks, but finally shook it off and is still happy, healthy and strong today. No other fish ever came down with ich during this episode. I've upgraded twice and have not had a re-occurance. -Good Luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bswe22 Posted August 31, 2011 Author Share Posted August 31, 2011 Well I think the threat is over. I came home from work and the Fox Face only has two white spots compared to a whole bunch like yesterday. He is eating some garlic soaked algae. The same goes for the coral beauty. I guess we will see what happens in a couple weeks when the next batch of parasites hatch and look for a fish to host them. Hopefully my fish are strong and fight them off this time. Thanks for all the input and advice. I will keep you all posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Topher Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 i use a uv lamp with proper flow. since we have installed it, there has been no sign of ich. Robert from OIAB swaers by them too. you need to run it at night. the white spots you see on the fish are they're "shell" and the expose themself at night to procreate. if you do decide to go with chemical treatment, treat them at night just before the light goes out or even just after so the ich will get the most exposer. as far as lowering the salinity, it is recomended but to what level? i don't recall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eugenereef Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 Garlic!!! Just take 1/4 clove of garlic and mince it in the water when you thaw the food. The garlic will coat the food and fish will eat it too. My fish got infected really bad with ich and I lost one of them, but then I started feeding food the way I described above and the rest of the guys recovered in a weeks time! Now it is a regular practice for me when I feed my fish. So far so good!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bswe22 Posted September 4, 2011 Author Share Posted September 4, 2011 Thanks for the tip!!! I will do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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