fish and ick in a reef

[PhotoJohn]

I have a 46g bow front reef. I have several hard and soft corals and i had several fish. All my tests on the water came out okay. Ph was low but I boosted it back up. I purchased a yellow tang which quickly contracted ick. I have had ick in freahwater but never salt. Till this tang. I got a cleaner shrimp, the only fish he cleans is the tang. I went to my lfs and purchased chem-marine stop parasites. It was a waste of $27. The lfs said i was the only "safe" ick treatment with corals and inverts in the tank. The ick killed 2 butterfly fish and my blue hippo. Any sugestions? I'm down to my 2 clowns and the yellow tang (the tang is ick free and has been ever since the initial attack!). Is there any way to help kep a species like a yellow tang from contracting ick?

[lReef lKeeper]

add garlic to you fish food, it is a natural appetite enhancer and will make most fish want to eat, giving it energy and an immune system boost. a lot of people add a garlic supplement to thier food for this very reason.

your LFS is full of crap, IMO !! i used a treatment called "kick ich" and it worked for me. there are a few "reef safe" treatments out for us. like i said this WORKED FOR ME, i am sure a lot of people are going to down this treatment (it is a controversial treatment), but like i said ... it worked for me.

[wwest]

IMO, yellow tangs will get ich before anything else in your tang. Sometimes you just can't see it to well. I would start dosing garlic in with the food ASAP.

I don't really have anything to say against using treatments except i have never used it lol. If you can do this, this is what i would do. Pull the fish out into a temp ER tank and treat the tank until the ich is gone. I suggest pulling the fish out of the main tank because if the ich doesn't have anything to host with it will kill itself off after a month or two. In this time you can treat your fish and assure the ich is gone. Its sometimes a pain in the butt but this will assure the safety of your corals without a dough.

Then again this only works if you have the room and the money for another tank.

Welcome to TR and i hope you the best with your fish and corals.

[CarmieJo]

This is the reason why you should always QT new fish. It is much easier to treat a problem in QT and much less heartbreaking than having your fish die. I agree that you should pull your fish out of the display and allow it to lie fallow to make sure that no ich remains.

I also want to point out that your tank is/was stocked with fish that will outgrow it. A hippo tang can grow to be a foot long. Tangs a like swimming room and IIRC a 46 is only about 3 feet long. That is really too cramped for these beautiful fish. That leads to stress and makes your fish more susceptible to things like ich.

[PhotoJohn]

My LFS is full of crap. One guy there knows hard corals pretty well and one guy is a marine biologist but other than those guys everyone collectively knows nothing and only wants to sell, sell, sell. I tried researching the fish I got and I asked questions at the LFS but they all said go ahead...I suppose I'll just ask ppl on the boards from now on about fish :)

[lReef lKeeper]

IMO, this board is better than ANY LFS !! no matter if they are marine biologists or not ... they are in it to make money. we give the answers that they dont want to give because they will lose the sale. we are more concerned with the health and well being of the animals.

[wwest]

We surf the forums and give free advice on our own time instead of spending it with our wives or girlfriends (grins) because we love fish and corals. The answer here at least are directed for there health and nothing else. This is a great hobby, however for some people there is a lot of money to be made in this hobby as well and that sometimes steps in the way of truth. Pretty much any question you can ask we can answer. salt,reptiles,fresh water and sometimes dogs/cats :) but we prefer anything salt :P

[goblin072]

I agree with the others, I had to learn the hard way before I decided to get a Q tank. You can loose more in fish than a second tank costs. I used my old 55 and one powerhead & sponge filter.

46 gallon is too small for larger marine fish. I suppose you could just sell them if they even get large and keep buying smaller ones. I have a 330 and plan to sell/trade when they get large. Its just preference I like lots of little fish vs a few large ones.


I have a 46g bow front reef. I have several hard and soft corals and i had several fish. All my tests on the water came out okay. Ph was low but I boosted it back up. I purchased a yellow tang which quickly contracted ick. I have had ick in freahwater but never salt. Till this tang. I got a cleaner shrimp, the only fish he cleans is the tang. I went to my lfs and purchased chem-marine stop parasites. It was a waste of $27. The lfs said i was the only "safe" ick treatment with corals and inverts in the tank. The ick killed 2 butterfly fish and my blue hippo. Any sugestions? I'm down to my 2 clowns and the yellow tang (the tang is ick free and has been ever since the initial attack!). Is there any way to help kep a species like a yellow tang from contracting ick?

[tim]

stress is a major player with ick. I believe ick is in every tank. I run a UV sterilizer in my tank a long with feeding with garlic. I have not had a ick out breaks since adding a UV. I would look at the whole picture and try to figure out what is the stress in this environment, and correct it.

[goblin072]

This what some others have to say about ich being present all the time.

"Ich is a parasite in your aquarium. To dispel some common myths it is not caused by poor water quality or low temperatures, or ammonia, or dirty filters or anything else like that. It does not lurk around in a tank waiting to attack fish, it does not only attack weakened fish, it is not airborne. None of that is true. It is caused by a specific parasite and must be introduced into the tank. This usually happens when you bring in new fish from an infected tank. The best treatments for ick in a tropical aquariums is: "

It sounds like ich is not part of a fishes normal flora. If its not in the tank or fish it can't break out even with stressed fish. It maybe that some fish just live with it like some people live with allergies. I bet they are not as healthy as a ICH free fish.

[CarmieJo]

That quote doesn't say that it can not be asymptomatically present in your tank, just that it doesn't spring up out of nowhere. I don't know one way or the other on the continual presence of ich in a tank. However, human cold viruses are always present but we don't always have a cold, some factor has to trigger the cold as we fight them off most of the time. Maybe that is an extra big introduction of cold virus, too much stress, too little sleep, or whatever, but then we get sick. I know that this isn't an exact comparison as a cold is a virus and ich is a parasite but I think the concept may hold true.

I know that I always QT anything that goes into my tank and I've not had ich. When I kept FO back in the 80's I did not practice QT (nor did anyone I know) and had ich on multiple occasions. I lived in NE Ohio t that time and was a member of C-SEA and I don't recall ever hearing any talk of QT. We just all coppered the tank and went on. We also thought a 1 year old fish was OLD.

[tim]

copper and corals dont mix I hope this in a hospital tank only

[goblin072]

I think it is very possible that fish can harbor ich and be asymptomatic. But they might spread it to other fish that can't deal with it as well.

Once our bodies immunes system knows a virus it is ready for the next time we encounter it. A few virus like Herpes lay dormant in our nervous system kept at bay constantly by our immune system. When we get older that breaks down and people get shingles (Herpes zoster)

I don't know how a fish can tolerate ICH constantly. It has to wear them down some even if they do not show it. I have allerigies and while they do not kill me they tire me out. Sort of like a low grade cold 24/7 and body battling a dust/molds as if they were a virus. (It sucks)

A QT copper tank sounds like it gives ICH paranoid people peace of mind. I have not decided if I will copper all my new fish. I have to say that I would loose a few fish to copper than to have my whole tank wiped out by ich later.

If fish can harbor ICH and not show it then a QT observation tank w/o copper or some other chemical is really not doing its job. You may have fish in the QT tank for 5 weeks then put it into your main tank thinking its ich free then it happens the ICH breaks out. I think that is why some people copper all the fish just in case.

[tim]

I agree 100 %

[CarmieJo]

Tim, if the copper & corals was about my last post that was back in the 80's when I and most people only kept FO.

Goblin, I don't copper as a prophylaxis and, for what it is worth, I've never had ich in my reef. I think this may have something to do with the fact that the time in QT allows the fish to recuperate from the stress of shipping, get fattened back up and go into the DT healthy and happy.