Ich developing in my reef tank..how to treat it?

[snd637]

in my 10gallon reef tank my fishes are starting to develop ich

i have 2 false perculas and 1 eibli angelfish...all of em' have ich...

i keep the temperature at 74-76 F...could it be because the water is too cold that's why they have ich?

i dont want to raise the temp because it might kill the corals...how can i treat it besides setting up a hospital tank...

[EdKruzel]

I'd remove the angel as it is a bit cramped in only a ten gallon.

The temperature is quite low for tropical fish or corals. The average in a tropical environment is 82 degrees.

Raise the temps, keep the water clean and provide only nutritious foods twice a day.

Ed

[DesertBandits]

If you can remove the corals you can reduce the salinity to 1.080.
Do it slowly over the course of 24 hours. Leave it this way for minimum 6 weeks. Then what you need to do during that time is feed your fish all they can eat formula 2 about 4 to 5 times a day. After struggling with Ick for 6months and 5 dead fish later I realized building up the fish's immune system with feedings is essential to bringing them back to health.

If I were you I'd go to the disease forum and read up.

[DesertBandits]

proper reef temp id 80-82. This is making your fish upset. You cant go cheap and hope to get away with no heater. Plus the colder your tank, the slower the ich goes through its life cycle

[Gundo5000]

turn your lights off for 2 days. This has worked for me if the fish is strong enough to fight it off.

[calvin415]

Get a cleaner shrimp and feed the fish a high garlic based diet. The garlic will help improve their immune system, while the cleaners should take care of any ich that remains. Been using this technique without losses (including powder blue tangs) for years. It helps to have the cleaners already established otherwise it may take a little bit to get them cleaning but once they settle in good-bye ich!

Another technique which can be more stressful than the ich itself is to setup a 2.5, 5.5, or even another 10 gallon as a hospital tank. Nothing but NSW adjusted for temp ect, acclimate them to the bare tank and give the fish a high concentrated dose in ParaGuard for a few hours. Then transfer them back to the display tank.

[grim]

Only way to get ich out of your tank, once it's there, is to either treat the tank with hyposalinity or leave it fish-less for a month or two.

Ich isn't a fish problem, once it's in the tank it becomes a tank problem. You can't just treat the fish, once back in the tank, if the ich tomites hatch, they'll just reinfest the fish.

It's a nano, it's not like you need to break down a 240g tank here. Set up a hospital tank, transfer the fish over. Treat with hyposalinity OR copper in the QT. Leave all the fish in the QT for at least 4-6 weeks, then move them back into the tank.

Sound complicated? It is. That is why many of us here are so vehement about QT of new livestock. Once Ich is in, it's a real headache.

jb