!!! ich !!!
 

well i had these to clowns for about 2 weeks and i'm starting to see white spots on them that resemble ich.... does any one recomend any medcine i could use.. and is there any good way to catch the fishes because i have alot of hiding spots so it would be kinda hard to catch them with a net. second i have a hippo tang and royal gamma should i take them out too.

You need to take all of the fish out and leave the tank fishless for at least three to four weeks. How big is the hippo? Can you put them all in a quarantine tank to be treated? If you don't get all of the fish out of the tank the parasites will eventually stick to the fish and get them sick as well.
You can trap the fish by using bait in a container of some sort that you can close when they go into it. You can actually buy fish traps on e-bay but you should probably go to your LFS to get a trap as soon as possible.

That tang in a 38? You should be ashamed...

Tang Police please

Oh and I would suggest researching any fish BEFORE you buy him, you need to take that guy back where you got him and see if they can find him a home................

well i kinda new so i bought a really tiny one that was only about .75". well some on told me to use a on inch tube and suck them out do you think that a good idea?

i had ich in my tank on my clown tang before i put corals in and i used this stuff called "its clear" it is completely reef safe and if you use it with a 50 micron filter pad under the normal filter pad it should clear it up. its the easiest way without taking everythnig out if you cant catch things. good luck

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by tranboy [/i]
[B]well i kinda new so i bought a really tiny one that was only about .75". well some on told me to use a on inch tube and suck them out do you think that a good idea? [/B][/QUOTE]

no way that will stress it out much more thats like when some people use those slurp guns on the reef to catch fish. it just freaks them out.

use garlic extreme made by kent it it a concentrated garlic extract put a couple drops in with your food and feed it to the fish garlic is great for ick also water changes the ick should clear out of your system. also quarintine tanks are a good idea you should Quarintine your new fish for a couple of weeks and monitor them closely, normally you can catch ick and treat it before the fish goes into the display tank.

A few things before this thread turns into a copy of about I would say 100 others (Please run a search on "Ich")
1. None of the above "remedies" have been either proven effective or even shown to do any good.
2. There are 0, None and zilch for "reef safe" treatments for ich
3. You are going to have to remove the fish (or all the live rock, substrate and inverts) to treat the fish and tank.

This is not my opinion but pretty much established fact. In short, ich is a protozoan, (an invert) and so are a ton of other good living things in your tank. This is just 1 bad one and to kill it with a drug, chemical or treatment is going to kill all the beneficial ones at the same time. There is no way around this.

So you either wipe out everything (not good)
Or you practice animal husbandry that has been proven to work and follow proven methods. (this does not include spices, acupuncture or a little old lady running around in a funny hat)

I can fully empathize with your hope for an easy, effective cure for this parasite. However there are only 2 proven (emphasis on "proven") ways to deal with this.

Copper treatment or hyposalinity. Both have a narrow band of effectiveness that requires careful monitoring.

The only other think you can do is wait and see if your fish die. You might be dumping " Magical fish gunk", "Clearasil" or hotsauce in the tank but it will not make a difference. The fish will succumb or survive the ich outbreak (a Hippo Tang in a 38 is doomed anyway).

So before you get mad at me, please run a search here at RC on Ich and spend the next 3 or 4 hours reading

We now return you to your regularly scheduled debate on ich :D

more info here

[url]http://wetwebmedia.com/ichartmar.htm[/url]

[url]http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=282934[/url]
[url]http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=602165&highlight=ich+treatment[/url]
[url]http://reefcentral.com/forums/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=5287826&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending[/url]

You can also try seachem focus and metro for the ick... Blend the mixture then soak nori in it one piece at a time. Place three or four pieces on top of each other so the medicine is sandwhiched between them and place somewhere to dry.

Then feed as usual... This has been effective for me in treating a tang with ick and does not treat the entire tank. Clean the gravel and try some water changes. Moving fish around for QT treatment can be quite stressful for them but that is up to you. Cleaner shrimp and neon gobies help as well.


Do not worry about flames about your tang in a 38 gallon, just ignore them, that is not what this forum is for nor had anything to do with your question. People should not do that. Most likely your fish is small and it does not matter. By the time is gets bigger you will have probably got a bigger tank or abandoned the hobby for another reason.

Although if it is a large tang smaller aquariums with out enough places to hide can cause more stress then a lager tank which can be a factor in bringing about ick.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by ironmanxl1 [/i]
[B]more info here

[url]http://wetwebmedia.com/ichartmar.htm[/url] [/B][/QUOTE] Good article BTW, fallow tank times have been since revised to 8 weeks by most but it does cover the bases nicely :D

I especially like this quote: [quote]Rather than saving fish lives these persistent "cures" kill-off hobbyists by the droves. Avoid them by getting on the internet, converse with fellow hobbyists re what works and doesn't.
[/quote]

The most effective way we have found is to slowly lower the salinity to 1.09. We have done this in as quickly as 24 hours, because we were desperate. Keep at this low salinity for 4 weeks and then slowly (over a weeks time) raise the salinity back up to normal. You should still keep them in qt for at least another week to be certain that the ich is gone though.

Well I hope you know that ich is only going to infect your fish due to poor water quality. Treat your water first.
Things that would cause ich:

ammonia will cause your fish to get sick
nitrate
nitrite

to low a salt level, to high a salt level.(if your using a needle wheele hydropmeter they are typically about 3-5 higher reading as opposed to a refractometer,wich is accurate)

extremely low ph, extremly high ph, alkaliniy same thing.

find the source of your problem and fix it.


o yea and recently i found that a grounding probe will help your fish alot too against disease fighting.

well to tell you guys the truth i've read pretty much every article i could find about ich. but well i'ma try to go with the trap and take them out fo a quarintine tank. i think i'm going with the hyposalinity (i hope that the right spelling). well thanx every one for the input. this thread really helped me out =)

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by boxfishpooalot [/i]
[B]Well I hope you know that ich is only going to infect your fish due to poor water quality. Treat your water first.
[/B][/QUOTE] I would have to strongly disagree with that statement. I have dealt with ich on fish in tanks that were kept pristine.

well i tested my water todai and its

amonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrate-.2 to my surpise =)
ph-8.3

so i think my tanks in pretty good condition to.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by tranboy [/i]
[B]well to tell you guys the truth i've read pretty much every article i could find about ich. but well i'ma try to go with the trap and take them out fo a quarintine tank. i think i'm going with the hyposalinity (i hope that the right spelling). well thanx every one for the input. this thread really helped me out =) [/B][/QUOTE]
It is hard to sift through all the trash to find the good stuff.

A few points I would press:

Your QT tank is going to be kind of touchy for ammonia at first, you need to get it cycled and monitor ammonia constantly. The first week or 2 you could have a fatal spike in a few hours. Get a seachem real time monitor ($8) also. Many lose fish from this problem

Get a refractometer, you can not maintain the 1.009 to 1.010 with a swingarm style tester

QT is should be 6 to 8 weeks (allows the display to self cleanse of the parasite)

Hypo as described above is how I do mine but again, my tanks stays fallow for 8 weeks.

Understand that there are in fact some strains of ich that are showing resistance to hypo. If at 3 weeks or so into hypo you still have problems, you will need to raise salinity and go with copper treatment.

You always have the resource of this forum for questions, there really are some good ideas here for sure :D