Ich

chrisalmand · #1 12/27/2007, 12:59 PM

It seems like no matter what I try my tangs ALWAYS have a couple small
white spots on them which are quickly eaten by the shrimp but the next day the spots ar replaced by new ones. They eat like little pigs and act normal so should I just ignore it or keep treating them?

Acro-Phobia · #2 12/27/2007, 01:36 PM

I was having problems with my PBT a several months back. Same thing, always seemed to get a little Ich. I changed his died a little and added a competitor (little blue regal tang) and he has not gotten ich since.

New diet included more algae. A variety of flake algae(instant ocean), tablets(algae with spirulina, spirulinasoaked shrimp and algae clips. I also give them either kent extreme garlic, zoecon or selcon with their daily feeding.

One other change I made which might have an effect on the ich itself is a UV Sterilizer with an extremely low flow rate.

Tangs are stressful fish, and stress is the biggest issue with fish which allows ich to get hold of them. If you can keep him fat and happy, he should be able to keep enough slim coat to keep the ich at bay.

AnOldSalt · #3 12/27/2007, 01:40 PM

You realize that the shrimp can't possibly keep up with the ickies forever, don't you? One of these days something is bound to go wrong, and WHAMMO!

KEEP treating them, you say? Does that mean you're already treating them, or that you have to repeatedly treat them often?

Tangs are ick magnets, very easily parasitized. If there are ickies and tangs in the same tank, then your problem will never go away on it's own. It may stabilize a bit, but never vanish, and stability is a fragile thing.

Have you tried the old garlic trick? It works pretty well although it takes several weeks, and is less hassle and expense than many other options.

Personally, I would take the tangs and other fish out and put them in a hospital tank, leaving the main tank devoid of fish for two months while the fish were cleansed. Upon reintroduction to the main tank your tangs' ick problems would be solved for good. That's just me though, and I'm a compulsive perfectionist. You could try that, or just get a big UV sterilizer and/or try the garlic.
By the way, most "invert-safe" ick meds are also ick-safe, that is, ineffective. Don't put too much trust in them. The few that do work tend to have their own problems anyway.

JaredWaites · #4 12/27/2007, 02:40 PM

I totally agree with Trey here.

If you know how the Ick cycle goes, then you can beat the outbreak easily. A uv-sterilizer is an option, but why go through that if you already have a QT or hospital tank as Trey said, remove all of the hosts (fish) from the aquarium and treat them in a tank of their own and let the tank have an Ick die-off for around 2 months.

Acro-Phobia · #5 12/27/2007, 03:39 PM

If someone were to suggest I remove all the fish from my tank, they might as well tell me to shut down my system and start all over. Chris may not be in the same boat I am, but catching all the fish in my system would require either Rotanone, or electric probes connected to a Ma-Bell magnet wheel. There is just no way to catch them. Sometimes the obvious is not the best or easiest option.

That being said, I agree with you if it can be done, but if it can't, healthy happy fish can fend off ich just like we fend off cold viruses which are always around us. Good diet and a safe stable environment with lots of hiding places should keep the tangs from stessing.

chrisalmand · #6 12/27/2007, 04:56 PM

Yeah, one day I'll take them out but for the time being.........

jadeguppy · #7 12/27/2007, 06:19 PM

This thread is about a guy who bought an infected naso tang and brought it back to health. His trick was garlic. Directly added to the water and garlic soaked food.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1276735
I think it is worth a try. I have heard many people report success stories.

Paul B · #8 12/27/2007, 06:48 PM

Quote:

That being said, I agree with you if it can be done, but if it can't, healthy happy fish can fend off ich just like we fend off cold viruses which are always around us. Good diet and a safe stable environment with lots of hiding places should keep the tangs from stessing.

This is actually true. I am not a big fan of garlic except with linguini and clams. You can feed it if you like, I sometimes do but not for ich as I feel it will do nothing as I know cleaner shrimp will also do nothing, but if it makes you feel better, get shrimp.
I happen to like cleaner shrimp, not for ich, I just like them.
Tangs get ich more than other fish because they are schooling fish and they are also long distance grazers not suited to tank life. A tang by itself in the sea knows it is about to be eaten, or he senses it anyway, either way, they don't like being out of their school. It stresses them out and they never get used to it.
You need to keep them healthy by feeding them fresh foods like live black worms, seaweed, mysis etc and not having agressive tankmates. I have been keeping tangs for over thirty years and ich has always been in my tank. It does not appear unless a fish is close to death from either old age or an accident like jumping out. Most fish in stores are infected because they are in close proximity with many other infected fish and they are severly stressed in a bare tank. Many, if not most fish for sale in a store are in copper. Wholesalers also keep copper in their tanks. If it were not for copper, there would not be a salt water hobby.
You can keep a tank two ways. One is to quarantine everything and keep ich out of your tank. The other way is to keep the fish in breeding condition so they do not get ich. A combination of both methods is best.

Acro-Phobia · #9 12/27/2007, 07:25 PM

I did start using Kent Garlic Xtreme a few months ago when the PBT beat up the new gold rim I had. I put it with the food every other day. Don't know if it helps, but it sure makes them go into a feeding frenzy when it hits the tank. If they're happy with it, I'm happy with it.

KADLETZ · #10 12/27/2007, 09:36 PM

" acro"
healthy happy fish can fend off ich just like we fend off cold viruses which are always around us. Good diet and a safe stable environment with lots of hiding places should keep the tangs from stessing.

spoken like a disipple of god!! this is so true acro!!
stable enviroment is the key either a cleaner wasse or shrimp is needed if the tank is 200 gals or more go with cleaner fish to help things get in gear. Food and husbandry is the key thou. not over stocking the tank, understanding the fish you have not making big changes!! cleaner fish,,,wheres that car wash my cars dirty, oh across the street never mind i can go a another week.

FishF00d · #11 12/27/2007, 09:46 PM

but even if you have healthy happy fish you can still have Ich in your tank. The fish will fend it off if they are healthy and the tank is in good shape but the minute something causes your tank to go out of wack Ich is going to rear is ugly head. What might cause this... addition of a new fish, equipment failure, power outage, etc. The only way to eliminate if from the tank is removing the fish and letting the tank set empty for the time frame that AnOldsalt stated, and treating the fish in a QT tank as well as treating all new fish in QT as well.

Acro-Phobia · #12 12/27/2007, 10:48 PM

Definitly two roads to travel here. When it comes to nature, ......the biological process, you cannot stop it or contain it. Ich, like anything else, will find a way. Yes, I watched Jurrasic Park several times. :-)

I ask you this. How stressed is a 4" tang going to be crammed in a 20 gal quarintine tank with his buddies for 3 months while the main tank sits empty. Humm? Let me see.

Like I said, two roads to travel, depends on which one makes you feel most comfortable, and, keeps your fish alive, healthy, and happy. I accept that Ich is there and total erradication is a goal too high to achieve without creating a house of cards that will eventually fall down. I also do not accept that any and everything that goes in my system has to sit in quarintine for 2-3 months to keep my main system ich free. That makes this work and not fun.

Well.......glad I got that out of my system....sorry guys, I must have had too much sugar today. LOL!

FishF00d · #13 12/27/2007, 11:13 PM

As long as everyone who asked about Ich realizes that unless they do QT everything and let their tank sit empty for the Ich to run its course that they will always have Ich in their tank otherwise.

Its not just as easy as adding garlic or having the healthiest system despite every single one of us striving for the healthiest systems.

I would also imagine that it might be more comfortable to go through 2 months of hypo and the stress involved than deal with the life cycle of ich every month for the duration of the fishes life.

Honestly I now wish I would have taken my stupid sand sifting goby out when i treated all my other fish. I was just too lazy and I'm kicking myself for it. He looked as healthy as could be and I never seen any sign of ich on him. I knew that unless i took everything out I wasn't going to eliminate it from the tank. So at the time I had a 3 inch blue jaw trigger, 4 inch pyramid butterfly and 4 inch convict tang in a 20 gal QT tank for a 6 weeks. I treated them with Formalin and then hypo and I had no sign of Ich at all in the tank. The fish were slightly stressed but I can tell you now that the convict is a lot more stressed now that he is in the 135. They had signs of Ich within 12 hours of being put back into my 135 and to this day the convict still has it and the butterfly gets flecks about every 7-10 days.

I will say that my tank is not the cleanest of tanks. I have an automatic feeder for the butterfly. He does much better with a little food numerous times a day. The trigger is a fairly messy fish as well.

My point is to those who don't know about ich... you will "Always" have it in your tank unless you treat the tank properly, which is letting it set empty for the right amount of time, and treating the fish in a QT tank. The other things mentioned will help them live with it, but will not eliminate it from the tank so you can always have problems down the road.

On that note I have never had an Ich free tank.. either no room for QT or I've just been too lazy to treat everything.

Paul B · #14 12/28/2007, 06:29 AM

Of course it is the best practice to quarantine everything and keep ich out of your tank alltogether but as was said, this is hard.
I personally have never quaranteened anything in almost 40 years and an adding things all the time either from the sea or from a store and "almost" never see ich. I also know that I can put a fish in there with ich and it will cause no problems.
Thats my tank and should not be done by anyone. I am just mentioning it to show that if everything is healthy enough, it can be done. If something happens to my tank like a temp problem or which happened recently, a poisoning, the fish will get ich. This has happened, I think twice in the last 25 years or so.
I diden't lose any fish though.
Paul

Acro-Phobia · #15 12/28/2007, 08:12 AM

You have had Ich twice in the past 25 years.......man I'd just give up! LOL! Damn Paul, wish we could all say that. Good on Ya.

I view my reef tank as trying to replicate a minature part of the natural world. As such, the natural world has Ich, cyno and algae. The challenge is to make is as natural as possible so that none of those baddies can take over and everyone in the tank, fish and corals grow. If I do my J.O.B correctly, my little reef will click along and everything will stay healthy. If one of the undesirables gets the upper hand, I learn why and fix it so everything is in balance again. To me, that is the challange of the hobby and the reward when it all works right. Making a sterile environment is not natural. Life doesn't work that way.

Paul B · #16 12/28/2007, 10:13 AM

My tank wasen't always like that. In the seventees before reefs, there was always ich. I had to keep copper in the tank almost continousely. I never had to quarantine because the fish were always medicated. They did not live too many years either.
Now they only die of old age or a stupid accident caused by me.
Reefs made tanks much healthier. We diden't even have live rock or any kind of rock, just dead coral skeletons.
There is always ich in my tank and it will always be there, we have just reached an understanding, I don't bother it and it doesen't bother my fish. (usually)
As for cyano and algae, I got that too. As you said, it is part of any healthy reef and I have seen many of them.
Have a great day.
Paul

FishF00d · #17 12/28/2007, 10:47 AM

Here is another interesting read on Ich

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...ths-facts.html