Marine Ich / UV Sterilizers

[skeeter]

I just returned from a 2 week trip to Newfoundland to find upon my return my wife had purchased a clownfish and placed it into my display tank. It totally infected my tank with Ich. I have been dosing with Kick-Ick for about a week in the display tank and it appears to be controling it, but not completely eliminating it from the system. Now my tank is just over 4 months old and I only have about 15" of fish with LR/LS and no corals at this time but would like to irradicate the parasite from my system totally. How do you feel about using a UV Sterilizer since currently I have no corals? In addition I do have a Q-tank that has been up and running for 4 months, my wife just didnt use it, and since all the fish have been eating I would rather not add additional stress in trying to capture them to place in the Q-tank at this time ( with the amount of LR I have it would be impossable to catch them anyway!). Any suggestions would be greatly appricated. Thank you.

[JohnL]

<i>This thread has been moved to the appropriate forum for faster response.</i>

[billsreef]

A UV can help reduce the number of parasites in a tank, but not eliminate them as it only can kill what passes through it. The only sure way to eliminate ick from the tank is to remove the fish for 4-6 weeks and treat the fish with either copper or hyposalinity in a Q tank.

[FMarini]

Hi:
allow me to start by saying please do a search (using that littlew buton at the top)for this topic, as we have covered it before. W/ that said. a UV sterilizer will do very little for your ongoing ich infection. For the Uv to be effective the Ich has to pass thru the unit to be killed, and since ich resides on your fish(actually deeply buired) it will not do much.
However since you do not have any corals or inverts in your tank, I can suggest to you to try hyposalinity (also do a search for this), essentially drop your salinty down (over 3-4 days) to 1.009-1.010, and leave it there fore 3 to 4 weeks. Ich cannot live in this and dies off. Once you've dropped the salinity expect it to take about 1 week for the ich dissapears and go the remaining 3 weeks to ensure it all killed off. I have read much about using antibiotics to eradicate ich, and it a total mixed bag, it works sometime and then doesn't...
Last points, how big is your tank? you appear to have quite a tank load of fish(15"), so this might be your stressor right there, beside this I highly recommend you quarentine all new fish (in a quarentine tank) for at least 1 month. This way you'll prevent futher reinfection...hope this helps
frank

[skeeter]

My tank is 125 gallon reef tank, so 15" is not much for the size. About the Hyposalinity, I do have alot of crabs, snails and starfish in my tank, would this kill off those creatures? I do have a q-tank, my wife placed the new fish in the display instead of the q-tank while I was away, just a small mistake on her part. I however have quarentined all fish prior to the display tank. If the parasite eventually turns into a free swimming parasite and my tank is turned over at minimum 15 (x) per hour, would'nt those parasites be carried through the UV sterilizer and distroyed therefore reducing the numbers that can reattach to the host fish? I have heard that it is almost impossible to totally remove them from any system, due to the transportation with corals and LR which I will be adding as soon as I can straighten out the ich issue. Any additional information is always helpful. Thank you

[FMarini]

Skeeter:
So your tank size/load is fine, and yes hyposalinity will do a number on your inverts...
So to address your concern.
Ich does release free swimming larave, which just swim into the next host (nearby fish), or drop on the rock work or substrate, and while some of them will pass thru the Uv sterilizer- it won't remove the problem. It may prevent further reinfection down the line but won't do much for the active infection currently going on. I've seen big display tanks w/ mega watts Uv units of them, and the fish in the main tank covered in ich.
You can try these garlic treatments that have been mentioned (do a search), or the"reef-safe" ich treatments-they are hit or miss IMO
As Bill mentioned above really two choices really...Either hyposalinity or copper, these are guarenteed cures
my opinion
frank

[Aquamans Reef]

If you already have a uv also get a ozone generator. I have about 9 fish in my reeftank 5 big 3 med 1 small. At one point 7 of the 9 had ich NO PROBLEM turned on uv and ozone didn't loose anything. I truely don't have to worry about ich no more HTH's Joe

[skeeter]

Well its been about 4 weeks now since the Ich broke out. It appears the Kick-ich did nothing to stop the infection, although it must have done something to relieve the fishes stress cause I did not loose any to the parasite. I switched to garlic/selcon and zoe/zoecon with thier foods and now the only one that appears to have any signs is the Flame Angle fish. Although she is still eating and acting normal. I will continue the food treatments. I turned the UV unit back on about a week ago, so I will just sit back and watch. I would really like the fish to use their own immune system to fight it off instead of chemicals at this point. I have tried several times to catch her with no avail. I will keep you updated. That's for the advise.

[Aquamans Reef]

How about adding some cleaner shrimp they always help.

[skeeter]

I thought about that but heard they would make a nice meal for my HawkFish.

I have 1 cleaner wrasse and though about neon gobies, but was not too sure if the wrasse would kill the gobies cause they are simular in shape and color??? Any thoughts?

[stagedperformance]

There is this stuff called NO-ICH made by Fish- Vet Inc that works great! It is reef safe (all corals and inverts) and also will not affect you bacteria colonies in the tank! I have had very good luck with this stuff and it works increadibly fast!


Hope this helps:)
Steve

[billsreef]

Hi Steve,

Glad to hear No-Ich worked for you. Unfortunately it does not seem to work reliably for everyone though.