Questions about ICH

[evilamie]

What is the best way to treat ich. Will my shrimp, starfish or scallop get ich? Should I isolate the fish in another tank or is there a way I can treat them while in the tank.

[evilamie]

Oh and another question, If I have to treat them in a separate tank, for how long?

[hskim]

Usually people use copper to treat ich but there are other medications like SeaChem's ParaGuard. My Tang had ich and I treated it twice with copper in QT but the tang was finally cured with 1 hour dips in ParaGuard.

Copper treatment usually takes two weeks but with one hour dips it could work with only few dips.

I always use separate QT to treat.

[Briankook]

I have found that by feeding a wide variety of foods with a little Vitamin C & garlic extract, the fish's own immune system will eliminate the parasite. Of course, the water quality should be kept good also. I personally never used Copper.

[ReeferAl]

I would recommend the following Advanced Aquarist Online article (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2004/mini3.htm) . It is the 3rd in a series of articles on saltwater ick. It covers the proven effective treatments, which are [list=1]
copper
hyposalinity
transfer
[/list=1]
For the details I would refer you to the article. I use hyposalinity in the QT as it is far safer than copper. The series of articles also covers other anecdotal and experimental treatments (articles 4 and 5 in the series I believe) if you are interested in reading about those. As far as how long to treat with hyposalinity, patience is a virtue. 3 weeks is a minimum. 6 weeks gives a very high level of safety, virtually guaranteeing that the parasite has been eliminated.
Allen

[tahoe98]

Go to the fish diesease forum, they have a sticky at the top that gives you all the information you ever wanted to know about Ich. Basically you have two choices, you can either quarantine each fish you get or take a chance and have ich in the tank and just try to let the fish fight it off themselves. I have chosen to let the fish fight it off and it has worked well. Even my blue hippo is doing well. The key is to not have any fluctuations in temp/salinity etc. and for the fish to be fat i.e. be able to fight the diesease off. I usually soak the food in garlic/selcon every few days just to keep all of the fish healthy. Quarantining is definitely the saftest route to take but it just depends on what you want to do. Remember if you decide to quarantine, it is recommended to quarantine everything meaning fish, corals, inverts, even live rock. Good luck.

Also, I would not recommend copper unless you must. Absolutely do not do it in the main tank and you really have to be careful treating sensitive fish with it like tangs. If you want to get rid of ich the safest way is to put the fish in a quarantine tank and run hyposalinity.

[silkchaos]

Hmm You are the first person I have seen saying to quarantine Inverts and Corals. Everyone else has stated that they cannot get ich. Why should they be quarantined?

Robinson

[ReeferAl]

Originally posted by silkchaos
Hmm You are the first person I have seen saying to quarantine Inverts and Corals. Everyone else has stated that they cannot get ich. Why should they be quarantined?

Robinson
A portion of the life cycle of Cryptocaryon is spent attached to the substrate. This could be the rock a coral is attached to, the shell of a snail or hermit crab, live rock etc. Things like a soft coaral with no attached substrate really couldn't be carrying ich. Even though the risk of any of these things is small, if you really want to be sure they don't bring in any ich they should be quarantined.

This should NOT be in hyposalinity though. These need to be quarantined separate from any fish since the goal here is to leave them without a fish host long enough for the cysts to release the infective stage (I forget the names of the stages) and for it to then die since no host is present. Based on the ich life cycle about 3 weeks would give a pretty good margin of security but 4 weeks would be better still.

I have started quarantining almost everything. I have not qt'd echinoderms. I don't know if their exterior would support the attachment of ich cysts or not (I suspect it would be a very rare occurrence) and given the touchiness of sea stars and urchins I "take my chances". I also don't quarantine entirely soft corals or frags with only living tissue (except the break) and no substrate. Everything else I now qt and all my fish get hyposalinity.
Allen

[silkchaos]

That makes alot of sense, thanks!