Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

I bought a black spot angel from B&B a week ago. It has been very much picked on by my sailfin. It had not ate in almost a week. My options was to move it to the sump for a little while or buy a few more fish to distract the sailfin. Yesterday I went back to B&B and bought 11 green chromis and a Vlamingi tang. This morning, the angel was allowed to eat. I started looking close at the damsels and several are really covered with ich. In B&B, i really inspected the tang and thought I really inspected the damsels. Anyway, what do you suggest I do?

Thanks,
Jeremy

I do have a cleaner shrimp and most of my other fish go there, but I doubt the damsels will. My main worry is the rest of the fish.

Quit buying fish....especially in such large numbers when you already are having a questionable problem.

Hyposalinty is suppose to the best but it will kill all corals so I will talk about other possible things to do. First soak you food in garlic extract ..you can get it at the grocery...this builds the immune system..The other thing I would try is to install a uv sterlizer in your return line. This will kill the free swimming ich and prevent them from getting to the fish...I have tried this and the ich went away and has stayed away for over two yrs....I also tried the chemical or pepper cures but they did more damage than good and did not rid the tank of ich..I realize few do it but the best answer is a hospital tank for everything before you place anything in your tank...good luck.

How long before you move to the big tank? Isn't it gooing to be 300+ gallons?

Snoop: My only questionable problem was a perfectly healthy fish being picked on because he was the new guy on the block. While buying a small damsel like a green chromis, I definitely wanted more than 6 so I bought all B&B had.

Terry: I will do the garlic extract. This morning, I added the UV sterilizer from the closet. It is only a 18 watt unit but any help is appreciated. I hate to add any ich cures as I do not want to harm the rest.

Scott: My slab should be poured this week. The footers are already down. The tank is finished and ready to move into the new house. The tank is 897 gallons. I have all the pumps, lighting etc all boxed up so the cost from now should be minimal.


Thanks for all of your advice, it is appreciated.

Jeremy

sounds like going to be great tank.....looking forward to seeing it

Terry

You already have the king of tanks. I have admired yours for quite some time. If mine turns out 1/3 as nice, I will be happy.

Jeremy

If you can do whatever it takea until the new tank is ready I am sure they will be fine after the move. I have heard that garlic works and the hyposalinity too. If you can catch the ones with ick and do a copper treatment of a dip with saltwater and slowely decrease the sg to about 1.015 that would do. Even a small UV might help.

Thanks, I will try.

Jeremy

I have two returns....on one I run a UV 24/7 and my filter bag and the other I place my chiller....By not running two filter bags ect it allows some good stuff to be recycled back to the tank and still polish the water ....same with the UV...

<SOAPBOX>

Everything I have heard from the "Old Time" reef tank keepers is that the fish will get rid of the Ich itself under good conditions. Etc....

So in turn what this means is that if the fish has Ich then he is obviously stressed out or water conditions are bad. This is why you see so many fish with Ich in the shops. You can imagine what they go through on so many trips, then another one to your home. I am a firm believer in listening to people that have been doing this a long time and learning from them.

When I go to these pet stores and see these large fish in small cubicles cramped up there I have to attibute it to surroundings. You want to know why you did not see Ich on the fish there at B&B ? Well they run copper in all the fish only tanks to keep the Ich down. Well there is another stress factor going from high copper water to no copper in your tank.

All it takes is for one fish in your tank to get stressed, acquire some Ich then spread it to all his tank mates. Amy and I ran into this years ago with our 75 gallon. We had a healthy tank and fish population, most being in the tank for 2+ years. Added ONE fish and it easily stressed out, which is what I feared. Within 2 weeks the fish was dead and all but 2 of my oldest fish.

Now that I have my fish in my tank I refuse to add anymore fish or corals unless very much needed. If I do add something it will be from another member that has had it a while with no tank problems. Sorry for the preaching....

</SOAPBOX>

amen Snoop, it's definitely a risk... my wife is STILL pissed at me for some fish I got a year or so from Rich, before he moved, and ended up killing a bunch of fish in my tank. I'm getting to where the only fish I'll take a chance on are REAL DEALS, as in large desirable fish, for not much price heh.

Once Ich is in the tank it will be there for good unless treat with chemicals or run hypo with all the fish in a seperate tank. If running hypo you need to keep the main tank empty of all fish for at least 30 days. I've seen different thoughts on this. Some say the larval stage is something like 29 days and if they do not get a host they will die. I've also read that regardless if the tank has fish or not the ich can stay dormant without any fish for a longer time then 30 days. The ideal range for Hypo is 1.009 if i remember correctly. So if you do have fish that shake the ich without any problem they are probably rather healthy and tough fish. If no treatment is used and the fish look better there is always going to be a chance for the fish to break out bad again should it get stressed.

I have it in my tank from a fish and i didn't lose anything to it, well maybe the kole tang, but thats up in the air because he didn't visiably have any signs of the little flakes for 2 weeks prior to his death. I'm not sure how they affected in internally though. At this point I'll see a little speck on the trigger or rabbit fish every once in a while but in general they look good.

Ick is a prasite that will parish if there isn't a host. If your fish can go 'ick free' for the life cycle (or two) or the ick parasite you will indeed rid the tank of the pest. This is just my opinion.

I agree with Snoop... the fish will take care of themselves. You just need a fish healthy enough to outlast the infestation. Once again... just my opinion.

I also believe you need the preditors in the tank that will consume the little pest.

Here is a link to some info that i found a while back....

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevo ... neich.html


I was mistaken as to the tank always carrying Ich. I still believe that even if your fish get over them without any aids that they still have a chance to get infected again. Just too many people think that becuase yesterday their tang had ich and today there are no signs of it that the fish and tank is in the clear.

Years back in my one tank I had a reoccuring Ich problem. It was with a blue eye tang. For about 4 or 5 months the stuff would just come and go. I hadn't added any other fish in the time frame though.

Right now my cardinal, trigger and rabbitfish show signes every once in a while, one or two spots usually right when the lights come on. I haven't had any of them get a full blown case yet so I'm assuming they are working up some kind of immune system with them.