Ich outbreak overnight?! PICTURES!!

So yesterday, my lion started acting strange. He was swimming offbalance, and rolling over. I checked all of my levels, everything is fine. I decided maybe i needed to clean the canister filter, did that. This morning he looks better(kinda). He isn't rolling over anymore, but he is completely covered in white, dandruf looking spots, everywhere. My yellow headed sleeper also has this white residue all over its face. The scooter blenny looks a little slower, and lighter shade than normal. But my firefish looks completely fine.

I have attached some photos, hopefully you guys can help. If I need to move the fish to a seperate tank, I have a 10G and a 20G laying around. I also have some copper treatment, and melafix. Please please help!!:(

That looks like ich and copper will cure it, but unless you have a qt tank already up and running with an established filter, you will need to do at least 50% water changes in the qt everyday. Also, when you do the water changes you will also need to dose more copper. You must have the proper copper test kit for the type of copper you are going to use to keep the levels between 1.5-2 ppm. Too low and it will have no affect. Too high and you can kill the fish. All the fish in your tank must be pulled out and treated and the tank left with no fish for at least 6 weeks.

If you move the fish to other tanks you will have to keep them out of the display for three months for the ich to die out of the tank. I would get some slcon and garlic to put in there food. If the are eating. Raising the temp of the tank also helps speed up the lifecycle of the ich.

So which one? 6 weeks, or 3 months? How high should i keep the temperature?

Also, since copper cannot be used with invertibrates, can I keep my shrimps, snails, crabs, and urchin in the tank? Can ich attach to iinverts?

News from the Warfront with Cryptocaryon irritans
From the article........"If the fish are moved from a display aquarium for treatment elsewhere, the display tank should be left without fish (fallow with the exception of invertebrates) for a minimum of 30 days. This is generally a long enough time period for the parasite to die out for lack of a host (i.e. fish). Again, a longer fallow period adds an extra measure of safety."

You can leave the inverts in the main tank. Keep your temp the same as always. Raising the temp does not kill ich, it only makes the life cycle progress faster. Higher temps can also lead to lower oxygen levels.

ccCapt said:

News from the Warfront with Cryptocaryon irritans
From the article........"If the fish are moved from a display aquarium for treatment elsewhere, the display tank should be left without fish (fallow with the exception of invertebrates) for a minimum of 30 days. This is generally a long enough time period for the parasite to die out for lack of a host (i.e. fish). Again, a longer fallow period adds an extra measure of safety."

You can leave the inverts in the main tank. Keep your temp the same as always. Raising the temp does not kill ich, it only makes the life cycle progress faster. Higher temps can also lead to lower oxygen levels.

Click to expand...

Thanks for all of your help guys. One more question. I plan on just taking 20g of water from the display tank for the 20g. I will be using an eheim liberty 150 hang on filter for the QT. I'm not sure if the filter has carbon, but if so, do I need to remove the carbon filter? Oh, make that two questions. My sleeper goby is skiddish, and hides under rocks. Will the copper bleach out and kill the rock if I put say.. a 3lb rock inside?

Do not use carbon and do not put any rock in the qt.
Carbon will remove some copper and the rock will absorb it. You don't want to do either. Use pvc fittings in the qt for the fish to hide in.

Which copper are you going to use and what test kit do you have?
I use CopperSafe with an API cu test kit.

ccCapt said:

Do not use carbon and do not put any rock in the qt.
Carbon will remove some copper and the rock will absorb it. You don't want to do either. Use pvc fittings in the qt for the fish to hide in.

Which copper are you going to use and what test kit do you have?
I use CopperSafe with an API cu test kit.

Click to expand...

I will be using the mardel coppersafe, and I am going to petsmart now to pick up the eheim filter, so I will pick up the api test kit as well.

ccCapt has you covered well!

Good luck. I had a lion fish get ich like that a long time ago. It was so bad it ate the fins right down to the needles. It look horrible, But after about 6 month it was even noticeable.

I've dealt with Ick a few times myself. I have used a product by Kent Marine called Rx.P once. I liked it cause you can treat with fish in the main display and it's safe for coral's and inverts. But it's not recommend for Lionfish.

I don't know if this really worked or not, I've only done this type of treatment once. But I bought whole clove's of Garlic. I took 1 and cut it up and placed it in a filter sock tied to the main drain pipe into my sump. Then I took 1 and blended it with RO/DI water to which I then scooped a T-spoon into my feed bowl ( a plastic bowl that I keep frozen fish food in ) each time I made fresh food up. The third clove I placed into another filter sock and dropped it into the main display. I fed with the blended Garlic clove until it was gone. And I left the other 2 cloves, 1 in the sump & 1 in the main display for 3 weeks. My fish that had Ick no longer had Ick at the end of the second week.

I was out of selcon and the RxP at the time. Like I said I don't know if that really worked or if the fish were able to defeat the Ick on there own. I had a LFS owner give me the Idea, he said he did it with the fish at the store. Just thought I'd share the Idea.

A little note: PVC pipe tends to have some greasy industrial residue on it. You may wish to run it thru the dishwasher without soap. That worked for me.

Okay today everyone is acting about the same.

The lion is sitting in the sand for the majority of the day, but does get us and swim around a bit, still not eating.

The sleeper goby sits very still mostly, but tweaks every now and then and goes on a feeding frenzy.

The firefish is acting normal, besides being stressed about having no rock.

Scooter blenny is a little more still than usual, but seems okay.

Today the dandruff look of the lion seems a little better, but on closer inspection, it looks almost like a slime hanging off of him. 1/2 to 1" long. Is this a symptom of ich?

Maybe I am digging way too deep into this, but I found this website:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/ichparasiticdiseases/a/newich.htm

Is this real? or is it just a page setup to sell some sort of miracle drug? This sounds exactly like what my lion is doing. It is completely covered in a nasty slime, and i really dont know what to do for it.

i bet that is true that drug is used in people for malaria and has been around for a long time. also look into marine velvet to see if that could be the reason for the slime

Photo update: so much slime :(

Here are some new photos from this morning. I'm not sure if the copper is removing some of the slime, or if its just getting so bad, its falling off because it has nowhere to hold on...

Lionfish just went down the toilet. Can anyone give me some advice on this slime? Sleeper goby will be flushed any minute.

Sorry for your loss. My only advise is don't put anything into that tank for along time.

Maybe this will help
http://peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=16+2160&aid=2420

The ick may have caused a fungial infection.