Oh No! I have ich! What do I do?

[little_fish]

I would get some other food as well, stay away from brine shrimp though. Variety is the spice of life and the key to good nutrition. I would suggest something like Rods food, which is a great mix or you can get several different foods and rotate through them.

 

[kBellas]

I believe I have a major ich outbreak in my tank. Just introduced a blue & yellow tang into my tank. I suspect that the blue tang brought it with him from the LFS. & now my sailfin has spots on his fins, the blue one is covered with ich n the yellow is perfectly fine. I'm a beginner & need advice on how to treat them without killining everything else inside my tank (live rock,sand,cleaner shrimp,hermit crabs,turbo snails,urchin)

 

[kylemack87]

I believe I have a major ich outbreak in my tank. Just introduced a blue & yellow tang into my tank. I suspect that the blue tang brought it with him from the LFS. & now my sailfin has spots on his fins, the blue one is covered with ich n the yellow is perfectly fine. I'm a beginner & need advice on how to treat them without killining everything else inside my tank (live rock,sand,cleaner shrimp,hermit crabs,turbo snails,urchin)

So you have a sailfin tang with a recently added blue & yellow tang? in a 60G? Minimum Tank Size for the sailfin including the yellow/blue tang as well: 125-180 gallons... to get rid of your ICH I would take your fish back to the LFS and do research on fish stocking in the appropriate tank size. :pooh:

Saying this from what is in your signature stating you have a 60G tank.

This is like taking you out of your home and putting you in a laundry basket and make you live there for the rest of your life. :twocents:

 

[kBellas]

So you have a sailfin tang with a recently added blue & yellow tang? in a 60G? Minimum Tank Size for the sailfin including the yellow/blue tang as well: 125-180 gallons... to get rid of your ICH I would take your fish back to the LFS and do research on fish stocking in the appropriate tank size. :pooh:

Saying this from what is in your signature stating you have a 60G tank.

This is like taking you out of your home and putting you in a laundry basket and make you live there for the rest of your life. :twocents:

They are in that 60g for the time being, as they are literally tiny babies(an 1inch big). They will move into a bigger tank. But besides that........how do i treat the ich

 

[salt_for_brains]

Hypo salinity and copper are the only proven methods of treating ich but neither can be done in your display tank. Once ich is in your display tank the only way to rid it is by removing all your fish and running fallow for a couple months.
Removing your fish now and putting them in a hospital tank will likely stress them even more than they are now. If they are eating continue to feed them high quality frozen food and algae sheets so hopefully they can fight off the ich.

You are stocking way too fast and three tangs in a 60g is a certain recipe for disaster. I doubt a LFS would take those fish back with visible signs of ich but you can check. Slow down and good luck!

 

[ErinCahir]

Big ol' +1 to the boys. The size of your baby tangs doesn't matter, the blue, at least, still need eight feet of tank.

Please research the animals before you buy them.

 

[BL1]

The only two way to treat Ich:

https://www.livingreefs.com/hyposalinity-treatment-ich-t29672.html
https://www.livingreefs.com/copper-101-a-t29680.html

 

[little_fish]

+1 everyone. The best way to treat and prevent ich (and most other disease out breaks) is to prevent the fish from being stressed, so keep your fish in an appropriately sized tank, that isn't overstocked and they will heal themselves.

 

[noy]

I've used hypo and copper (cupramine) successfully. I highly recommend cupramine. I never had an adverse reaction on the fish with it. Hypo is waaaay too much effort.

Set up a QT tank with the suggested dosage of cupramine. Freshwater dip and into the qt tank. Follow the directions to get the concentration of copper up. 2 weeks in cupramine. 3-4 weeks in qt (w/o cupramine) - watch your fish to see if you see signs of ich or ich behaviour. Final FW dip before going back in display tank.

monitor ammonia and nitrite closely - your qt will cycle and you may have to do water changes so always have some prepared water handy in a bucket.

 

[dankolle]

Hey guys, I have fallen prey to some nasty stuff on my new Atlantic Blue Tang. I got him about 3 weeks ago, and he was attacked by my yellow for the first few hours he was in the tank. I put the yellow in my sump for 3 days and reintroduced him and now they are best buds.

However, this week I noticed my blue was covered in white stuff and I am pretty sure it is ich. He swims and is eating like a champ. I have plenty of algae for him to feed on and he eats nori / squid / mysis / garlic frozen mixture I make for the rest of my tank. He was absolutely covered last night so I did a freshwater dip for 5 minutes in RO water, identical temps, and he seems to have shed a bunch of the little buggers.

I have been using some reef safe stuff my LFS recommended, but haven't seen much results, which makes sense when I read the first post on this thread.

Any pointers? I am setting up a QT tank now, and will NEVER introduce another fish without QT first...

Photos are 12 hours after freshwater dip


Sick Atlantic Blue Tang by x2boarder, on Flickr


Sick Atl. Blue Tang by x2boarder, on Flickr

 

[dankolle]

Well that was fast...within 4 hours of this post he want from swimming around & eating to nearly eaten by my brittle star. We had the QT getting up to temp and got him in over night. It served as a peaceful place for him to pass and not much else. I have never heard Ich kill this quickly, most of the posts I have read indicate that it takes weeks to kill. He was sick for just over 7 days.

 

[Sakura2282]

I'm sorry for your fish lost. Now that you have ich in your tank you should treat your other fish in that QT you set up, before they start showing symptoms too.

 

[mark r ramsey]

Hi Hanna
I don't know about doing this with SW.. I had tons of African Chiliads, I bred them from 1974 to 1991.Back when their colors were AWESOME!! Now with all of the cross breeding and in breeding their colors aren't even close to what the were then. When one of my tanks came down with ich , I raised the temp by a degree every day until it got to 90 to 93 degrees for one day and the ich was gone without Copper. I'm thinking I can't do it with SW. Also ich lives in the sand/crushed coral, so it's best if you don't stir you sand or any substrate that you use. I never used a QT until I went with SW.