Omg ich!
- Thread starter Piper106
- Start date
wontonflip
I failed Kobayashi Maru
Well, honestly, the only known treatments that work are copper and hyposalinity. Which means treating in a qt tank....which means chasing the fish around to qt them, which means more stress.
Read this: https://www.livingreefs.com/oh-no-have-ich-do-do-t30950.html
At this point, if you treat one fish, you have to treat them all because your tank has ich. If you only treat one, he will get it again the second he goes back in the main tank. You'd have to leave the tank fallow (fishless) for a few months (even that's not a guarantee -- one of our reefers did all that and the fish still got ich) to hopefully kill off the ich.
Most of us don't qt nor treat for ich because we just keep our tank as stress free as possible and feed high quality food, and hope the fish will fight it off on their own. If your fish is eating, he might be able to fight it off.
Read this: https://www.livingreefs.com/oh-no-have-ich-do-do-t30950.html
At this point, if you treat one fish, you have to treat them all because your tank has ich. If you only treat one, he will get it again the second he goes back in the main tank. You'd have to leave the tank fallow (fishless) for a few months (even that's not a guarantee -- one of our reefers did all that and the fish still got ich) to hopefully kill off the ich.
Most of us don't qt nor treat for ich because we just keep our tank as stress free as possible and feed high quality food, and hope the fish will fight it off on their own. If your fish is eating, he might be able to fight it off.
sen5241b
Reef enthusiast
I have used the organic ich treatments and both times it went away BUT there are many species of the ich parasite and some are tougher than others. Some my require copper. If it looks bad, take the fish out and use copper. Doing nothing is also and option.
Bifferwine
I am a girl
I think this is the correct approach to take (at first). As long as the fish are eating, I would give them a chance to fight it off themselves. Most of the time, it will go away on its own (well, not go away like leave the tank forever. The fish just won't show signs of it anymore). If the fish are not eating or appear to have difficulty swimming, then I would try to catch them to quarantine them and treat them.
Northstar24
The Tang Herder
I'd also recommend getting yourself some more nutritious food, try Emerald Entree, Formula II, or Rods Food
I'm going to get diffrent food tomorrow. What sucks is I live in a city with exactly 2 saltwater fish stores. The one 2 minutes from my house I wouldn't buy a net from, and the one across town is only open from 12pm-5pm. I never had time to get there today to buy anything. Anyone have any experience with online fish orders? I am considering because of the low stock around my house.....
Bifferwine
I am a girl
Petco and PetSmart both have a good selection of frozen food.
So I turned on the lights this morning and can find NO signs of the ICH? Over the course of the past couple days I have lowered the salinity, slightly raised the temp, soaked frozen foods in garlic, and even kept the kids out of the living room so they weren't running by and scaring them. Yesterday, I broke down and went to LFS and bought ICH-X. I set the bottle on the stand next to the aquarium but couldn't bring myself to poison the tank..... Maybe the threat of the bottle sitting there scared it away!!
Bifferwine
I am a girl
It will do that. You will see the spots come and go. Sometimes they disappear at night, but will come back during the day. Just keep an eye out for it. :)
wontonflip
I failed Kobayashi Maru
+1 biff. Avoid dosing the tank with any medications (except a couple of exceptions, like flatworm xit). Even if the meds say reef safe, I wouldn't risk it. You never know long term effects.
Why are you lowering your salinity? What was it before, and what is it now? You shouldn't raise/lower more than .001/day (although, I believe when doing a hypo salinity in a qt it's ok to lower it to the recommended 1.009 in a short time, otherwise the ich will acclimate to the new salinity, rendering the treatment useless). You should be at around 1.0024-1.0026. If you have to raise it, do so .001/day.
The kid part is a good idea :D But honestly, no need to tweak the tank parameters.
Why are you lowering your salinity? What was it before, and what is it now? You shouldn't raise/lower more than .001/day (although, I believe when doing a hypo salinity in a qt it's ok to lower it to the recommended 1.009 in a short time, otherwise the ich will acclimate to the new salinity, rendering the treatment useless). You should be at around 1.0024-1.0026. If you have to raise it, do so .001/day.
The kid part is a good idea :D But honestly, no need to tweak the tank parameters.
