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boogey247 
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 Topic: HELP! HELP! HELP!
Posted: April 15 2008 at 6:04pm |
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ICH!!!! I have it really bad in my tank and I am afraid it is going to kill everything. The list of fish I have is:
4 chromis (no ich)
1 yellow-tail damsel (no ich)
1 sixline wrasse (no ich)
1 tomato clown (ich infected, again)
1 bristletooth tang (newly infected)
I have tried freshwater dips and it did work for a very short amount of time obviously. I now have a new outbreak and can't figure out what is causing it. I have a bottle of Rid-ich (formaldehyde), but I have not used it. I am worried about using it because I don't want it to kill the inverts or corals. So I guess my question is how do I get rid of this and how do I prevent this in the future? I am supposed to get two Blue Hippos (thanks Steve) soon, but I don't want to put them in the tank until it is okay and this problem is fixed. ANY help would be greatly appreciated. I would be very grateful if somebody might be able to come and test my water and let me know if there are any problems I am not seeing because I am still relatively new to this.
P.S. I also have red slime that just popped up. How do I get rid of it?
Thanks, Josh.
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29 Gallon Bow Front
55 Gallon with 25 gallon sump
24 Gallon Nano
Pond
2 dogs + 2 cats + fish + 1 year old daughter = zoo. Welcome to my house.
Josh
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Mike Savage
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Posted: April 15 2008 at 10:12pm |
For Ich garlic in the food helps as does an Ozone generator or UV Sterilizer. I wouldn't use any type of Rid-Ich or medication in the main tank. I would only consider it in a hospital tank. The red slime is probably Cyanobacteria. Less nutrients and more flow usually take care of this.
Mike
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gobie
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Posted: April 15 2008 at 10:55pm |
Keep a stable temperature to this causes serious stress on fish. I fed fresh garlic to my fish when they had ich , after about three weeks it finally started to go away hasn't come back since. I think it all depends on the fish's overall health as weather or not they recover or not . Now I feed fresh garlic to them about once a week. Fresh water dips Imo only cause more stress making ich worse.
Good luck.
Edited by gobie - April 15 2008 at 10:57pm
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135 with vhos
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boogey247
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Joined: October 18 2007
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 7:15am |
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Gobie, do you use just regular minced garlic? I haven't used that before. I have used garlic extract, but not a chopped or minced garlic. Thanks for the info. Any other opinions?
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29 Gallon Bow Front
55 Gallon with 25 gallon sump
24 Gallon Nano
Pond
2 dogs + 2 cats + fish + 1 year old daughter = zoo. Welcome to my house.
Josh
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gobie
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 8:59am |
I tried the extract for a while and it helped a little but when I started useing finely minced garlic clove it helped a lot , I put the miced garlic in my frozen food and let it soak for about 10 to 15 minutes stirred it up then feed. Garlic looses it's potency after it is cut or extracted. I only used a small minced sliver of garlic for every frozen cube and a fresh clove every time . Some times the fish would spit it out and other times they wouldn't the bigger the pieces the more they would spit it out.
I know from experience you don't go to reef central and open up this can of worms . But it worked for me and I learned about it here on this message board!
I hpe this helps
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135 with vhos
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sukie
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 9:58am |
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What's your salinity at??
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boogey247
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 10:04am |
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Last time I checked it it was at about 1.020
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29 Gallon Bow Front
55 Gallon with 25 gallon sump
24 Gallon Nano
Pond
2 dogs + 2 cats + fish + 1 year old daughter = zoo. Welcome to my house.
Josh
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Debbles
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 10:39am |
We talked to Kris at FIsh 4 U about ich on Sat. He explained that there is always ich in your tank it just isn't always "active". He said the biggest factor is temperature. He explained that if your temp fluctuates during the coarse of the day it causes the ich to "activate". He told us to keep the temp at 80 and we "shouldn't" have any ich problems. I would give Kris a call or stop by the store if you have any questions. He talked to us for a while about it.
Deb  |
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Yes Mikey...I still have fins!!!
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boogey247
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 10:55am |
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That makes sense, so how do I regulate my temp better?
Edited by boogey247 - April 16 2008 at 10:55am
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29 Gallon Bow Front
55 Gallon with 25 gallon sump
24 Gallon Nano
Pond
2 dogs + 2 cats + fish + 1 year old daughter = zoo. Welcome to my house.
Josh
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Debbles
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 11:55am |
I'm going to try to explain how Kris explained it to us. If I lose you and make no sense I'm sorry! (We got lost when he was explaining it to us and he had to explain it again!) He asked what our temp fluctuates at---76-82 (huge difference) he said that if we set it at 80 then when it rises it will only rise 2 degrees instead of 6 (which would cause the ich to activate). He said that since our tank only goes to 82 then it wouldn't get any higher than that if we raised our temp to 80. (we normally have it set at 76) . Does that make sense?? I hope so. Anyway, I hope this helps a little.
Deb
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Yes Mikey...I still have fins!!!
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Jake Pehrson
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 12:59pm |
I don't agree that ich is always in your aquarium. There are aquariums that have ich in them, but with healthy fish it does not cause a problem, but usually if your fish are stressed and there is ich in your aquarium there will be a large outbreak. It is common to have aquariums with stressed fish (sometimes so bad they die from other causes) that never get ich because it is not present in the aquarium).
I also disagree about the temperature thing. Ich does not activate with higher or lower temperatures (inside the normal temps of a reef). It does proliferate faster in higher temperatures so it is usually recommended that you raise the temp in a tank being treated by some type of chemical so the parasite moves through its lifespan faster. What is important with Temp is stability. This helps reduce the stress on the fish and in turn helps them fight off the parasite.
Here is what I would do if I got ich.
*Start UV and/or ozone. I like to use them both (since I have both).
*Feed garlic in my foods.
*Freshwater dip fish if they are easy to catch.
*Large water changes with vacumming substrate (very shallow). Although this does help reduce the parasite number it is more important to make sure you have good water quality. Unless you fix the reason your fish are stressed then you will have a hard time curing the ich.
....so there is my $0.02
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boogey247
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 1:09pm |
Thank you for the info everybody. I thought I would ask about my lights as well. I have the light on from 8-8:30 everyday. Is this too much. Also I don't have any moon lights, are they necessary?
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29 Gallon Bow Front
55 Gallon with 25 gallon sump
24 Gallon Nano
Pond
2 dogs + 2 cats + fish + 1 year old daughter = zoo. Welcome to my house.
Josh
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Tresa
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 1:53pm |
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I don't think that is too long for your lights, that is about how long mine are on...........Moon lights are not necessary but I love mine.............I would take a sample of your water to a store that you trust to have it tested to make sure there are not problems with your levels. I also very much agree with Jake, uv's are great.
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Debbles
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Posted: April 16 2008 at 5:13pm |
We have always had good luck treating ich with Marine Max and garlic. I know that some people don't like using chemicals. (Kris also told us not to use them) but we have never had a bad reaction to our tanks with the Marine Max and it clears it up quickly. But like Jake said, you do need to find the reason for the ich or it won't CURE it.
Deb
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Yes Mikey...I still have fins!!!
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