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jsol12 
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 Topic: Ich treatment options?
Posted: December 01 2015 at 1:33pm |
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So, in learning the lessons the come along with this hobby, I have come across an expensive and frustrating one. I bought some fish which in the store looked healthy, but soon after I got them home I realized that 1 looked like it had ich and it basically spread to others, despite soaking the food in garlic, putting some in the water directly as instructed on the bottle, and keeping all water parameters stable. This leads me to contemplate making some changes. First, do many people commonly run quarantine tanks? Is that/should that be a standard practice? I am thinking I need to set one up now. Second, I don't have a UV sterilizer, is that a good route to go? And lastly, has anyone tried this No-ICH marine I saw online? I was looking if there was any non-copper based treatments out there, and this is all I found. Thanks in advance.
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150gal/25gal sump Red Sea Max S650, started 3/28/15
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: December 01 2015 at 4:05pm |
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This will be tricky. Many opinions may follow.
Adam
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Come to a meeting, they’re fun!
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proskier101
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Posted: December 01 2015 at 4:10pm |
I do not quarantine. and I normally just keep feeding the tank to try and keep the other fish happy and let nature take its course. It Sucks.
lost half a tank that way(luckily only like 5 fish but it was a predator tank)
According to everyone else, you're looking at fish loss with any trick. so I wait it out. :(
Maybe buy a cleaner wrasse. Someone else can chime in, but wont they eat the ick?
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Hogie
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Posted: December 01 2015 at 4:21pm |
Here's a good write up on ick. It's a good read and helped me out a lot. Ick Treatment
Edited by Hogie - December 01 2015 at 4:23pm
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1stupidpunk
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Posted: December 01 2015 at 5:37pm |
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There are many ways of dealing with Ich. I will only mention method i have used...
I havent tried the No-Ich Marine you are asking about... BUT i have tried the Kordon brand Ich Attack with pretty good success. I didnt loose any more fish after using it and had no damage to inverts. Make sure to follow the instructions if you use it, and keep dosing even after you dont see any more ich.
Make sure you dont buy the kordon brand Rid-Ich however.. it IS NOT invert safe.
Best of luck.
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laroc
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Posted: December 01 2015 at 5:44pm |
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How big is the tank and how many fish. If you can quarantine the fish. I prefer no substrate or any of the live rock due to the life cycle of ich. Change the water complete and if possible the tank every three days.After about 12 days should be gone. Worked every time without loss. Copper seems to make the fish not want to eat for me causing death. The display can be infected for I believe 6 weeks or so.
However, I have had some succes with copper but not with some loss. If you can not quarantine the fish.
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Always be leery of a fish farmer...wait or is it a pig farmer?
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: December 01 2015 at 10:37pm |
Alternatives? Options? We've got 'em. We've been helping people learn to keep their fish healthy for a long, long time. That's pretty much the WMAS mission. Read the threads linked in the Reefkeeping Tips linked below in my signature line about adding new fish and keeping them healthy. Aw heck, I'll just copy the that part of the Reefkeeping Tips section for ya below. 
The final attempt to keep fish disease free if nothing else has worked:
Along the lines of making changes to the environment to reduce fish stress, which is very crucial to good health, here is a recent thread where this was brought up from a different angle. It's a good read:
Summarizing the list of options discussed/described in the links above. Try the easiest items first before attempting the last items 1. Create a healthy, stress free environment. (aquascaping, Macroalgae and bugs, supplemental food, tank mates, sunshine, limiting sources of fright, etc.) 2. Feed supplemental Garlic Oil (or other prepared ich product) according to best proven procedure and be willing to change to another product if the first one or two do not work 3. Ozone via a Skimmer 4. UV Sterilizer 5. Quarantine/hospitalization
Aloha, Mark 
P.S. It wouldn't hurt to post a pic of the tank so we can take a look and offer specific suggestions.
Edited by Mark Peterson - December 01 2015 at 10:54pm
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Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks:www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member 
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jsol12
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Posted: April 18 2016 at 9:57am |
OK....so I'm still battling with bouts of ich, and a few fish have it pretty bad. After doing the garlic thing, ich attack, and setting up a UV sterilizer, I decided to finally bite the bullet and try a QT tank. I have debated for a while, but I decided with my powder blue and brown tangs not eating for several days, they were probably going to die if I let nature take it's course, so I might as well try QT. Sadly, it was pretty easy to catch them, so to me that says how sick they are. So....as with every single thing in this hobby, there are a million different options. For now I am not interested in trying the hyposalinity thing or TTM. I am curious about what medications everyone prefers and finds most effective in a QT tank: *copper/cupramine *metronidazole *malachite green *melafix *any others not mentioned, or any combination of meds
For my main tank...I will continue with the garlic and UV. A few questions: 1. Is metronidazole safe to add to the food in there? 2. Is melafix safe? According to the bottle and liveaquaria.com it is reef safe...but still makes me nervous. 3. I apparently was mistaken at thinking the cleaner wrasse would help; it sounds like they are better at spreading it. What should I do with it? Add it to the QT tank? I have a cleaner shrimp that would be happy to resume sole responsibility for cleaning duties.
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150gal/25gal sump Red Sea Max S650, started 3/28/15
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1stupidpunk
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Posted: April 18 2016 at 10:40am |
If you already have them xfered to QT then I would go straight to a copper based medication (just don't put the shrimp in there) for the most effective treatment. Keep in mind that the life cycle of Ich is several weeks so all the fish will need to stay in there the entire time and many water changes will be in your future. From my experience Melafix hasn't worked for anything I've attempted to treat. Leave your DT alone for the 8ish weeks it will take for the Ich to die off. Just feed your corals and don't put any medications in there. With no fish(food source) the Ich will die off by themselves.
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kevin.st
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Posted: April 18 2016 at 11:07am |
I like the method outlined by punk, above.
I have used metro with no success. Just quarantine and leave your tank fallow for 8 weeks for the ich to cycle and die off.
Then, quarantine every new fish from now on and just avoid some fish altogether (Powder blue tangs, for example).
Edited by kevin.st - April 18 2016 at 11:07am
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jsol12
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Posted: April 18 2016 at 11:24am |
Thanks for the inupt! I totally understand that as long as there is fish in the tank, that provides a possible host for the ich. But to set up a QT for ALL my fish...that is a serious task! First I would have to rip apart all the rock and surely do some damage to the corals in the meantime, and even then I doubt my ability to catch them all. To me that sounds like an insurmountable task, pretty much akin to completely starting the tank all over again. Secondly, I'd need a pretty big tank to QT them in...have probably 20 more fish left in DT. I guess not exactly the answer I wanted to hear lol. A lot to think about. I suppose it comes down to how badly I want to completely eradicate ich from my system.
Whatever happens, I definitely will be quarantining all fish in the future.
Edited by jsol12 - April 18 2016 at 11:36am
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150gal/25gal sump Red Sea Max S650, started 3/28/15
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: April 18 2016 at 3:46pm |
In my experience as the "lazy reefer", I cannot bring myself to do the 8 week fallow tank thing. I'm too impatient and too sloppy. I'm sure I would re-introduce the Ich parasite on a coral frag, a rock, a sprig of algae, or a fish I don't want to take the time to quarantine, even if I didn't transfer the bagged water. Quarantine,  heck there's no way I have the patience for that. A Garlic product that works in a particular tank can be selected by trial and error from the many available. I realize that's hit and miss, but if we are patient and diligent enough to try several, the right one can be found. I still believe it's best to first try the one that works best, Solgar Garlic Perles, but in this case that product is already in the mix.  This is really a tough problem. I believe it's impossible for the Ich parasite to live in a tank where O3 is used correctly in the skimmer or where UV is properly set up. (These devices can kill everything in the tank, but at least the Ich is gone. ) Since every tank is unique, a specific problem may have to do with a specific setup. Maybe The UV Sterilizer is not working/plumbed effectively? I don't know. Unfortunately, there are a few fish that often just can't be helped, sometimes no matter what we do. Even in a no Ich environment they die too easily. The fish I have seen that fit this category are the Powder Brown Tang, Powder Blue Tang, and the Blue Tang (Hippocampus). These fish are affectionately called "Ich Magnets". Plainly speaking, they are trouble and I simply don't waste my money on them. I prefer to leave them living in the ocean with their friends. Another Tang that does not do well is the Convict Tang. Around Kona Hawaii they are literally everywhere in the surf zone in shoals sometimes numbering in the hundreds (See my pic below). For this reason I have often wondered if these Tangs, Powder Tangs included, are just plain lonely in our tanks. Maybe they aren't happy being away from their gang in a box of water they just don't like. All of the above is just my opinion and personal experience of course, but I find that many long time hobbyists agree with me. Of course, in the future there may be new ways devised to keep these fish happy.  Aloha, Mark  
Edited by Mark Peterson - April 18 2016 at 4:31pm
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