I have a good colony of Ich, does anybody want some?

Snakeman · Post by **Snakeman** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 5:06 pm

If nobody does then would somebody tell me what is the best way to get rid of it. I have some coral so I'm weary about what I put in my tank.

Post by **snoopdog** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 5:34 pm

Reeferpuffer would be the person to really ask on this. I want to say he has heard of a commercial product that works. In my personal experience what i suggest is to eliminate the cause first. Salt water fish will normally get rid of ick themselves once the cause is gone. If you have a tang in a small tank and they stress (which the normally do) then get the tang out of the tank. I had one stressed tang spread ich and kill 4 other fish. When the tang died mysteriously all the other fish got better.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:09 pm

I have heard of quite a few products for fighting ich, but there must be something that is causing stress. Here are a few things to try:
1. Soak your food in a garlic extract or add garlic to food
2. Get a cleaner shrimp or cleaner wrasse (not sure of how effective they are)
3. Put all fish in a Q-tank with a small amount of copper (copper sulfate I think is best in small doses).
4. Freshwater dip all affected fish.

I am sure there are other methods, but these are the the ones I have heard of. I think adding chemicals or medicine to a tank can not only stress corals but also add more stress to fish and be somewhat counter productive. My friends aquaculture fish and sometimes use the copper sulfate in their grow out tanks. They used to freshwater dip all fish that were affected and it worked pretty good. The problem is that ick will live in a tank even without fish for something like 30 days. If you could tell us a little more about your set up there may be something else wrong. I lost a whole tank of fish due to ick once, it sucked.

Scott

Snakeman · Post by **Snakeman** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:21 pm

I have a 30g tand with alot of LR and a few soft coral, about 9 Anemones(7 that I got diving) 1 clown, 1 yellow tang, 2 doctor fish( got diving) , 1 yellow tail dasel, 2 cleaner shrimp( just been added). The larger or my two doctor fish has started being aggresive to the smaller one so that could be the problem. I've had all my fish except the clown for about a year.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:53 pm

I am not familiar with the doctor fish, but I bet that is where your problem is coming from. I am really surprised the the yellow tail damsel is not the most aggresive fish in the tank though. How large are the doctor fish? Is there any way to isolate the more agressive fish for a week or so?

Scott

Snakeman · Post by **Snakeman** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:05 pm

A Doctorfish is in the Surgeonfish family the same as a tang. I guess they are about an 1 1/4 inches long. I'm going to try to get the small doctorfish out because that is the only fish it is being aggresive too. The smaller fish is the one most infected. Doctor fish are really nice looking fish that can be caught down at the gulf.

Post by **snoopdog** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:48 pm

I can tell you right now that your ich outbreak is coming from your tangs, they are meant for large tanks so they can have running room. Tangs in the wild are long distance swimmers and being placed in a small environment will generally cause major stress. If you notice most pet stores will zap there small tanks that house tangs with copper to keep the ich down, which sometimes work but usually dont. The smallest tank I would even try a tang in personally would be a 180 now. I am sad to say that I know all of this from personal experience, all the way to getting flamed on message boards for trying to keep tangs in a 75 gallon. Alot of times you may be ok for months with them and no ich outbreak, its kinda like a timebomb. I had 3 yellow tangs and a purple tang together for nearly a year but the suckers went nuts, killed each other then stressed and ich'd my mandarin and gramma, deceased.
If it were my tank I would get rid of the tangs and your other fish will get better, but its not my tank

Either way keep us up to date on the situation. Also some people use garlic dipped food, I personally cant say if it helped me or not during my ich.

Snakeman · Post by **Snakeman** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 8:26 pm

I'm going to be moving up to about 120g of water pretty soon. I really don't have anywhere to put my tang so taking him out is really not an option. I got the small doctorfish out of the tank so maybe that will help until I get my large tank set up. I did start with the garlic a few days ago. Thanks for the suggestions.

reeferpuffer · Post by **reeferpuffer** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 9:59 pm

like scott said, try garlic extereme from kent, ive heard its great stuff...but yes, you have way to many tang is that small of a tank....so there is your problem