wow...ich

[Reefer769]

wow i think ICH is back in my aquarium for the second time in a REALLY short time period... wow i am so upset right now. i really dont know what to do, i just got done fishting this damm parasite not to long ago, and once again it is back. i REALLY REALLY REALLY dont want to set up the hospital again and have to go through that once more. this sucks so bad, maybe after a few weeks of water changes thing will turn out alright, but if it doesnt and it starts to get extreme then i guess i will have no choice but to RIP apart my tank AGAIN and put the fish in the hospital. the thing that sucks is i have to take out the damm rock everytime i want to catch a fish becuase they would be IMPOSSIBLE to catch other wise.

[Reefland]

When you treated last time, did you follow the instructions posted and supplied to you in links? Did you remove all of the fish from the tank for 6 weeks and treat in a hospital tank? If so, have you anything new since the treatment?

[Reefer769]

yes i followed the links, but... i only wait 30 days . alright well i guess that might be the problem, and yes i have added a yellow eyed tang, im only sopposed to be holding it for a few years, becuase i will most likely be upgrading to a much bigger tank. i guess i know why ich has come back, but im not POSITIVE it is ich just yet. they have white specs one day and the next they have nothing, and i have a lot of micro bubbles lately since i setup the sump and they swim through the rocks a lot so until im sure its ich i wont set up the hospital just yet. ill wait it out just a bit longer to see what happens. i just wish there was an easier way to treat ich right in the aquarium, i swear somebody better invent that soon

[patsfan1130]

yes i followed the links, but... i only wait 30 days . alright well i guess that might be the problem, and yes i have added a yellow eyed tang, im only sopposed to be holding it for a few years, becuase i will most likely be upgrading to a much bigger tank. i guess i know why ich has come back, but im not POSITIVE it is ich just yet. they have white specs one day and the next they have nothing, and i have a lot of micro bubbles lately since i setup the sump and they swim through the rocks a lot so until im sure its ich i wont set up the hospital just yet. ill wait it out just a bit longer to see what happens. i just wish there was an easier way to treat ich right in the aquarium, i swear somebody better invent that soon

If you only waited 30 days..I would be willing to bet anything it is Ich. It is very common for the spots to drop. Once mature..they drop off of the fish and rupture releasing tomites just to begin the infecting process all over again. All fish's immune system will fight off the parasite the best it can but most fish will usually sucomb to the infection if not treated. fish also will scrape against rough edges to get them off but this only "fools" the aquariust into thinking they are winning the battle. A 6 week quarantine period is of the utmost importance in ridding a tank of the parasite. If there are fish AND Ich in the tank and the fish AND anything capable of hosting the parasite are not removed...The parasite will not just go away

[Sueet]

And on top of all that everyone else has already said here... Tangs are ICH magnets... They seem to always come with them, and always be susceptible to it, so chances are it IS ich... and now you know why everyone stresses following directions carefully when it comes to medicating/treating things like ich.

[ick sucks]

temperature swings cause your fish to become suscetible to disease very easily. i lost 2 boxfish because of a wide swing in tempurature. they got ick and died in 1 week. actually placing them in a hospital tank made them worse. they ended up dying together side by side . Ultimately i learned a valuble lesson in temperature at the cost of 2 fish. Even a drop in temp 2 degereze ferenhieght can cause a fish to start scratching on rocks. .there body will be strong against attacks of parasites if fed well. I feed my fish 3-8 times a day in small portions.

[Samper]

Reefer, I don't understand after all the problems you have had, why you still have the same ones. I'll tell you this much, after battling ich one time I'll never do it again in my main. This is an expensive hobby and you need plenty of patience if you expect to stay in it. Do what is required for your little ocean buddies to be happy, then you can enjoy them. Until then you are going to have problem after problem.;)

[Poseidon]

Guess this time you will wait the 6 weeks huh?

[James]

As long as he keeps that Tang in such a small tank, Ich will keep coming back. Ich is caused by stress, and I'll bet that his Tang is pretty pissed off about being in such a small tank. Return the Tang, or give it away.

[Ninong]

As long as he keeps that Tang in such a small tank, Ich will keep coming back. Ich is caused by stress, and I'll bet that his Tang is pretty pissed off about being in such a small tank. Return the Tang, or give it away.

He actually did return the first tang (Yellow Tang), or so he said. That was after we all gave him the same advice you are giving now. Looks like he decided to try another tang in his 30-gal cube tank. Sigh!

I wonder what will show up in his 5.5-gal nano tank?

[Meric]

As long as he keeps that Tang in such a small tank, Ich will keep coming back. Ich is caused by stress, and I'll bet that his Tang is pretty pissed off about being in such a small tank. Return the Tang, or give it away.

Ich is a parasite, it is not caused by stress. Fish are more suseptible (sp?) to Ich when they are stressed if the parasite is in the tank. If he kills the ich off of the fish (Hyposalinity/Copper) and stops the Ich cycle in his tank (6 weeks empty) and does not add any other unknowns to his tank like new animals or infected water, then the Ich will be gone forever and no amount of stress will cause it to reappear.

It is possible that he didn't kill the ich off the fish in the 1st place. If I remember correctly he treated with copper and was having trouble figuring out the correct dosages in the first place. It is possible he did not have to correct dosasges for a long enough time. Ich attaches itself to the fish and burrows under the skin, during this time neither copper or hyposalinity can kill the ich. However after a while the Ich becomes mature and releases itself from the fish to form a reproductive stage in the form of a cyst. After a period time the cyst will hatch and release the free smimming Ich Larvae (3 to 28 Days). It is during these times that Copper and Hyposalinity will kill the Ich. If there is not enough copper or the Salinity is not 1.009 at that time then the Mature Ich will not die.

One quick note: Ich can live in water with a Salinity as low as 1.010 and not be killed. Also Calcium Carbonate Absorbs copper faster than a sponge in water. Therefore using Copper in a tank with any kind of Live Rock or Calcium based substrate will absorb the copper before it can become effective. It is best to treat ich infected fish in a bare tank with PVC piping for hiding places.

However the Tang will probally still die from other stress related diseases or from the stress itself, but it will not be from Ich.

Hope this helps.

Source: http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...marineich.html

Meric

[Ninong]

If I remember correctly he treated with copper and was having trouble figuring out the correct dosages in the first place. It is possible he did not have to correct dosasges for a long enough time.

He used a separate 10-gal hospital tank.

Hope this helps.

Source: http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...marineich.html

Meric

We gave him that link, plus links to all of Terry B.'s ich articles, previously. Not sure if he read any of them because he kept coming back with questions that would have been fully answered in those articles.

[James]

Ich is a parasite, it is not caused by stress. Fish are more suseptible (sp?) to Ich when they are stressed if the parasite is in the tank. If he kills the ich off of the fish (Hyposalinity/Copper) and stops the Ich cycle in his tank (6 weeks empty) and does not add any other unknowns to his tank like new animals or infected water, then the Ich will be gone forever and no amount of stress will cause it to reappear.

It is possible that he didn't kill the ich off the fish in the 1st place. If I remember correctly he treated with copper and was having trouble figuring out the correct dosages in the first place. It is possible he did not have to correct dosasges for a long enough time. Ich attaches itself to the fish and burrows under the skin, during this time neither copper or hyposalinity can kill the ich. However after a while the Ich becomes mature and releases itself from the fish to form a reproductive stage in the form of a cyst. After a period time the cyst will hatch and release the free smimming Ich Larvae (3 to 28 Days). It is during these times that Copper and Hyposalinity will kill the Ich. If there is not enough copper or the Salinity is not 1.009 at that time then the Mature Ich will not die.

One quick note: Ich can live in water with a Salinity as low as 1.010 and not be killed. Also Calcium Carbonate Absorbs copper faster than a sponge in water. Therefore using Copper in a tank with any kind of Live Rock or Calcium based substrate will absorb the copper before it can become effective. It is best to treat ich infected fish in a bare tank with PVC piping for hiding places.

However the Tang will probally still die from other stress related diseases or from the stress itself, but it will not be from Ich.

Hope this helps.

Source: http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...marineich.html

Meric

Ich is not a parasite. Protozoans called Cryptocaryon irritans are. Once they attach to a host with a weak imune system, (i.e. a stressed fish) the condition is called Ich.

Cryptocaryon irritans are in every marine envirment, including our tanks. Copper is the only way to kill them, but you can't just dump copper into your tank or you will kill everything.

Treating an infected fish with copper will only temporally solve the problem. As soon as he puts that fish back into a stressful envirment, (i.e. his "small" 30gal tank) thus weakening its imune system, the parasite will inevitably reattach itself and walla!! Ich.

Get rid of the Tang, keep maybe two or three small fish (Clowns are nice), do your partial water changes (I suggest weekly considering the size of the tank), and you should be fine.

[Meric]

Ich is not a parasite. Protozoans called Cryptocaryon irritans are. Once they attach to a host with a weak imune system, (i.e. a stressed fish) the condition is called Ich.

Cryptocaryon irritans are in every marine envirment, including our tanks. Copper is the only way to kill them, but you can't just dump copper into your tank or you will kill everything.

Treating an infected fish with copper will only temporally solve the problem. As soon as he puts that fish back into a stressful envirment, (i.e. his "small" 30gal tank) thus weakening its imune system, the parasite will inevitably reattach itself and walla!! Ich.

Get rid of the Tang, keep maybe two or three small fish (Clowns are nice), do your partial water changes (I suggest weekly considering the size of the tank), and you should be fine.

You should have read my source first:

What causes marine "Ich"?

Marine "Ich" is caused by a ciliated protozoan called Cryptocaryon irritans Brown 1951. Ciliates (Phylum Ciliophora) are one of the largest groups of protozoans and all posses cilia or compound ciliary structures for food acquisition or locomotion at some point in their life cycle. Of the some 7200 species that have been described, around one third are ecto- and endo- commensals and parasites (Ruppert and Barnes, 1994). C. irritans is an obligate ectoparasite (Dickerson and Clark, 1996) which means that it is an external parasite that needs the fish host to complete its life cycle. The name 'Marine "Ich"' comes from the fact that it is essentially the marine equivalent on Ichthyophthirius multifiliis Fouquet, 1876, or "Ich" for short. While the two species of ciliates have superficially similar life cycles and signs, they have been found to be only distantly related (Wright and Colorni, 2002) .


Is "Ich" always present in our aquaria?



There is a widely held belief in the marine aquarium hobby that "Ich" is always present in our aquaria and this belief is often repeated on marine bulletin boards. There is much information in the scientific literature that contradicts this belief.

C. irritans is an obligate parasite (Burgess and Matthews, 1994; Dickerson and Dawe, 1995; Yoshinaga and Dickerson, 1994). Obligate means the parasite can not survive without infecting its host, in this case, fish. Theronts have been shown to die if a suitable host is not found within the required time. Yoshinaga and Dickerson (1994) found that few theronts (0.34%) were viable 12.5 hours after excystment and Burgess and Matthews (1994) found that no theronts were viable 18 hours after excystment. Colorni (1985) found that some excysted tomites (=theronts) were observed to be moving weekly after 48 hours. While the life span of the theronts appears variable, it is limited and all will die without finding a suitable host.

If an aquarium has no fish in it, and there are no additions of fish, or anything else that could be carrying trophonts, tomonts, tomites or theronts for a period of 6 weeks or longer, all parasites will have died. An aquarium such as this is an obvious exception to "Ich" always being present.

Many fish collected for marine aquariums will not be carrying "Ich". Incidence of C. irritans in wild fish varies widely and may be geographically related. Some authors have found few infected fish, if any, in the areas they have examined (Puerto Rico: Bunkley-Williams and Williams, 1994; southern California: Wilkie and Gordin, 1969) . Others have found that low levels of infection are not uncommon (e.g. southern Queensland; Diggles and Lester, 1996). Keeping multiple fish in holding tanks and at aquarium stores increases the chances of a fish carrying "Ich" parasites, but it is still possible to acquire a fish that is not infected with "Ich".

If new fish are quarantined for at least 6 weeks, any parasites on the fish will have gone through a number of life cycles increasing the number of parasites present. In the majority of cases, the increase in parasite numbers will result in full blown infection and fish can be treated to remove the parasites. Hyposalinity has been demonstrated to break the life cycle of "Ich" (Cheung et al. 1979; Colorni, 1985) and fish correctly treated with hyposalinity will be free from "Ich". Any fish that do not show signs of infection after 6 weeks are very unlikely to be carrying any parasites.

If fish that are free from "Ich" (either because they were not originally infected or because they have been treated with hyposalinity) are added to an aquarium that is free from "Ich", the aquarium will stay free from "Ich" and be another exception to "Ich" always being present.

Burgess and Matthews (1994) were attempting to maintain a viable population of C. irritans which could be used in later studies. To maintain the parasite populations, they needed host fish in order for the trophonts to feed and continue the life cycle. Each host fish was only used once in a process of serial transition such that none of the hosts would die or develop an immunity. While the procedure worked very well and enabled them to maintain populations for some time, the viability of the populations decreased with time and none of the 7 isolates they used survived more than 34 cycles, around 10 to 11 months. They suggest this is due to senescence and aging in cell lines is well recognised in Ciliophora.

The presence of aging cell lines in C. irritans suggests that an aquarium that has been running for longer than 12 months without any additions is unlikely to have any surviving "Ich" parasites, yet another exception to "Ich" always being present.

Whilst "Ich" may be present in some aquaria, it is certainly not present in all aquaria. Through careful quarantining and treatment, it is very much possible to establish and maintain an "Ich" free aquarium.

As you can see it is widely disputed that Ich is always in the tank, and it is absolutely positive that Ich is a Parasite

[James]

Well disputed or not, I think we have established the fact that he has Cryptocaryon irritans in his tank, Not Ich. Unless he decides to keep it fish free for a month and a half, quarantines all new purchases for 4 weeks (like any of us do that ), and gets rid of the Tang. He will see "Ich" again, and I'm sure we'll be reading about it.

[Reefer769]

...

[Samper]

...

my sentiments exactly

[Poseidon]

Reefer gotta learn one way or another huh???

[cesar]

I have a question guys. I had the same problem about a month and a half with Ich. Now the ich is gone, so I think. Now my question is, does that hospital tank where you place your fish does it have to be fully cycled to place any kind of fish in there?

[Ninong]

Now my question is, does that hospital tank where you place your fish does it have to be fully cycled to place any kind of fish in there?

Your hospital tank does not have to be fully cycled before you place fish in it. It should be a bare tank without any live rock, sand or crushed coral substrate. You can use a hang-on cartridge filter or a canister filter for biological filtration. Use a few pieces of PVC, PVC fittings or something similarly inert to provide shelter and hiding places for your fish. You cannot use anything that will interact chemically with your medications, so crushed coral or aragonite sand is out of the question.

You will still need to test your water in your hospital tank for pH, salinity, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, etc., just as you would in your main display tank.