Think I got hit with Ich

[CaptainK]

Yes I think I got the bug.
About a week ago I saw a few white spots on the body of my Coral Beauty. I upped the amount of foods I offer soaked in Selecon to it and the spots disappeared. it also had a small abbrassion on its head that also went away.
So this morning there was a new white spot on its belly and an abrassion on its head. So I will begin to feed foods soaked in Selecon and hopefully this will go away again.
But since this is present on the fish I believe that it is present in the tank in one of its stages. So in order to get rid of it I am looking at either "STOP Parasites" or "KICK-ICH" Both are reef safe.
Has anyone had any success, or disasters, with either of these?
Or should I just skip the treatments and just feed foods soaked with Selecon, or Zoe?

Thanks,
CaptK

[Bughead]

I just finished a cycle of Kick-ich in my 100 gal FOWLR. The stuff works great and doesn't effect any inverts. It's a water treatment that prevents the ich parasite from completing its life cycle once it has dropped off the fish and is free swimming. It does not kill the ich when it's still on the fish.

But here's the fine judgement call: do you leave the coral beauty in the tank, or remove him to a hospital tank to medicate seperately? My suggestion is leave the fish alone if possible. As long as he's eating and not acting too sick, it's best to let the Kick-ich take care of the ich as tomites. The fish may still get white spots for a week or two after treatment is started. You may have to do a second cycle of the Kick-ich treatment if the infestation is heavy. (I did, but now the tank is free of ich and healthy again).

If your CB stops eating, shows signs of being sick or gets a secondary bacterial infection, you may want to do a fresh water dip and put him in a hospital tank for medication. Melafix works well for infection, and seems to keep the ich away once the fish has been dipped. After 7 days if the fish is healed it can be returned to the main tank.

[Penguin]

I've heard great things about Kick Ich, and just started a treatment cycle on my tank. Premium Aquatics had the best price on it that I could find FWIW. You might also try soaking food in garlic.

[Bughead]

I got my Kick-ich from PremiumAquatics, best price I've seen anywhere. Be aware that not everyone I've talked to has had such good success with it. It could be any number of factors including incorrect dosage or a particular verilant strain of ich. Purchase enough to do a second cycle if you need to.

I had used garlic in the past, in the form of water soluable kyolic with very questionable results. This last time I used fresh garlic squished through the garlic press and finely minced. For 4 days the tank and the whole house smelled like an Italian restaurant. Then I re-read an article about a study on the effectiveness of this treatment and the active chemical in particular. www.geocities.com/horge1218/garlic.html

Be sure to feed Selcon or similar fatty acid supplement.

[karun]

I have been very successful with garlic. I use fresh garlic and squeeze it through a garlic press. Add a little water in it and store it in the refrigerator. I soak dry flake food in a few drops of this water every day and feed it to the fish. The ich clears up in a few days.

Karun

[ravenmore]

I'm personally not too crazy about Kick Ich. I'm also skeptical of the garlic idea(ich can completely fall off on it's own in a matter of hours). I prefer to handle ich in a more natural fashion. Cleaner shrimp and neon gobies will clean the parasite from fish. Filter feeders such as sponges, clams, and fanworms can help remove the free floating stage of the parasite from the water column.

Ich is pretty much always going to be present in a reef tank, but as long as you keep a healthy tank, the fish's immune system combined with the above measures should keep it from getting out of hand.

-Mike

[Bughead]

I agree with you, Ravenmore, a conservative and natural treatment is best. I have a sort of catch 22 in my FOWLR. Even since having no bioballs in for 3 months, I'm still having a problem with nitrates; they hover around 35ppm. Every time I put in a cleaner shrimp, it dies within 48 hours. (Vicious cycle: need to get the nitrates down> to get the clean-up inverts to live> to keep the tank clean> to keep the nitrates down.)

I could not find a neon goby at any lfs locally and wasn't about to pay $50 for one mail order fish.

My tangs succumb to ich much easier than the other fish. My powder blue could either die miserably from ich, or from the stress of treatment. We chose the latter. He might have made it if I'd removed him from the tank and started treatment sooner, but I really didn't want to take him out--PBs stress so easily.

Treating with Kick-ich works best in a situation like mine, with a FOWLR. I'd accidently introduced ich from Hell (didn't pre-quarantine new flame angel) and needed more aggressive treatment. It's cleared up now and I hope that's the end of it.

I learned a very hard lesson here. Thankfully, the tank is now ich free. Very sadly, it's also powder blue tang free.

[ravenmore]

Sorry to hear about your loss, Bughead. PB's are beautiful fish. I also like Powder Browns....

Definitely try and find some neon goby's (make sure they're not juvinile engineer goby's - they can look similar and I've seen some lousy LFS' try to sell engineers as neons). Neon's are excellent tank mates, very hardy. They can even be bred in captivity. You might see if your lfs can order some for you. I've even had petco special order fish for me.

I can understand your use of kick ich in this situation - I'm just not a big fan of putting chemicals in a tank.......

Good luck!
-Mike

[CaptainK]

Hi Guys,
Just a thought here,
But if ich has a free floating stage does that mean that a protien skimmer can remove ich, or at least help remove ich???
And how effective are Feather Dusters at removing ich?
Do all types of feather dusters help remove it?

Thanks,
CaptK

[ravenmore]

I was educated about the filter feeder aspect in discussions with Dr. Shimek in his forum, - he could give you more specifics than I could.


My guess is that filter feeders won't eliminate ich but it will help control the density of the parasite population. I would imagine most fanworms would help. I remeber Dr. Shimek mentioning a large tricanda (sp???) clam might be the best single filter feeder over all - I think based on the volume of water they move. He said something to the affect that they might not specifically eat the parasite, but the ich would still likely get bound up by the clam's mucus coating.....

FWIW, I basically just have a ton of the little fanworms and sponges that hitchhike on live rock. I boost their population by feeding golden pearls and dt's phyto.

I don't know how much, if any, of the parasite population is removed by a skimmer.

hth

- Mike