My Coral Beauty is having ICH?

[yankit3@hotmail.com]

Got him in Q-tank since 7th March and thought every thing would be OK after 2 weeks. Unluckily, noticed some tiny white spots on its head yesterday morning. The spots were so tiny that I took them for air bubbles. Took a closer look this afternoon at the fish and the bubbles seemed to have spread to the front part of the body. Watched it for another 20 minutes and gave him food. It's swimming fine and chased after the food 'hungrily'. So, should I be worried and shall I wait for a couple of days to see if it is attracting ICH since I'm scared in pouring medicine in the tank because I had killed a Blue Circle last year that I mistook it for having some skin trouble, with that horrible Michilite Blue (the label says it can cure any kinds of fish illness!).
May I have your expert advices as :
(a) Shall I apply medication now? and
(b) What should I put in? Please tell me that is available in the fish store.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Jimmy WONG
from Hong Kong.

(Please pardon me for my poor English)

[greenbean36191]

Generally it's a good idea to treat all new fish as though they have ich. Simple quarantine alone won't keep them from bringing it into the tank since they can very easily be infected without showing outward signs.

Generally, hyposalinity is the recommended treatment for ich, but copper works as well. You can read more about treatment options here: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

[squirt]

Hey Jimmy. I can feel for you. My 100 gallon just got ICH after I introduced a new fish. I have more than $400 worth of fish in it for 3 years with no problems. I buy one fish and it causes chaos.

Here's what I did and it's working.
1 - I treated the whole tank with Cupramine Copper by Seachem.
2 - You also need a copper tester to make sure that the copper is no more than .50 mg.L. Too low a dose of copper and it doesn't work. Too high and it kills the fish.
3 - Remove all live rock from the main tank
4 - Raise the temp to 80 degrees
5 - Treat for at least another 2 weeks, then do a small water change (10%). then do your normal water change.

I've been told that a little bit of copper in the tank is ok to ward off future outbreak.

Oh, also, if you can physically see the ich, you can pop the ICH right off by putting your fish in a fresh water bath. That is, get fresh water that is the same temperature as your tank, net the fish, keep it in the fresh water for a minute, and the white stuff just pops off... Pretty cool.

I did that with my Emperor Angel and Spiny Puffer. The Emperor changed colors for a little bit but went back to normal after a few hours. It removed most of the white spots right away, and did a lot for the fish.

Hope this helps.

[mungus728]

Here is a great write up on treating with hypo.

HTH

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...osalinity.html


Brian

[yankit3@hotmail.com]

Thanks very much guys. You're really helpful. But unfortunately my CB passed away last night with horrible white spots all over his body. I don't know what and where I did wrong. He was pretty OK for first 14 days, and things suddenly changed so badly. I had lost a Blue O Angel and several other small fish in the past 3 three months in the Q-tank. I just wonder if there might be something wrong with the set up? The set is like this, just follows those advices I search from the forum: a) run the hang-on filter for 2-3 week by the display tank. 2)acclimate the new fish by dripping water from the display 3) run the Q-tank with water from the display. 4) take the fish to the Q-tank after 1 or 1 & half hours acclimation. Are there anything I've missed?

Best Regards,

Jimmy

[Poseidon]

SOunds like you did ok Jimmy. NEVER EVER treat your main display with Copper though! Copper can leach into the glass, rock, gravel, even the silicone and then be released over time. A small amount of copper can act as a preventitive for Ick, however it also KILLS snails, hermits, corals etc...

Sometimes an outbreak of Ick in a small tank can be VERY hard to cure. Hyposalinity, and UV can act as a good treatment, without using any meds, but you can't use Hypo on a tank with inverts, so you see the problem with Ick, it can be fatal, and it is VERY hard to treat for successfully.