I got ich!!

A year or two ago I had an ich breakout and I beat it without losing any fish by soaking all of their food in a fresh crushed clove of garlic, using a uv sterilizer, and increasing my water changes. Never had a problem with ich since. It was with a 29g though. Much smaller than what you're dealing with.

 

You don't have to teat it down. Just put fish in a hospital and treat them. I know I have ich in my tank and have been through this. Find out what stressed them out. I think high nitrates will cause it.

 

In my case the cause was adding a new fish. That seems to be the most common reason. If I remember right, ich can survive in a tank even longer than 6 weeks. The important thing is keeping your fish happy and healthy so they can fight it off. Ich isn't generally able to attack fish that aren't stressed.


In my case, I was concerned that catching them and moving them to my QT tank would cause them all more stress and only amplify the ich problem.

 

Bummer man. I had ich last year in my 65 wide. Luckly I managed to transfer everything to a treatment tank and had no losses with cupramine and a 6 week fallow in the DT. It can survive even longer in the DT, but it's really a statistics game if you are ok with 96% chance of being ok or a 98%. IMO addition of new fish is the main cause, but it's possible you had ich in the tank before but the new fish stressed everyone out so they were unable to fight the ich off.

 

If you are willing to go through all the work of QT'ing all your fish that would be my vote. I did the same thing a little over a year ago myself and have QT'd and dipped everything that has gone into the tank since. I would do 72 days fallow to give you better results of ridding the DT. My belief is if you endure a little pain now it will avoid a lot of pain later. Adding the fish is most likely the stresser but you had to have had an infestation prior to adding this fish. The life cycle of crypto would not have allowed this level of infestation that fast.

I would through a sponge or filter pad in your sump for a day or two if you don't already have a used one in you existing set up. Then take that pad and place it in your filter in the QT. That will give your QT system a jump start of good bacteria. I would also use some of you DT water to seed the tank as well to ease the transition. Don't worry about using infested water because whatever treatement you use will take care of this anyway. You can either treat with copper or do the Hyposalinity route. I did the cupramine route since I was not that comfortable doing the hypo right out of the gate. You will need to keep an eye on your Ammonia levels in the QT if you are doing copper so water changes and frequent testing will also be in order.

I hope this helps and good luck.

 

I would qt if possible and treat with cupramine. Cupramine worked wonders for me when i had ich. Once treatment is complete you can fully extract cupramine by using cuprasorb. I qt all my fish now and treat them with cupramine before they end up in my main tank. I also qt corals and inverts for 8 weeks before bringing them up to my main tank. Ich cant survive for more then 6-7 weeks without a fish host is why i qt corals and inverts for 8 weeks. Just dont want to take any chances anymore now that my main tank is ich free.

I also feed garlic with my frozen foods to stimulate appetite, which will boost the fish's immune system. Ocean nutrition formula two and new life spectrum have garlic listed in their ingredients also for their pellet foods.

If you hospitalize your fish in another qt tank make sure your main tank remains free of fish for 6 weeks bare minimum right down to the day and 8 -10 weeks to ensure ich is gone.

Hyposalinity is another option for treating the fish in a hospital tank. Just bring your salinity down slowly over the course of a few days to, i think, 1.009 (make sure that is right first before doing this treatment) and make sure that salinity levels remains perfectly constant with absolutely no deviations. I chose not to do hyposalinity as opposed to copper due to the importance of maintaining the salinity perfectly stable throughout treatment.

If you go the copper route just buy a salifert copper test kit and test twice a day to make sure your copper levels are in a therapuetic range.

Good luck to you on whatever method you choose.

 

Ruby Red Sea ick kick ,,, coral safe , also ich attack use both never broke down my tanks I don't have ich ,,,, did you change anything else to cause a spike

 

Sorry to hear about the ich Nik /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/sad.gif If you use copper, make sure you test the level as it's important to maintain it :=) I would definitely soak the fish food in Garlic Extreme...don't worry about using too much /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif I always use garlic in my fish food as it has such beneficial properties. I hope all goes well for all your fish!

 

I would recommend Cupramine, but the only test I know of the will work for it is Salifert. It has something to do with it be a Chelated copper.

 

If one were to take the fish and put them in a QT tank and then lower the salinity of the main tank to the hyposalinity levels would this help get rid of the ich faster/better? Or would this have an adverse affect on the bacteria of the tank?