Advice? Ich in the reef tank

Are you willing to pull all the fish out for an extended period of time? That's the only way I've seen consistently work, but you have to leave the tank fish less for 3 months.

If you go that route, I recommend tank transfer to rid the fish of ich while you leave the tank fallow.

 

Ick shield is what I feed my fish it helps a lot

 

Do u still have the 40 gal tank, if so I personally pull the fish, and start pushing the ich shield like Army suggested.

 

I personally feed nls thera a pellets on a autofeeder twice a day. At every night I soak all food in garlic, and alternating nights I include zoe, selcon, and marine c with the garlic. I know others will disagree with me on this... but I have yet to have an "ich free " tank in hobby of my own. I have had zero luck with qt personally. .. and I have found that if I can aquire a healthy specimen in the first place... keep it fat and healthy with the proper food and supliments that my chances are way better this way. I know others won't agree, that's just my experience.

 

Last weekend I was out of town and forgot to turn the heat on while I was gone. Got home Sunday night and the tank was around 60 degrees :/ looks like a few of my fish have ich now from the cold water over the weekend but I've never seen it in my tank before. Is it possible the ich was dormant all along and just now appeared after the fish were cold? Since this has happened I've turned the heat on in my house and have the tank back up to 78 degrees. All the fish and corals look happy and eat well, but a few still look like they have ich.

Should I just keep feeding and let them do their own thing to fight off the ich? I've read that you can speed up the ich life cycle by increasing the tank temp to 82-84 degrees and you can kill them faster that way with treatment. Has anybody tried this? I also ordered some Dr. G's ich treatement food, hopefully it gets here soon to help these guys out.

 

@blackx-runner , Have you ever heard of this method of increasing the water temperature to help kill the ich? I read it on this website Kill Fish Ick/Ich in 4 Days Flat | Fish Tank TutorFish Tank Tutor but not sure how well it's worked for other people.

 

Yes I have heard of that crank it up and it kills the reproduction of the species. DON'T KNOW THE TEMP WILL TRY TO LOOK UP.

 

Perfect book for this, should be on sale this weekend.

 

This is my understanding also. Ich and other viruses are always there but healthy fish have the immune system to fend it off. Same principal as algae - it's always there but keeping the nutrients in line keeps the algae in line.

 

I battled this a few times and have read alot. Alot of "myths" out there. If you dont know the life cycle, ich parasite is on the fish like a tick. When it matures it drops off and reproduces. They have a short period they must attach to a fish or they die. Hypo causes a pressure difference where they cant reproduce once they drop off. Tank dormant lets any reproduce but no fish to feed off of. I have used the temp route, I had a new angel, after 2 weeks in qt it started acting funny, twitchy, pale color, but no white spots. I called a lfs that is on this forum and they said the tank was too small and if no spots put it in the DT. So I did, the next day it had white spots and died a few hours later. A few days later another fish showed white spots. After several attempts to catch it, it wasnt coming out. So I raised the temp and asked the lfs about it. They said that doesnt work and after a couple weeks I would have a outbreak that would kill everything. That was Feb and didnt lose any.

 

The raising temp is a myth of sorts.
It just speeds up the cycle which allows another one to start faster.
Don't increase temp.
The garlic mentioned above-yes.
Shunk cleaner shrimp #1 that's their job .
Good luck to you, hope it works out for you... Problems are so annoying

 

Copper, tank transfer, or hypo.

Copper is guaranteed. Research and do it right tho. It's like taking Tylenol, a little won't get it and too much kills them.

Tank. Transfer is safe for all Marine inhabitants. Keep temp, salinity and ph consistent on the transfer. Don't contaminate! Meaning don't dick around in effected tank then reach into non effected tank.

Never done hyposalinity. Scares me a little bit because you raise the salinity very slowly.

Leave your display tank fish free for 8 weeks (yes it sucks)

Some fish need quarantine for months just to get used to aquarium life(powder browns)

 

When letting the tank run fallow. Is it ok to leave the corals and inverts in the tank? Or do they need to be removed also?

 

Yes it ok to leave corals and inverts.