Has anyone successfully had ich outbreak and managed it?

[Seancj]

I recently had an ich breakout, thanks to a blue hippo. I did the tank transfer method with him, but I must have goofed because a few days after he was added to the display, the ich showed up. No signs prior to his addition.
This was in a reef, so I could not treat the tank.
I contemplated the H2O2 treatment but decided against it due to my collection of anemones that I didn't want to stress. Several other fish, Scopas tang, a juvenile Regal angel, a few fairy wrasses began flashing a few days later. I was really stressed.
I increased feeding both in quantity and frequency. I soaked all food, including the constant supply of Nori, in garlic extract, selcon, and amino acids. I was already running a large UV at the time.
The ich disappeared completely about 3 weeks later. No longer any flashing from any fish. I did not lose any fish.
All fish are now completely clear and fat. I consider myself rather lucky.

 

[merkmerk73]

I recently had an ich breakout, thanks to a blue hippo. I did the tank transfer method with him, but I must have goofed because a few days after he was added to the display, the ich showed up. No signs prior to his addition.
This was in a reef, so I could not treat the tank.
I contemplated the H2O2 treatment but decided against it due to my collection of anemones that I didn't want to stress. Several other fish, Scopas tang, a juvenile Regal angel, a few fairy wrasses began flashing a few days later. I was really stressed.
I increased feeding both in quantity and frequency. I soaked all food, including the constant supply of Nori, in garlic extract, selcon, and amino acids. I was already running a large UV at the time.
The ich disappeared completely about 3 weeks later. No longer any flashing from any fish. I did not lose any fish.
All fish are now completely clear and fat. I consider myself rather lucky.

Heavy feeding and UV with healthy fish seems to be the key with ich

Also I suspect a healthy fish population can help a lot too

More hosts to target diffuses the infestation

That can go wrong if they start succumbing and backfire of course

 

[Cool tangs]

So when I first started out I lost some tangs to white spot. But I didn't manage it. I went down the QT path with some pretty good success. TTM and Copper. But I kept getting white spot back with new additions of corals and inverts. I also tried going down the path of coral QT and inverts. Had some success. But I got lazy one day and introduced some clean up crew and boom white spot outbreak again. For me this was my breaking point. My last resort of finding another method. QT is a very tedious, time consuming process that you just can't mess up once or ever, as all that hard work just goes down the drain. Now before people rip my head off, I'm not against it. It takes a very special some one to commit and be strict. Most average people don't have the time, patients nor equipment, space for QT.

Moving onto white spot management. I'd love to collaborate with others who have gone down this path. I don't think we talk about it enough as an alternative solution to QT.

I'd also like to point out by saying when I also had my first outbreaks I was running a cheap little UV but my knowledge was limited at the time. I did not understand the importance of correctly sizing your UV at the time. Anyway to get back on track. At my breaking point I thought stuff it if I'm all in I'm going all out on the biggest baddest UV I can get my hands on at the time. I was pretty stressed. The fish were going through a outbreak (I actually got into a car accident rear ended the day of heading out to collect the sterilizer. To add more stress into the mix. Treatment got delayed) it was 100% breaking point at this point and exiting the hobby looked like the best place for me. Anyway I finally got the UV delivered.

It was a lifegard aquatics UV 90w oversized for my 4ft 500litre at the time. I noticed after a week white spot clearing up on my tangs. I was running the UV to be rated for 180k microwatts. I kept it running for the next year even as I upgraded to a 800litre 6ft tank. I made an upgrade because I was convinced that UV was my saviour. I did also dose some hydrogen peroxide at small dosages. 1 year marker after successfully clearing out white spot, my UV bulb life was over. I actually took the UV off for about a year and a half with no issues whatsoever. I've recently just added some snails and boom white spot outbreak(curse of the snails I swear) I've hooked the UV back up with a fresh bulb and am also dosing a very small amount of hydrogen peroxide again every hour. I've noticed again after a week my blue tank and bristletooth have cleared up. One powder black tang is not impacted. My powder brown was the worst impacted, but is showing signs of improvement and is eating like a champ. You can tell he is agitated. Especially when a dose of peroxide hits the tank, he will swim and flash more. But as we know when we have cuts, etc disinfectants can irritate us. I'm keeping a close eye on things but I am very confident that my fish will get through this even my powder brown. So far no losses ever since I correctly sized my UV with the correct flow rates. Didn't lose any the first time when adding it. Haven't lost any now. Mind you I got onto it a lot quicker this time and have more knowledge then I did before. I'm a big believer in UV personally.

You can also find some great content on humblefish. They have a thread that talks about hydrogen peroxide dosing with UV dosing. I don't really follow there guide though and dose less and more frequently instead. UV carries most of the weight.

Breakdown
Current tank 6ft 800litres display give or take.
Lifegard aquatics 90w UV running for 180k microwatts.
2X scopas
Purple tang
Blue hippo tang
Powder brown
Powder black
Bristletooth
Mimic tang

Powder brown being the worst, covered almost like a white powder with some odd random larger spots. Has started to clear up with mostly the larger white spots left. Some slight black scarring from were the powder brown was mostly impacted. This is after a week of UV but still has a bit to go to fully clear up. I also feed heavier and normally just a high quality pellets and just standard Nori from a grocery.

Hope this info helps some one. As I say would love to Collab with others and there experience to formulate data for other reefers new to the hobby. In particular I'd focus on the importance of getting a high quality UV and making sure the correct flow rates are configured to manage white spot effectively. I would say with high confidence in my experience oversized UV will help on a bad outbreak. But as I say I can't stress enough, you can not cheap out on the UV and always always oversize it and set the flow rates correctly.

Anyway I'm half asleep now at this point and CBF checking over this so posting raw.


Happy reefing

 

[merkmerk73]

Polyp Lab Medic may be snake oil, or it may reduce the population - we just don't know

But I use it as a prophylactic along with UV and it controls Ich very well

As I mentioned above, I theorize that having a well stocked tank might offset infestations by diffusing the targets - assuming none of them ever become overwhelmed

But a lot of this is just conjecture because it's really hard to test for