How to get rid of ich with coral

[Lps_lover12]

Hey all, so I have ich in my 15 gallon tank and am not sure how to get rid of it. I had a royal gramma and a storm clownfish however the royal gramma died this morning due to the ich. I’ve read online that the copper based treatments aren’t safe for coral, which I have a good amount of coral. I’m wondering what do I do in order to get rid of the ich in my tank while keeping my clownfish and all my coral alive. I’ve been doing about 50% water changes every second day as well as soaking the food in garlic before I feed them. I was going to get another clownfish but it’s probably better to wait until the ich is gone right? This is my first post here and I’m still very new to saltwater, any help is appreciated.

 

[blaxsun]

The only way to completely eliminate ich is to remove the clownfish to a separate tank and treat, and then run your main tank fallow for the recommend period for ich.

 

[Lps_lover12]

The only way to completely eliminate ich is to remove the clownfish to a separate tank and treat, and then run your main tank fallow for the recommend period for ich.

How long is the recommended period? I’ve seen some people say a few weeks and others say 72 days

 

[blaxsun]

How long is the recommended period? I’ve seen some people say a few weeks and others say 72 days

12 weeks (84 days).

 

[reefz]

This is just my experience with ich, but I went through 3 different qt procedures each running for 80 days fallow. After each attempt, I added the fish back to my tank and they still got ich. Did everything correctly and my copper level was perfect. Im sure qt has worked for most people and it does work, but it didn't for me. I gave up qt, and fed the fish tons and tons of vitamin inhanced foods. Garlic nori and frozen foods soaked in vitachem killed off the ich. My tank has been running almost 2 years without any ich. Due to the parasite not being able to attach to a host and dying off. I do believe qt works, but overfeeding and nutrition worked for me.

 

[Lps_lover12]

This is just my experience with ich, but I went through 3 different qt procedures each running for 80 days fallow. After each attempt, I added the fish back to my tank and they still got ich. Did everything correctly and my copper level was perfect. Im sure qt has worked for most people and it does work, but it didn't for me. I gave up qt, and fed the fish tons and tons of vitamin inhanced foods. Garlic nori and frozen foods soaked in vitachem killed off the ich. My tank has been running almost 2 years without any ich. Due to the parasite not being able to attach to a host and dying off. I do believe qt works, but overfeeding and nutrition worked for me.

I’ve been doing the garlic as well, my clownfish doesn’t seem like it’s going to make it. It’s been sitting at the bottom of the tank breathing heavily all day. Thank you for all the info

 

[mfinn]

The fish need to be removed and treated with copper in a separate tank.
The display tank needs to be fishless until the ick dies.
I think the time period has been changed, but last time I did it, my display tank was fishless for 76 days.
The fish were treated with copper for 30 days, and all lived.
They stayed in the quarantine tank until the 76 days were up.
There were 18 fish. Clowns, wrasses, anthias, a copperband and a tang.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

How long is the recommended period? I’ve seen some people say a few weeks and others say 72 days

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Correct - don’t dose copper in tanks with any invertebrates.
There is a sticky at the very top of this section that discusses this. The range is 45 to 76 days temperature dependent.
Does your clown have spots? Without treatment (garlic isn’t an effective treatment) you may lose it also.
The trouble is that ich is common enough on new fish that even after the fallow period there is a strong chance you’ll run into this again. Two options would be to quarantine new fish or buying pre quarantined fish. A third option is to buy fish from a store that hold their fish in copper and then, only buy fish that they’ve had in their tank for two weeks or more.
Jay