Ich

[JustinMN18]

Hey everyone,

I'm about 2 months into this hobby, and I just had a tang die from Ich. I took it out of the DT yesterday and put it into a hospital tank and dosed with Ich X. Woke up this morning and it didn't make it.

So now I'm wondering... My tank has ich now I assume. How do I deal with this? My other fish (2 clowns and a yellow watchman goby) are fine, showing no symptoms. How do I add new fish if my aquarium has ich? Should I wait some period of time? Is this not a concern worth thinking about? Idk. I'm bummed.

 

[OceanDiver]

My opinion, all tanks will have ich at some point especially if you have tangs (particularly blue tangs like Dori).

I have been doing tanks for over years 20 and worked at a LFS for 5yrs and in my experience tangs get icH due to stress. Solve what is stressing them and the ich will go away on its own. Granted I would fed often and add some selcon. My current tank is a reefer 525XL. I have 4 tangs. They all had a minor case of icy in the beginning. I rearranged my reef scrap and added a few more rocks making sure there was bunch of caves and pass throughs. Now at night each tang has there our little area to sleep. No issues since these change and the icy went away after 1-2 weeks.

Now if the ich is really bad then I would treat or quarantine. But I have only had to do this once with a purple tang years ago. She looked like she had on a white blanket. But she recovered (I used kick ich). And is still in my buddies 200gal reef. She is probably 6yrs old now lol

 

[OceanDiver]

I just noticed the MN in your name. Are you from Minnesota?

My whole family if from there and living up there except me (navy diver not much navy diving in Minnesota - LOL)

Go Vikes!!!!

 

[JustinMN18]

My opinion, all tanks will have ich at some point especially if you have tangs (particularly blue tangs like Dori).

I have been doing tanks for over years 20 and worked at a LFS for 5yrs and in my experience tangs get icH due to stress. Solve what is stressing them and the ich will go away on its own. Granted I would fed often and add some selcon. My current tank is a reefer 525XL. I have 4 tangs. They all had a minor case of icy in the beginning. I rearranged my reef scrap and added a few more rocks making sure there was bunch of caves and pass throughs. Now at night each tang has there our little area to sleep. No issues since these change and the icy went away after 1-2 weeks.

Now if the ich is really bad then I would treat or quarantine. But I have only had to do this once with a purple tang years ago. She looked like she had on a white blanket. But she recovered (I used kick ich). And is still in my buddies 200gal reef. She is probably 6yrs old now lol

Thanks for the update. I only had the one kole tang, and it seemed totally fine. Stable parameters, plenty of food, nori, mysis, pellets, clean water, etc. It had a little cave to hide in, and wasn't acting obviously stressed to me.

What about adding a new tang to the aquarium? Should I wait for some period of time? Or how about other fish?

Thanks again, I appreciate the insight.

 

[JustinMN18]

I just noticed the MN in your name. Are you from Minnesota?

My whole family if from there and living up there except me (navy diver not much navy diving in Minnesota - LOL)

Go Vikes!!!!

Wellllll yea I live here but I'm born and raised in Green Bay. Go pack! Haha

 

[KingTideCorals]

Not sure if this can help now but I talk about my QT regiments and also how I got the thing ready for fish.

Good luck with the ich, most likely the system has it and should go fallow for a 90 day period.

 

[JustinMN18]

Not sure if this can help now but I talk about my QT regiments and also how I got the thing ready for fish.

Good luck with the ich, most likely the system has it and should go fallow for a 90 day period.

Can you tell me what fallow means? I'll check out the video.

Thanks!

 

[KingTideCorals]

Can you tell me what fallow means? I'll check out the video.

Thanks!

Fish less in the system, the ich has a cycle in which it goes from being juvenile to free swimming and then passing. During this cycle the ich needs something to attach to and feed/live off of (fish) so by removing all fish from the tank you allow for the chance to get all the ich to die off naturally.

Inverts and corals can be added during these times, but best to just leave it as is and let nature takes it course.

 

[JustinMN18]

Fish less in the system, the ich has a cycle in which it goes from being juvenile to free swimming and then passing. During this cycle the ich needs something to attach to and feed/live off of (fish) so by removing all fish from the tank you allow for the chance to get all the ich to die off naturally.

Inverts and corals can be added during these times, but best to just leave it as is and let nature takes it course.

Could I use aquarium water to cycle my QT tank? My only extra tank is a 10 gallon, and just had the ich-x medication in it, so I'd have to dump that water and clean the filters and stuff (to get rid of copper???) and then put aquarium water in it. Would that be a problem?

 

[OceanDiver]

I don’t see anything wrong with adding another tang. I would definitely look the tang over closely at the LFS and make sure the tang is healthy and eating.

blue tangs seem to attrack ich like white on rice. Yellows and Purples are tougher in the department. Also, if you are thinking more than one tang, I would at them all at the same time. I didn’t notice your tank size but if you want to keep tangs long term, tank should be 5ft as they love to swim.

I put all of mine in at once or wIthin a week (my daughter insisted on a sailfish tang. She named it Charlie and he eats out of her hand). I have 2 blues, 1 yellow, 1 purple, and 1 sailfin. They are all buddies and the sailfin is charge. My plan of to build a 220 in a few years or the sailfin might have to go my buddies 500 Since they get big.

 

[OceanDiver]

Go Vikes but Farve is my favorite QB of all time

 

[Cell]

Ich eradication vs. Ich management

Ich eradication vs. Ich management The purpose of this article is to discuss the pros & cons of ich eradication and ich management, and present the best methods for implementing each. Ich eradication - Simply put, this method means doing everything possible to keep ich out of your tank. That...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[JustinMN18]

I don’t see anything wrong with adding another tang. I would definitely look the tang over closely at the LFS and make sure the tang is healthy and eating.

blue tangs seem to attrack ich like white on rice. Yellows and Purples are tougher in the department. Also, if you are thinking more than one tang, I would at them all at the same time. I didn’t notice your tank size but if you want to keep tangs long term, tank should be 5ft as they love to swim.

I put all of mine in at once or wIthin a week (my daughter insisted on a sailfish tang. She named it Charlie and he eats out of her hand). I have 2 blues, 1 yellow, 1 purple, and 1 sailfin. They are all buddies and the sailfin is charge. My plan of to build a 220 in a few years or the sailfin might have to go my buddies 500 Since they get big.

I have a 55 gallon, so I can't do much with tangs. I just liked the little kole tang, it had good swimming room and could hide very well haha. I guess I just wonder if it's "too soon" in the ich department to add anything. I don't want to add something and know it is going to get sick.

 

[KingTideCorals]

Could I use aquarium water to cycle my QT tank? My only extra tank is a 10 gallon, and just had the ich-x medication in it, so I'd have to dump that water and clean the filters and stuff (to get rid of copper???) and then put aquarium water in it. Would that be a problem?

Better off mixing fresh salt water for your QT to not cross contaminate any ich into the hospital tank.

 

[OceanDiver]

Patience always works to your advantage with reef tanks

 

[JustinMN18]

Better off mixing fresh salt water for your QT to not cross contaminate any ich into the hospital tank.

Wouldn't I need to then cycle the whole thing again, vs putting DT water into the QT tank? I'd have to convert the hospital tank into a QT, with fresh DT water. I only have the 1 10 gallon tank.

 

[OceanDiver]

This right here. Great read. I was trying to find this link too.

I fall into the ich management. IMO once a tank has ich the tank will always have ich. Healthy fish can fight it off. I highly recommend selcon

 

[KingTideCorals]

Wouldn't I need to then cycle the whole thing again, vs putting DT water into the QT tank? I'd have to convert the hospital tank into a QT, with fresh DT water. I only have the 1 10 gallon tank.

That’s the issue is if you use the water your DT it may have ich free floating in it which is fine if you’re going to be using a copper treatment on the fish in the QT don’t use that directly in your system because then most your equipment will be tainted with the copper. Hard to clean and get back ready to a reef ready state.

 

[ScottR]

I have ich in my system and my tangs got it when freshly introduced, probably due to stress. If I got them eating along with plenty of algae to graze on in the tank, ich went away. I personally don’t like keeping tangs in a new tank with not much algae (diatoms aren’t good eats). But to add to this, there are other parasites besides ich that look similar. It’s always easy to blame ich where it could be something like velvet.

So at this point, at a crossroads: ich eradication vs ich management. The other fish may show no symptoms of ich but they do help to keep the parasite alive just by their presence in the tank so eradication definitely means pulling 100% of fish for a typical fallow-period of 76 days.

 

[KingTideCorals]

I have ich in my system and my tangs got it when freshly introduced, probably due to stress. If I got them eating along with plenty of algae to graze on in the tank, ich went away. I personally don’t like keeping tangs in a new tank with not much algae (diatoms aren’t good eats). But to add to this, there are other parasites besides ich that look similar. It’s always easy to blame ich where it could be something like velvet.

So at this point, at a crossroads: ich eradication vs ich management. The other fish may show no symptoms of ich but they do help to keep the parasite alive just by their presence in the tank so eradication definitely means pulling 100% of fish for a typical fallow-period of 76 days.

No doubt the long time battle!
Eradication or management???