Marine Ich HELPPPPPPPP

[Noob_Sam]

Hello,
So i have a bad ich outbreak. My blue tang, yellow tang, coral beauty, and dwarf lion fish all have ich. My other fish 2 clowns, and eel, and these two blue fish but non of them have ich.

So i had a couple of questions:

If i remove all my fish from my DT to my QT ( I read for 3-8 weeks) then the bacteria in my DT will die right? because they wont have food.... oh yeah also i have a some LPS and soft corals as well as a coral shrimp.

- Do eels get ich. Can i leave him in the DT?

- The fish that dont have ich should i keep them in the DT or move all of them to the QT?

-Lastly what should i put in my QT like rocks, sand....? And how much copper should i use? ( i have copper power. the blue one)

Thanks!

 

[Noob_Sam]

anything

 

[Crabs McJones]

Welcome to R2R Sam!

When going fallow (removing all fish from an aquarium) you will want to do what's called "ghost feeding"
Basically feed the tank a reduced amount of food to give your bacteria colony something to consume to keep their numbers up in the absence of fish.

All fish need to be treated, even the ones not showing any symptoms. In order to remove ich from your tank, you have to be fishless for a minimum of 76 days. Even fish without symptoms can be carriers. As long as the ich has something to feed on, it wont die out.

No rocks or sand in the qt tank. They can absorb copper bringing your levels out of treatment range.

For copper power you want to run 30 days treatment at 2.0 ppm. I find the hannah copper checker to be the most efficient and accurate tester.

Check out this thread here for more info

Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans)

Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) What You Need To Know: * Mild fish parasite which is often managed by using a UV Sterilizer, Ozone, Diatom Filter, Oxydator, herbal remedies, enhanced nutrition, etc. etc. * Can be treated in a quarantine tank using Hyposalinity, Chloroquine, Copper or...

www.reef2reef.com

I'm not positive on whether your eel can be affected by ich or if it can be a carrier.
Hopefully someone who knows will chime in #reefsquad

 

[Noob_Sam]

ok i see. So you said treat the fish in QT for 30 days with copper but leave my DT fishless for 76 days. So after 30 days how do i remove the copper from the QT.
thanks again.

 

[Crabs McJones]

ok i see. So you said treat the fish in QT for 30 days with copper but leave my DT fishless for 76 days. So after 30 days how do i remove the copper from the QT.
thanks again.

Through a combination of water changes, and you can also use a bag of cuprisorb. It's a copper absorbing product.
For filtration on your qt a simple hang on back power filter with some filter floss works perfect. Dont use anything with carbon like those premade inserts that usually come with them. If it does empty the carbon out and run just the filter material. And also be sure to grab an ammonia alert badge. It's the I ly product I know of that can accurately measure ammonia levels in the presents of copper. All other tests give false positive readings.

 

[Noob_Sam]

Through a combination of water changes, and you can also use a bag of cuprisorb. It's a copper absorbing product.
For filtration on your qt a simple hang on back power filter with some filter floss works perfect. Dont use anything with carbon like those premade inserts that usually come with them. If it does empty the carbon out and run just the filter material. And also be sure to grab an ammonia alert badge. It's the I ly product I know of that can accurately measure ammonia levels in the presents of copper. All other tests give false positive readings.

ok thanks a lot. So i just ordered the Hanna checker for copper and will set up the qt tank tomorrow morning. I have two 30 gallon empty tanks. Should i put them all in one tank or put half in one 30 gallon and half in the other 30 gallon.
Fish : Yellow and blue tang, 2 clowns, coral beauty, puffer, lion fish, eel, and two blue fish dont know the name ( one is like 2 inches the other one is like 4 inches)

 

[Crabs McJones]

ok thanks a lot. So i just ordered the Hanna checker for copper and will set up the qt tank tomorrow morning. I have two 30 gallon empty tanks. Should i put them all in one tank or put half in one 30 gallon and half in the other 30 gallon.
Fish : Yellow and blue tang, 2 clowns, coral beauty, puffer, lion fish, eel, and two blue fish dont know the name ( one is like 2 inches the other one is like 4 inches)

That's alot for one 30 gallon. I'd split them up. Do double check on the eel and lionfish though as I'm not 100% positive on them. @Jay Hemdal @4FordFamily @HotRocks
I'd hate for you to treat them and find out they cannot handle copper.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Hello,
So i have a bad ich outbreak. My blue tang, yellow tang, coral beauty, and dwarf lion fish all have ich. My other fish 2 clowns, and eel, and these two blue fish but non of them have ich.

So i had a couple of questions:

If i remove all my fish from my DT to my QT ( I read for 3-8 weeks) then the bacteria in my DT will die right? because they wont have food.... oh yeah also i have a some LPS and soft corals as well as a coral shrimp.

- Do eels get ich. Can i leave him in the DT?

- The fish that dont have ich should i keep them in the DT or move all of them to the QT?

-Lastly what should i put in my QT like rocks, sand....? And how much copper should i use? ( i have copper power. the blue one)

Thanks!

To preserve the biofilter in your display you can dose ammonia, carefully as to not harm the coral. Others can give you better advice on that than I.

Eels can in fact, get ich, however they are extremely resistant to it, same with lionfish. Both species are also sensitive to copper, by which I mean it can outright kill or reduce their lifespan substantially. For those two I would recommend separating from everything else and performing the Tank Transfer Method if you can, or feed them well, and keep clean water and they might be able to fight it off on their own. I have an eel that was in a tank with Velvet, similar to Ich. I gave it it's own tank without treatment and it's doing just fine.

All your fish will have it. It doesn't always present with spots. All fish must be removed from the display and treated accordingly.

Copper Power you'll want to dose it to 2ppm, use a Hanna Checker if you can get one, but any test will do. Do not put any rock or sand in the QT. Just pvc pipes and fittings for the fish to hide in. Run a sponge filter or at the very least an air stone or two for gas exchange.

 

[Hugh Mann]

@lion king
He's the guy to talk to about preds. Helped me out when I had my own outbreak.

 

[lion king]

I will stick to what I know, eels and the dwarf lionfish; neither can be exposed to copper. How you handle the other fish and your dt going fallow will be up to you. These are some of the options you can consider.

The dwarf lion needs to be kept in pristine water conditions and I would highly suggest a live diet; live ghost shrimp, guppies, and appropriate sized mollies. The reason for this is if you give the lion optimum conditions and health, he may shed the ick and recover on his own. Copper is a death sentence.

The eel will likely not be effected or carry the ick, his health will dictate this as well. I have had eels live through protozoan diseases like ick and velvet, never be effected, and not transferring the disease to other tanks. Copper is also a death to eels. If eels or lions do make it through copper treatment, they will likely die shortly afterwards, and I've never seen any live much more than a year afterwards.

You could keep the eel and lion in the dt, try and nurse the lion with pristine water and live foods. Once the lion sheds, start your count for your fallow period. The ick has likely not attacked to the eel, and likely never will, providing of course he is in optimum health. The best thing would be to remove the eel and lion to their own qt tank, unmedicated of course.

 

[phatduckk]

Also, if you got the Hanna checker buy extra reagent. You cannot let the copper drop below 2 at all. If it does your 30 days starts over.

also part 2: for water changes in Qt it’s best to pre-dose the new water with copper power @ 2.0. Pretty much for the reason above.

Good luck!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hello,
So i have a bad ich outbreak. My blue tang, yellow tang, coral beauty, and dwarf lion fish all have ich. My other fish 2 clowns, and eel, and these two blue fish but non of them have ich.

So i had a couple of questions:

If i remove all my fish from my DT to my QT ( I read for 3-8 weeks) then the bacteria in my DT will die right? because they wont have food.... oh yeah also i have a some LPS and soft corals as well as a coral shrimp.

- Do eels get ich. Can i leave him in the DT?

- The fish that dont have ich should i keep them in the DT or move all of them to the QT?

-Lastly what should i put in my QT like rocks, sand....? And how much copper should i use? ( i have copper power. the blue one)

Thanks!

Welcome!

I scanned this thread and wanted to toss in my 2-cents. What are the "two blue fish" that don't have ich? The clownfish will likely develop symptoms soon. The eel is mostly resistant to ich, but can still harbor it. Certainly moving the fish into the two 30 gallon tanks would be the best course of action, but do those tanks have operating biofilters? How will you manage the ammonia issue if not? I'd vote for a copper treatment; the eel will likely stop feeding and the lionfish may die from it (but lionfish are also very prone to dying from ich, so you are kind of stuck there - chelated copper can be safely used on lionfish in many cases). How many spots do the fish each have now? Can you post a picture? The reason I ask is that ich reproduces exponentially, and when it reaches a certain number, it really takes off. If you treat even two days too late, fish loss can occur despite your best efforts.

Jay Hemdal

 

[Noob_Sam]

hello everyone. Thanks for all the advice well i just woke up and my blue tang and coral beauty are both dead. So i am assuming that it was marine velvet and not ich ( i heard that marine velvet kills fish in a day or two. and thats what happened) So my yellow tang is still alive and barely has any spots, but i will still remove everyone and place them in a QT.

 

[Noob_Sam]

man it sucks. It took me sooo long to find a nice big blue tang and now its dead ((((((((

 

[Noob_Sam]

Welcome!

I scanned this thread and wanted to toss in my 2-cents. What are the "two blue fish" that don't have ich? The clownfish will likely develop symptoms soon. The eel is mostly resistant to ich, but can still harbor it. Certainly moving the fish into the two 30 gallon tanks would be the best course of action, but do those tanks have operating biofilters? How will you manage the ammonia issue if not? I'd vote for a copper treatment; the eel will likely stop feeding and the lionfish may die from it (but lionfish are also very prone to dying from ich, so you are kind of stuck there - chelated copper can be safely used on lionfish in many cases). How many spots do the fish each have now? Can you post a picture? The reason I ask is that ich reproduces exponentially, and when it reaches a certain number, it really takes off. If you treat even two days too late, fish loss can occur despite your best efforts.

Jay Hemdal

hey there thanks for the advice. Well My blue tang and coral beauty are dead. I am guessing its because i added them a week ago so they where stressed already because they had ick on every single part of their body like thousands of spots. Now my other fish only have a couple of spots so i will take them out and treat them.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Thousands of spots and a quick death sounds more like Velvet to me.
Fortunately for you the treatments are pretty much the same, Velvet just kills faster, so you don't have as much time.

No matter what, definitely remove them and begin to dose copper on everything except the eel and lion. Follow what Lion King said for them and they'll be fine.
Seriously, my eel went from a tank where velvet killed most of the livestock straight into a new tank with some live rock. Fed it quality foods, and it's alive and well months later.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Sorry for your losses

 

[Noob_Sam]

Thousands of spots and a quick death sounds more like Velvet to me.
Fortunately for you the treatments are pretty much the same, Velvet just kills faster, so you don't have as much time.

No matter what, definitely remove them and begin to dose copper on everything except the eel and lion. Follow what Lion King said for them and they'll be fine.
Seriously, my eel went from a tank where velvet killed most of the livestock straight into a new tank with some live rock. Fed it quality foods, and it's alive and well months later.

Pics of the fish that died.

 

[Noob_Sam]

Sorry for your losses

yeah thanks.....

 

[Noob_Sam]

Thousands of spots and a quick death sounds more like Velvet to me.
Fortunately for you the treatments are pretty much the same, Velvet just kills faster, so you don't have as much time.

No matter what, definitely remove them and begin to dose copper on everything except the eel and lion. Follow what Lion King said for them and they'll be fine.
Seriously, my eel went from a tank where velvet killed most of the livestock straight into a new tank with some live rock. Fed it quality foods, and it's alive and well months later.

so does it look like velvet or ick? i posted two pics