Treating ICH in a display (reef tank)?

[carbasaurus]

I would catch the ones you can and treat in a separate tank. For the remainder you could try DR G’s chloroquine impregnated reef caviar. The trick is getting the fish to eat it but if they do you may be able to knock it out. I run my quarantine tank like a mini reef with live rock, mushrooms and some softies as I think the fish acclimate better in a more natural environment. I have been able to successfully treat ich using the above food without affecting the inverts in the tank. Again the trick is getting the fish to eat it. Some will, some won’t. Dosing chloroquine directly into the tank is much much riskier. Tried that once when I couldn’t get my hands on the food with very different and very bad results (brittle star, bristleworm, and other invert die off as well as the sick fish)

Ich is caused by Protozoa which on a cellular level are eukaryotic just like the fish (and people). Most antibiotics work against bacteria which are prokaryotes (fundamentally different metabolically). The antibiotics target these differences, sparing the fishes (and our) cellular metabolism making them safer for the fish. Because ich causing organisms have the same basic cellular metabolic pathways as the fish, treating is harder and riskier and not all medications will be effective. Most antibiotics that target bacteria won’t be effective.
Chloroquine was originally developed to treat malaria, also a protozoan infection, so it seems reasonable that this would be effective against ich

 

[schooncw]

Let me be a tad more definitive. Cleaner shrimp and wrasses DO NOT reduce the parasite in any way, they burrow beneath the skin of the fish and are inaccessible to the cleaners. Google it.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Let me be a tad more definitive. Cleaner shrimp and wrasses DO NOT reduce the parasite in any way, they burrow beneath the skin of the fish and are inaccessible to the cleaners. Google it.

Actually, I take a moderate stance on this. Cleaner shrimp and wrasse CAN remove Cryptocaryon trophonts, but only if the fish posture for them (many fish won’t). They also cannot remove ich from the gills. They also cannot remove enough of them to reduce the propagule pressure from an active infection. Then, cleaner wrasse get ich themselves. In the end, they eat parasites but it doesn’t help!
My worry is when people suggest this, other people go out and buy a cleaner shrimp and think they are protecting their tank, and they are not.

Jay

 

[gideon2086]

Actually, I take a moderate stance on this. Cleaner shrimp and wrasse CAN remove Cryptocaryon trophonts, but only if the fish posture for them (many fish won’t). They also cannot remove ich from the gills. They also cannot remove enough of them to reduce the propagule pressure from an active infection. Then, cleaner wrasse get ich themselves. In the end, they eat parasites but it doesn’t help!
My worry is when people suggest this, other people go out and buy a cleaner shrimp and think they are protecting their tank, and they are not.

Jay

Heh... I am now one of those people. I added three cleaner shrimp to the tank. One is already dead. One is ignoring the fish that literally push against it begging to be cleaned and the other is.. MIA.

With that said, I am seeing improvement.. dramatic actually. I have continued to feed food laced with metroplex and focus - only because I already had it made. I did continue with the recommended dosing of the Paraguard. I let the tank temperature rise to about 80 degrees and I turned the UV back on. I don't know what part of the regiment helped.. if any of it. My main guess would be the UV. I have one fish that is MIA, a royal gramma. I'm bummed about that, but the others seem to be improving and if I pull out of this with just the loss of the gramma I will feel fortuante.

 

[ScottB]

Actually, I take a moderate stance on this. Cleaner shrimp and wrasse CAN remove Cryptocaryon trophonts, but only if the fish posture for them (many fish won’t). They also cannot remove ich from the gills. They also cannot remove enough of them to reduce the propagule pressure from an active infection. Then, cleaner wrasse get ich themselves. In the end, they eat parasites but it doesn’t help!
My worry is when people suggest this, other people go out and buy a cleaner shrimp and think they are protecting their tank, and they are not.

Jay

Thanks Jay. All of us that have been around here for a while really appreciate your science/efficacy driven approach to keeping our fish pets alive. You have been at this so long that I know you've answered this before and sorry to make you repeat an answer to this difficult question.

If I (and the OP) have a very large, and very established SPS reef that breaks with ich, is the only remedy to bust the reef and remove the fish for fallow?

If a reefer is not able or willing to eradicate:
a) who are we most likely to lose broadly?
b) what are next best steps?

 

[Huskymaniac]

Getting your UV back on and trying a peroxide treatment like polylab medic may be enough to get everything back where to whether you were prior to the flucanozole.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks Jay. All of us that have been around here for a while really appreciate your science/efficacy driven approach to keeping our fish pets alive. You have been at this so long that I know you've answered this before and sorry to make you repeat an answer to this difficult question.

If I (and the OP) have a very large, and very established SPS reef that breaks with ich, is the only remedy to bust the reef and remove the fish for fallow?

If a reefer is not able or willing to eradicate:
a) who are we most likely to lose broadly?
b) what are next best steps?

Lots of people go with ich management. I try to avoid that, my primary defense is a crazy-tough quarantine protocol. I also don’t put high value fish in high value reefs.
Im not sure what fish are most likely to die from ich- we all have a good idea about what fish show it first, but I haven’t lost many fish to ich (not bragging really) to have a good idea as to what fish will die from it first.
Jay

 

[ScottB]

I also don’t put high value fish in high value reefs.

I am still a stick guy, so my fish friends are utility fish with the exception of my old powder blue. But then I got greedy for some pretty fish -- anthias -- and they brought in the trouble I guess. Even though the anthias were eating they went quickly downhill. Then the Kleins, algae Blenny, and my old mandarin. I can tell the tank boss PBT is still suffering as he isn't being bossy. The rest of the fish seem to have recovered.

 

[sohal tang]

4 years into the hobby and I'm unfortunately faced with my first ever Ich outbreak. I have a large tank (220g) with large fish. SPS dominant. I noticed a few days ago that the two Clarkii clowns were starting to become elusive and stick to the rear of the rocks, which was abnormal. Yesterday I noticed clear signs of Ich on the tangs. I now see it on virtually off the fish. Naso, yellow tang, powder brown, tomini, fox face, clarkii clowns, gramma, etc etc etc.. there are a lot of fish in this tank. I run a strong UV, but had it off for a few days to dose Fluconzole to combat an algae outbreak - I'm thinking this exasperated it.

I have a hospital tank that I can set up, but there is no way I'm getting all of these fish into it.. there's no way I'll be able to catch all of these fish.

I've dosed metroplex and focus in their food and I dosed Parashield into the tank at the advice of... Google. I have about $5000 of coral in the tank so I need to be careful. RIght now, everything looks fine except for a stylo.. which is an acceptable loss if the fish survive.

Am I doomed? Can the fish be saved while in the DT? I leave for a week of work travel on Monday and my wife will be left to tend to the fish... she can handle basic dosing, but not much more.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.. this could end up as one of my greatest losses yet..

Hate to tell you but if you do not remove the fish and put em in a Coppered QT tank you are in big trouble!
IF I did not want to remove them I would start treating all flakefood with Garlic....soak food in garlic!!! then the next feed soak all food in SELECON.... keep alternatiing.... Then I would get my hands on a product by Polylab called MEDIC... I believe it saved about 340-40% of my tangs last time I used it...but I followed the directions right to a tee and then repeated etc.... There is NO guarantee and you still could lose every single fish....but it is the best treatment in reef that is out there from what I have seen....and I have tried most of them in the past..... The BEST treatment is to immediately remove ALL fish and get them ALL into Quarantine in copper medication.....its a ***** but its the ticket.... Medic did not effect my corals AT ALL... but I seen significant improvement on SOME of the fish..NOT all of them...majority still died.
IFFFF I would removed all fish and put them i copper I could have saved all of them...... Its alot of work but get some help and remove EVERYTHING from the reef and get the fish into Quarantine fast or be prepared to lose at least 70% of them one by one and some days two by two....etc...sorry to break the true news to you...it is a ***** of a sitution no doubt about it

 

[Ardeus]

Looking into the future, I would consider ick management for 2 years and make sure you don't introduce any new strain during that period (or ever again).

Does anyone here remember a study where they showed that the parasites weaken until they lose their ability to replicate after a number of generations?

 

[Squidward]

I prefer to eradicate ich. I never want to deal with it ever again in this hobby. I can't enjoy my ich free tank enough.

 

[Doctorgori]

just throwing my opinion for sample but if it were me I’d do a full reset and remove the fish. Regardless…

I’m not the smartest reefer but a long hauler who believes fighting ich naturally might work in a sponge & feather duster infested ole skool Tonga rock tank but in one of our modern day less diverse ala-carte “pest free” dry rock based tanks, it is a fools journey.

I got a large tank, had VERY old fish pre outbreak and if I had to do it all over I wish I had just reset my tank vs taking the chance and fighting it for months and loosing anyway….
you’ll get a opposite opinion but remember these people were successful, what is the real sample and how many looser will post?
Reset, QT or nuke from space, it’s the only way to be sure

 

[Doctorgori]

Okay so I’ll begin with I’ve only been feeding for a year and a half now so take that for what you will, but I’m my personal experience (3 weeks ago) I had a large dino outbreak all over my 165g, i read online that a natural way to kill dinos is to turn the temp of the tank over 82 degreesF, over the next week the Dinos went away rapidly like over the course of 6 days. Now in the meantime while the temp was rising almost alllll of my fish broke out with ich I mean almost every single fish. So after more reading I came across a few articles from what I know to be cridble companies and was told that most variation of ick can’t survive over 86 degreesF and one I tunes it up to 87.6-87 the ich went away in a few day. Could have been dumb luck maybe not but that’s just my input for anyone who’s like me and refuses to dose random hit or miss products kn my tank. #happyreefing

86F? I believe you but I lived in the southwest USA for 20yrs, trust me, normally you don’t wanna see a thermometer over 84F regardless…
…. just providing a safety warning in case a newb sees this and thinks 86F even belongs in our space time dimension

 

[brandon429]

This thread should be required reading for all cyclers in the new forum

 

[Vyper]

I am in the middle of an outbreak myself. Lost two fish I adored trying to just do management once I realized I had it. Lost two more learning to quarantine properly on the fly. I have 2 left, a yellow,and a pbt tang. Day 4 in quarantine and they are looking great. DT will be fallow until September. In the future if I see it everyone will come out and not wait. I think the other side is so many like me just don’t know how to do it properly and may kill them ourselves.

 

[brandon429]

Excellent post. I recently asked the chemistry forum for one example taken from any thread on the Internet for evidence of a failed cycle, where the fish a new keeper buys couldn’t live in the tank. Nobody could give such a link for nitrite toxicity or even one single failed ammonia control event from a thread

Fish disease is where it’s at for cyclers we just don’t have any articles to tell us yet, these are spotters notes from the field. The concern over ammonia and nitrite detailing is far better replaced by concern over disease imports

we can always rely on the fish disease forum to inform us of the best current science of the day, using repeatable approaches. The work done here exceeds any other source for work in preserving all these fish we‘re buying up for home keeping.

in fact I’m making this thread one of the first reads in our fifteen page cycling thread for new keepers.

 

[Simmo7671]

hydrogen peroxide can be used for parasite controi, @Humblefish and @Jessican would be able to guide you better with its use but it can be used in reef tanks at lower levels. it buys the fish time to obtain natural immunity to the paraistes. Worth a look into in my opinion as it works well for me in my FOWLR

 

[brandon429]

But that’s a display treatment and if you make a thread asking folks to skip qt and fallow, and use peroxide, their fish will die in high numbers


skipping fallow and Qt only works for the single tank owners who claim it works, they can’t manage other tanks into the same outcome, that’s why the method isn’t used as a sticky, the % success when 30 tanks try it


*that doesn’t mean peroxide can’t work, it just means nobody has a current multi example thread going using that to avoid qt and fallow. If one is made and it works I bet that would make a good sticky up top

 

[Simmo7671]

But that’s a display treatment and if you make a thread asking folks to skip qt and fallow, and use peroxide, their fish will die if they follow that advice.


skipping fallow and Qt only works for the single tank owners who claim it works, they can’t manage other tanks into the same outcome, that’s why the method isn’t used in the fish disease forum. This thread was about recommending what works for others.

for the readers of our cycling threads: when you see an action not part of this forum, it’s stickies, or any work threads in between that use multiple tanks as an example, don’t go that way as your % losses will be massive.

*that doesn’t mean peroxide can’t work, it just means nobody has a current multi example thread going using that to avoid qt and fallow, because it won’t work. When it becomes a repeatable and viable option it’ll be a sticky here so hundreds can try it and report back in the same thread.

That's why i said to ask @Humblefish and @Jessican as they are the experts on it and they helped me with it before. i was only trying to help and give another option. i never advise people to skip QT etc, quite the opposite actually as i do those practices myself!

 

[brandon429]

Agreed Humble once had a nice thread on it it was surprising to read that as an option. that was the first I’d heard about it, from his thread on it here couple years ago. If I’m not wrong humble did have it as a sticky for a while. Jay was mentioning in another thread about uronema not responding to fallow, it’d be neat if one could burn it out with peroxide at therapeutic doses I’ll have to go find the Hf thread and see if they used it for anything beyond crypto