Have ICH looky here!!!!!

[WaterKeeper]

I'd hold off awhile longer on the the salinity lowering. Slightly lowered salinity doesn't eradicate ich unless it is brought down to 1.009.

Fish do scratch and it can be for many reasons just keep an eye on them at present and see if more positive signs of an infection show up; i.e. spots, whitish vail, gill inflammation, refusal to eat, dashing about or other erratic behavior.

[192clark]

Thanks Waterkeeper

[MarcB]

Ok, despite some diligence on my part, I may have ich in my tank now. My options are to wait and see if the fish can fend it off ( so far they are) or remove them and treat in a HT. I do still have my old 40 gal, so I theoretically can treat, but getting the fish out of a fully scaped 240 gallon tank will not be fun.

Doing some research, I ran across this product that says it is 'reef safe,' any opinions?
-----------
No-ICH Marine
Scientifically formulated Reef-Safe water treatment for Cryptocaryon irritans (marine “white spot�) and Ichthyopthirius multifiliis (freshwater ich). Engineered to attack the infectious free swimming stage of the ich life cycle and rid the aquarium of these harmful parasites. No-Ich is safe for all fish, invertebrates, corals, plants and biological filtration systems. 100% copper and malachite free solution. One liter treats up to 100 gallons. Self-Dosing bottle makes measuring and application simple and easy.
------------

[Taqpol]

This might be a long winded post, but I want to explain the whole situation as the events of the past few days have really caught me off guard...

I started a twenty gallon tank in May of last year, and after it had fully cycled added one bicolor blenny (yep, straight to the tank). About a month after him I added two clownfish to the tank, again with no quarantine. I didnt read much on the forums back then, but these three fish were the only residents of the 20 gallon for about four months and there wasnt a single sign of ich so I called that good enough for a QT.

Soon I was moving up to a 38 gallon tank with a 20 sump. I made a somewhat spur of the moment purchase (bad) with a Coral Beauty angelfish, but this fish was properly QT'd for four weeks and also showed no symptoms of ich before spending a brief stint in the 20 gallon before all the fish were transferred to the fully cycled 38.

In January I picked up a Schooling Bannerfish (Heniochus diphreutes, the "reef safe" one) and started it in a QT tank. About three weeks later I picked up a GBTA and added it to the DT. Things went downhill with the nem and I think it had something to do with my clownfish harassing it before it was ready, so I decided to swap the Heni in QT (at three weeks...) with the clowns and let the nem rest. I did this because I had literally been watching the Heni at the LFS since Early December and he was eating great and showing no signs of disease. Eventually the clowns got moved back in.

About two weeks ago my bicolor blenny started looking bad (lost color in his black part, started looking grayish). Upon closer inspection he had a showering of white salt crystal sized specks on him (I always thought that ich's white spots were bigger, oops). A few days later the Heni started to appear the same (faded black parts, white spots). Both fish showed no odd behavior, still swam in the water column, ate food out of my hand, everything. I decided to keep up my feedings (Formula two flakes, mysis soaked in selcon) and let them fight the disease on their own.

Sunday I found my blennies half-eaten body on the sand. This morning (Tuesday) I found the Heni stuck to a powerhead, I removed him to the fuge for closer monitoring/ease of feeding and it died a few hours later. In both cases the fishes were swimming and eating as they always did, and then dropped dead so quickly! These are my first two fish losses, so I'm pretty bummed out.

My question is, what did I do wrong? In 6-8 weeks can i add new fish to this tank given that the CB angel and clownfishes look perfect? It almost seems that for a QT to be effective you would have to do Hypo every time...

[MarcB]

Originally posted by MarcB
Ok, despite some diligence on my part, I may have ich in my tank now. My options are to wait and see if the fish can fend it off ( so far they are) or remove them and treat in a HT. I do still have my old 40 gal, so I theoretically can treat, but getting the fish out of a fully scaped 240 gallon tank will not be fun.

Doing some research, I ran across this product that says it is 'reef safe,' any opinions?
-----------
No-ICH Marine
Scientifically formulated Reef-Safe water treatment for Cryptocaryon irritans (marine “white spot�) and Ichthyopthirius multifiliis (freshwater ich). Engineered to attack the infectious free swimming stage of the ich life cycle and rid the aquarium of these harmful parasites. No-Ich is safe for all fish, invertebrates, corals, plants and biological filtration systems. 100% copper and malachite free solution. One liter treats up to 100 gallons. Self-Dosing bottle makes measuring and application simple and easy.
------------

I wanted to add to this since I haven't got an answer yet, since I have some more info I want to check.

The fish in my tank are 2 Diamond Gobies, 1 Ocelaris Clown, 1 Flame Angel, 1 Coral Beauty, 1 Yellow Tang, 1 Powder Brown Tang, 1 Rainfordi Gobi.

First, only the Angels and the Powder Brown are showing any signs of ich. Are any of these fish considered 'immune' to ich?

Second, are any of these species sensitive to copper, or is copper or hypo safe for all these species?

That should cover all my treatment options, and I'll take it from there.

Thanks!!!

[192clark]

You need to remove all fish to a QT. If you leave fish in display ich will have a host. If you remove all fish there will be no host. That breaks the life cycle. End of ich if you quarantine all new inhabitants. If you do not put all in HT you will get ich again. Hypo is tolerated better. Some fish can not take the copper.

[MotherFish]

MarcB,

I noticed you didn't include what the active ingredient is in that "reefsafe" product.
Did they not list it on the bottle?
Without knowing the ingredients in the product there is no way to know what the effects on your tank or inhabitants will be.

That being said, to the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a reefsafe Ich product that effectively kills Ich (Cryptocaryon Irritans).
Every product that I know of which is deadly to the Ich invert is also deadly to almost every other invert in your tank.

Luckily you already have a 40g that can be setup as an HT.
Either try "night-netting" (sneaking up and netting them after lights-out) or buy/make a simple fishtrap and patiently trap them all over the course of a few days.
You can find several other methods for catching fish without tearing apart your display tank here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=707656

All of the species you listed are able to handle a copper treatment, however, my preferred method is hyposalinity as it requires no chemicals which can be expired or leached out of the tank, no monitoring with testkits that can be expired or misread, and actually reduces the physical demands/stress on the fish by reducing the amount of salt that the fish must process and excrete.

Also, just because a fish isn't showing visible signs of Ich DOES NOT mean that it is immune or free of the parasites.
It only takes one parasite hidden in the gill tissue or overlooked on the body to reinfect an entire tank or to keep a low-level infestation alive.

[MotherFish]

Originally posted by Taqpol
Both fish showed no odd behavior, still swam in the water column, ate food out of my hand, everything. I decided to keep up my feedings (Formula two flakes, mysis soaked in selcon) and let them fight the disease on their own.

Sunday I found my blennies half-eaten body on the sand. This morning (Tuesday) I found the Heni stuck to a powerhead, I removed him to the fuge for closer monitoring/ease of feeding and it died a few hours later. In both cases the fishes were swimming and eating as they always did, and then dropped dead so quickly! These are my first two fish losses, so I'm pretty bummed out.

My question is, what did I do wrong? In 6-8 weeks can i add new fish to this tank given that the CB angel and clownfishes look perfect? It almost seems that for a QT to be effective you would have to do Hypo every time...

I'm sorry for your loss, Taqpol.
We have all been there, or will be there soon.
That's just one of the sad realities of becoming attached to and caring for living creatures.

One mistake people make is believing Ich to be a disease that can be fought off by feedings and a healthy immune system.
It is not.
Ich is actually a parasite, and while a healthy immune system may help prevent or fight off secondary infections of the wound sites it does nothing to prevent the parasite from biting and burrowing in the first place anymore than your immune system can prevent a mosquito from biting you.

What you experienced is common with Ich and is the reason it can be so deadly in an enclosed area like our tanks.
When an Ich parasite drops off the fish it encysts on the substrate to reproduce and divide into hundreds of new parasites.
Normally only a very few out of those hundreds will find a host, but if there happens to be a fish sleeping nearby When those hundreds of new parasites are released back into the watercolumn they can overwhelm the fish with a massive infestation which can eventually cause death.

As I mentioned above, just because your fish shows no signs of Ich doesn't mean that they are parasite-free.
It only takes one hidden parasite to create hundreds of new parasites and infect new fish or cause a massive infestation on a fish that didn't previously show symptoms like the two you lost.

I am sure some here will disagree with me, but your last statement is very true when dealing with Ich.
The only way for QT of new fish to be completely effective against Ich is to treat the QT as if the fish have Ich whether they show any signs or not.
If even a single hidden parasite makes it to your display then all the QT time will have been for nothing.

[MarcB]

Originally posted by MotherFish
MarcB,

I noticed you didn't include what the active ingredient is in that "reefsafe" product.
Did they not list it on the bottle?
Without knowing the ingredients in the product there is no way to know what the effects on your tank or inhabitants will be.

Sorry for not including it, the ingredient listed is 5-Nitroimidazoles, a chemical relative of metronidazole (Flagyl).

[MotherFish]

Personally I've tried "Kick-Ich" (which contains that same active ingredient) on two separate occasions.
In both cases the Ich came back.
That is by no means a clinical proving or disproving of 5-Nitroimidazoles, just my own limited experience.
Yours and others' experience may be completely different.

If I were you, I would definitely read everything I could about the product you're thinking of using before adding it to my tank.
Especially a product that requires a certain level of dosage to be effective that has no way of being monitored or measured after going in.

Something to keep in mind is that a lot of supposed Ich treatments appear to work simply because of the natural Ich lifecycle.
The "whitespots" normally drop off after feeding for a few days to begin the next phase of their reproduction.
This natural dropping off can easily confuse the typical hobbyist into thinking that whatever "cure" they are using at the moment has worked.

[WaterKeeper]

Here was Steve Pro's take on the Nitroimidazoles--

From Reefkeeping, Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon irratans, A Disscussion on the Parasite and the Treatment Methods Available, Part 2-by Steve Pro

Treatment Option 8: 5-Nitroimidazoles

There is another class of products on the market that are alleged to be a reef-safe, alternative, anti-parasitic medication for Cryptocaryon irritans. The active ingredient of this category of treatments is 5-Nitroimidazoles. I have only used this type of product a few times, but never in a reef tank, so I cannot speak to those claims. I found these to be moderately successful against Cryptocaryon, although it required twice as many applications as the manufacturer stated on the instructions to affect a complete cure. My biggest complaint is how expensive it was, in particular accounting for the amount and time needed to affect a full cure. Anyone who wishes to try one of these products should perform a search on several of the online message boards to get additional feedback prior to purchasing. Based on my own experience alone, I cannot recommend them.

The full article can be found Here

[192clark]

Waterkeeper: I have a Powder Blue Tang in QT. I have not noticed white specs on body or gill area. However, now there is a white cottony substance on one eye. Could that be ich

[MarcB]

Originally posted by WaterKeeper
Here was Steve Pro's take on the Nitroimidazoles--



The full article can be found Here

Interesting. His quote seems to boil down to the fact that the product actually worked for him, but took more doses than the bottle indicated. If it is reef safe, wouldn't that be great?

[WaterKeeper]

Originally posted by 192clark
Waterkeeper: I have a Powder Blue Tang in QT. I have not noticed white specs on body or gill area. However, now there is a white cottony substance on one eye. Could that be ich

Here's one where a pic would help. Lymphocystis is a viral disease that starts off with white tissue areas that merge to form nodular white globuals. Not cottony, but more like cauliflower, they can grow quite large. Happily these disease usually goes away in under a month on its own.

Saprolegnia sps. is a fungus disease that is often called cotton mouth but can infect other areas of the body. The disease is fairly common is FW fish and fairly rare in marine fish as the fungus is not tolerant of SW. For marine fish formalin dips are usually used.

I hope that helps but I'm not exactly sure of what disease it may be.

Marc,

If you check out the web you usually find that Nitroimidazoles are hit and miss and not recommended for display tank treatment. If you try one out I'd do it in a hospital tank.

[Taqpol]

I guess my question from earlier is about some fishes "immunity" to certain strains of ich. If my remaining fish never show signs of ich can I assume that the ich in my tank can not infect them for some reason? If that was the case, if I added no new fish for the next 6-8 weeks would I have broken the cycle in the tank?

[WaterKeeper]

If you have never had ich in the tank there is no reason to believe it is there. It is a new arrival that always poses a problem and that is why one quarantines a new fish. If he proves to be ich free then there is far less chance that he will introduce it to the fish already established in the tank. I suppose that there is a chance that all the fish in the display are carriers that don't exhibit symptoms but that is very unlikely.

[Taqpol]

I've had ich before, I was referring to the aftermath of this:

Originally posted by Taqpol
This might be a long winded post, but I want to explain the whole situation as the events of the past few days have really caught me off guard...

I started a twenty gallon tank in May of last year, and after it had fully cycled added one bicolor blenny (yep, straight to the tank). About a month after him I added two clownfish to the tank, again with no quarantine. I didnt read much on the forums back then, but these three fish were the only residents of the 20 gallon for about four months and there wasnt a single sign of ich so I called that good enough for a QT.

Soon I was moving up to a 38 gallon tank with a 20 sump. I made a somewhat spur of the moment purchase (bad) with a Coral Beauty angelfish, but this fish was properly QT'd for four weeks and also showed no symptoms of ich before spending a brief stint in the 20 gallon before all the fish were transferred to the fully cycled 38.

In January I picked up a Schooling Bannerfish (Heniochus diphreutes, the "reef safe" one) and started it in a QT tank. About three weeks later I picked up a GBTA and added it to the DT. Things went downhill with the nem and I think it had something to do with my clownfish harassing it before it was ready, so I decided to swap the Heni in QT (at three weeks...) with the clowns and let the nem rest. I did this because I had literally been watching the Heni at the LFS since Early December and he was eating great and showing no signs of disease. Eventually the clowns got moved back in.

About two weeks ago my bicolor blenny started looking bad (lost color in his black part, started looking grayish). Upon closer inspection he had a showering of white salt crystal sized specks on him (I always thought that ich's white spots were bigger, oops). A few days later the Heni started to appear the same (faded black parts, white spots). Both fish showed no odd behavior, still swam in the water column, ate food out of my hand, everything. I decided to keep up my feedings (Formula two flakes, mysis soaked in selcon) and let them fight the disease on their own.

Sunday I found my blennies half-eaten body on the sand. This morning (Tuesday) I found the Heni stuck to a powerhead, I removed him to the fuge for closer monitoring/ease of feeding and it died a few hours later. In both cases the fishes were swimming and eating as they always did, and then dropped dead so quickly! These are my first two fish losses, so I'm pretty bummed out.

My question is, what did I do wrong? In 6-8 weeks can i add new fish to this tank given that the CB angel and clownfishes look perfect? It almost seems that for a QT to be effective you would have to do Hypo every time...

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by WaterKeeper
If you have never had ich in the tank there is no reason to believe it is there. It is a new arrival that always poses a problem and that is why one quarantines a new fish. If he proves to be ich free then there is far less chance that he will introduce it to the fish already established in the tank. I suppose that there is a chance that all the fish in the display are carriers that don't exhibit symptoms but that is very unlikely.

I also do not make a point of adding anything to the display tank --even the water from the LFS
but I guess if you quarantine everything--everything --then you don't have to worry about adding spittoon water to your tank

[jenglish]

WK:

is there any way you can write a program so people have to read this before posting?

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by jenglish
WK:

is there any way you can write a program so people have to read this before posting?

IMO threads can become confusing with so many different inputs, what works well for them, ect ect. Ich has been and always will be a very debateable subject on here.

I agree with you but I would suggest an information thread that is sticked with no input allowed written by someone with great credibility like Tom (Water keeper)

[WaterKeeper]

I left it as an open thread so we could get input on other methods of treatment. There have been a few, like using quinine, that held promise but didn't work out long term. Nitroimidazoles may end up being a viable treatment but more reports are needed on the method and results. I guarantee I am not the last word in disease treatment and the original post was pretty much based on a consensus of opinions on treatments that are known to work.

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by WaterKeeper
I left it as an open thread so we could get input on other methods of treatment. There have been a few, like using quinine, that held promise but didn't work out long term. Nitroimidazoles may end up being a viable treatment but more reports are needed on the method and results. I guarantee I am not the last word in disease treatment and the original post was pretty much based on a consensus of opinions on treatments that are known to work.

your wisdom rocks WK

[Dustin_p]

I have Ick and am debating on hypo-salinity or copper.

I am leaning towards copper since it seems a little safer?

I have a Yellow Tang, Sixline Wrass, Clown, FoxFace and Chromis.

Are these fish safe if I treat with copper?

Thanks
Dustin

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by Dustin_p
I have Ick and am debating on hypo-salinity or copper.

I am leaning towards copper since it seems a little safer?

I have a Yellow Tang, Sixline Wrass, Clown, FoxFace and Chromis.

Are these fish safe if I treat with copper?

Thanks
Dustin

some tangs react badly to copper treatments

[Dustin_p]

So then my only option is hypo then????