Is there a such thing as reefsafe ich treatments?

[Nanz]

+1 to what greenbean said.

I forgot about the transfer method.

[oneoffcustom]

what is the transfer method?

[sunsetSPS]

You can look at sticky in new to the hobby forum for all 3 methods including tank transfer.

[Sardaukar]

Originally posted by kb27973
It still confounds me why people have so many problems and are so freaked out about Ich. Buy from a reputable dealer, feed your fish more than once a day (one or two cubes every other day ain't gonna cut it!) keep good water quality and you won't have a problem with disease. I buy 99% of my fish online and even after going through shipping if they start out healthy and you feed them things will be fine. In 10 years I have never had a fish die from disease, but I feed my fish a lot. Just my experience.

So to answer the question I would say the reef safe cure/prevention would be Food and water quality.

Ken

I'm sorry but that is just not good advice. The only 100% way to keep your display tank ich free is to QT all new arrivals. Everything that goes into your tank should be QT'ed. For every experience like yours kb, there is another person who did the same and eventually had a massive outbreak that killed fish. Allowing the disease to remain dormant in your tank and hoping that through good feeding, healthy specimens and low stress that ich will never rear its head is just waiting for disaster.

[map95003]

When I first got my tangs ~7 months ago I had an ick outbreak. I used kick-ick and it worked well, just have to run skimmer less for a few weeks.

I know not everyone will agree but I've had saltwater fish for years and I use to QT all my fish for 6-8 wks...still ran into ick issues. I believe you could drive yourself crazy over this stuff QTing, treating with copper even though fish show no signs or ick, hypo, etc. or you could do your best to keep your tank healthy and probably get the same results...but that's just me.

[kb27973]

Originally posted by Sardaukar
I'm sorry but that is just not good advice. The only 100% way to keep your display tank ich free is to QT all new arrivals. Everything that goes into your tank should be QT'ed. For every experience like yours kb, there is another person who did the same and eventually had a massive outbreak that killed fish. Allowing the disease to remain dormant in your tank and hoping that through good feeding, healthy specimens and low stress that ich will never rear its head is just waiting for disaster.

What's not good advice? Feeding your fish well or buying from a reputable source?

For every experience like yours kb, there is another person who did the same and eventually had a massive outbreak that killed fish.

That was the question I posed above. Why do they have these massive outbreaks? Are the fish so weak their immune systems are trashed?

Feed your fish well and maintain your tank and you won't have a problem with disease simple as that.

Heres to fat, healthy fish!

Ken

[cynot]

Since we're on the topic of ick, my domino damsel has a white spot hanging of it's dorsal, kinda looks like a tiny feather. Is it ick?

[mark728]

Hi Ruby Reef Kick-Ich does work, it did in my cousins tank 75g sps reef tank his fish were in bad shape the most important factor is to follow the instructions and again I repeat follow the instructions and you will be ick free .Hope it works as well as it did for us for you good luck.

[streetjudge79]

Kick ick has never worked for me. Waste of money.

[LargeAngels]

kb27973: Sardaukar is correct. That just isn't good advice. It doesn't matter who you buy it from they can still carry and\or get disease. There are also many other diseases out there besides ich that are much nastier than ich.

[kb27973]

Originally posted by LargeAngels
kb27973: Sardaukar is correct. That just isn't good advice. It doesn't matter who you buy it from they can still carry and\or get disease. There are also many other diseases out there besides ich that are much nastier than ich.

Boy, I don't know how many times I have to say it. If you want to keep fish then quit worrying about your corals and FEED your fish. If you FEED your fish multiple times/day you won't have a problem with disease in the first place. If you don't feed your fish and think they can live off of what they find in the tank they are going to get weak and be susceptible to disease. Talk about making it harder than it has to be. Sheesh.

Ken

[oneoffcustom]

I kinda see what ken is saying, but i also see what others are saying. I consider liveaquaria to be very reputable, yet if you look in the fish only forum you will find a thread titled new fish where he got a scribbled angel with a problem. BUt i also think just like any living thing if they are fed well they will build a stronger immune system.

[kb27973]

Originally posted by oneoffcustom
I kinda see what ken is saying, but i also see what others are saying. I consider liveaquaria to be very reputable, yet if you look in the fish only forum you will find a thread titled new fish where he got a scribbled angel with a problem. BUt i also think just like any living thing if they are fed well they will build a stronger immune system.

Finally, a spark in a wilderness of darkness. I think people are getting the impression that I'm saying it's wrong to quaranteen. I'm not. There are times when it's the prudent thing to do. IF done properly. I would be willing to bet money that more fish have died from improper hypo and medication application, catching, netting and transport accidents than would have from the disease. Reading these forums it seems as if people believe that if a single ich cyst makes it to the display tank that every fish in the tank will soon die covered with white spots. That is simply not what happens. Unless I suppose all the fish are weak to begin with. It's strange to me this aversion to feeding fish well but instead using 'treatments' such as hypo and copper. Puzzling.

Ken

[oneoffcustom]

Wow i almost got more replies on this than my build thread lol.... very contraversial or however that is spelled...

[Ralph ATL]

Originally posted by str8clownr
I used Kick-Ich, on my tank, i had to do it twice, but it definitely worked, my tang hasnt had ich in years, and neither have my other fish too.

but at 20 bucks a pop, it gets expensive, but it isnt as tedious/time consuming as hypo, qt, or copper

I used Kick-Ich like 4 years ago. I did 2 complete "accelerated" doses. All fish were covered in ich including tang. I have not had one spot since................

[LargeAngels]

kb27973: Where did you EVER get the impression about not feeding properly? You make a huge assumptions and then run with it.

[LTCrunch]

has anyone seen an ICH outbreak in the ocean? No! you know why? stability and probiotics. Not saying that they bacteria eat the parasites but they do help strengthen the immune system. The Probiotic Marine formula that Drs. Foster and Smith sell works! Hands down, because of the bacteria in the "medication"..... my 2 cents

[stumpovrtyme]

I use use the off brand to kick ich called stop ich and it seemed to work for me. I also suggest skunk cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasses to battle the problem. Also stable tank conditions are the most important I would think. Garlic is a immune booster for the fish. I use it to soak anything going on the veggie clip!

[greenbean36191]

Herwig tested multiple imidazoles, the active ingredient in Kick-ich against Cryptocaryon in 1978 and 1979 with poor results.

Cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasses also do nothing for ich. The parasite has never been found among the stomach contents of any cleaner. They feed mostly on damaged skin, mucus, and crustacean parasites- not protozoans. Also, the parasite is embedded within the skin of the host, so the cleaners would have to create a wound and dig it out- which takes more energy than they get from the small amount of food. The only time the parasite is easily accessible to cleaners is in the few minutes when it is burrowing into the host. The catch there is that those few minutes are in the wee hours of the morning when the fish aren't cleaning. In forced trials where the cleaners were added to tanks during that time period they did eat a small number of parasites, but so few that they made no statistical difference in the parasite load on fish.

As for feeding garlic, the idea that doing so stimulates the immune system in fish is from questionable inference and anecdote. There is no hard evidence showing this.

has anyone seen an ICH outbreak in the ocean? No! you know why? stability and probiotics.

Yes, many people have seen ich outbreaks in the ocean. It is well documented in wild fish and I have personally seen suspected cases in the wild. It has been documented that about 1/3- 3/4 of wild fish harbor the parasite depending on locale. The reason they rarely die from it is a simple matter of dilution. The chances of thousands of tomites finding the same fish in a huge body of water with thousands of fish are much lower than in a system of a few gallons with just a few fish.

[Nanz]

The Saltwater Ich or White Spot Disease (Cryptocaryon) parasite has 4 distinct phases in its life.

Stage 1: Trophonts which have burrowed into the gills & formed cysts, protected by gill mucus.

Stage 2: Tomont cysts have been discharged from the gills. Can survive for 6 to 10 days in the cyst.

Stage 3: Parasites (Tomites) discharged from the Tomont cyst and become free swimming. Tomites can survive for 1-2 days before they must find another host.

Stage 4: Tomites which attached to the fish's gills feed from the host, grow, form a cyst and become dormant. Tomites which attach to the fish's surface feed from the host, grow, detach from the fish and go to Stage 2.

The Transfer method is the least stressful method and involves moving the fish from its container to a clean container with 100% new water. By doing this daily you will eventually break the ich cycle above. The only problem is after you complete this procedure you cannot return the fish to the display tank until your sure the ich is gone from the tank. This process involves keeping your tank "free of fish" for about 3 months. There is much debate on how long ich can surivive. I think its best to leave it without fish for 3 months to be sure its ich free. Its worked for me when I had an ich outbreak but during the time the fish were not in the display tank I chose tu use hypo-salinity as a treatment.

[dpbement]

I would never want to add anything to the tank chemical-wise. But I have successfully eradicated ich from a new fish by using freshwater dips. The osmotic pressure of freshwater is different than salt and it causes the parasite to burst. I did two different 3 minute soaks of a maroon clownfish and it cured it. He didn't seem to like it one bit as he froze up stiff as a board during the whole process from the instant he hit the fresh water. But then once he was in saltwater he swam around like nothing happened. He was also very difficult to catch but I pulled it off.

[tcwoodrn]

Let me start by saying that I am not a scientist and I did absolutely no scientific study on this stuff. But I had a purple firefish whose scales were falling off his face because he had ich so bad. I started dosing with Kordon's Ich-Attack that claims to be 100% organic. Within a week my firefish was Ich free and is alive and healthy today. I cannot assure you that it was the ich attack, however things sure did improve after I added it. It did not harm any inverts, corals, or fish. Its does make the skimmer go crazy.

As far as Metronidazole, this is an antibiotic that I administer to people every day (Flagyl) It attacks the flagellum (essentially the tail) on protozoan bacterias that use them to move to gather "food". By attacking this part of cell synthesis the bacteria can't move, can't feed, and dies. I am not sure how much it would work on ich, but it makes since as long as ich is a protozoan parasite.

Good luck to all fighting Ich. It is one of my most hated things, along with zoa-eating nudis


PS I highly highly reccomend getting a UV sterilzer or you risk a re-infection.

[ryshark]

Originally posted by LTCrunch
has anyone seen an ICH outbreak in the ocean? No! you know why? stability and probiotics. Not saying that they bacteria eat the parasites but they do help strengthen the immune system. The Probiotic Marine formula that Drs. Foster and Smith sell works! Hands down, because of the bacteria in the "medication"..... my 2 cents

I am going to try this next time I add a tang. I believe Liveaquaria recommends it too.

[greenbean36191]

Why try to reinvent the wheel? Ich is a very commercially important parasite and as a result there has been a lot of research on treatments. Currently, hyposalinity, copper, and tank transfer are it. There's really no sense in trying to use treatments that have already been shown to be of little or no use in controlling the parasite. It's still commercially important because there still aren't any simple treatments.

Things that have been tried unsuccessfully (not an exhaustive list):
cleaner fish and shrimp
formalin
fresh water baths (up to 18 hours)
UV sterilizers
malachite green
methylene blue
various quinine derivatives
various imidazoles (including metronidazole)
penicillin
acriflavin
pyrimethamine
potassium permanganate
sodium chlorite
nitrofurazone
para-rosaniline
aminoacridine

Things that have never been tested:
garlic derivatives
pepper derivatives

While garlic has never been directly tested for use against ich there are considerable reasons to doubt it functions as hobbyists hypothesize.

"Reef-safe" treatments that do not seem to be reef safe (definitely not exhaustive):
Rally
Stop Parasites

Some important quotes about the effectiveness of various treatment approaches (from Colorni and Burgess, 1997)-
"Chemotherapeutants added to the water are rarely absorbed through the skin of the fish in a quantity sufficient to affect the trophonts (Herwig, 1978, 1979). As tomonts, the cyst wall of C. irritans is similarly impervious to medication (the prolonged period of tomont development in C. irritans makes this parasite more difficult to eradicate than I. multifiliis). Consequently, chemotherapeutics that destroy C. irritans during its parasitic or encysted phase would probably also kill the fish (Herwig, 1978)." In other words, when the little white dots disappear from your fish, it's because of the natural lifecycle of the parasite, not the medication.

"hyposalinity does not upset the osmotic balance of the trophonts, which are not adversely affected when a prolonged (18 h) freshwater treatment is administered to the host (Colorni, 1992)."

[stumpovrtyme]

First I want to start with WOW! I learn something on here everyday. Iv always been told cleaners eat ich. The garlic thing I thought for sure was true because it is a stimulant in humans. But I still have to disagree cause Iv personally seen mine eat ich, my wrasse and my shrimp. If It wasn't for the shrimp my sailfin would be dead Im About 99% sure. I can beleive its not proven but how much isn't with this hobby. As for why waste time with these efforts if there not as effective as copper, I think any chemicals should be a last ditch effort. Not saying your wrong just can't beleive there inaffective. Exspecially with a combined attack. Again thats just my opinion which is not scientifically proven.