Looks like my fish have ick! Please advise!

[MIO]

I just noticed my sixty gallon tank and looked at my clown closely and he had a bunch of white little pimples, also my tang and a soldier red fish. I have a Fox Face and see nothing on him but it looks like a couple other damsels have it too.

What should I do? First time ever that this has happened.

[tims]

HI,
soory for that..
do you have a hospital tank that you can use? you do not want to put chemicals in with corals...
what is in your tank?
hate to say it , but a sixty is a bit small for a tang.. hte can get ich pretty fast and often if they get un happy..

many including myself have done a fresh water dip to kill the ich,another way is to raise the salt level. but only in another tank..

HTH

[MIO]

I soaked flake food in garlic juice and feed them. They look a little better today but I was wondering if it is coral or fish safe to feed garlic soaked food?

[Toadfish]

My advice is to use garlic and allow your fish to fight it off...It will always be present in your system and its best to allow your fish to develop their immune systems to fight it off.

[Kevin1000]

Never heard ich described as white pimples - if it looks like salt then you probably have ich.

If you have ich then the two effective cures are copper and hyposalinity - both are lethal to inverts and will require you to invest in a QT. You should treat all fish whether they show symptoms of ich or not.

If you use copper I would recommend cupramine - if you use hypo you are going to need a refractometer as a std. hydrometer will not be accurate enough.

Heres a link discussing ich, copper, & hyposalinity.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...marineich.html

You will need to leave your showtank w/o fish for 5 weeks to insure that the ich die off.

Hope this helps.

[MIO]

I have fed them a total of three times with garlic soaked flake and the tang and clown look alot better in the last 16 hours. Less white spots on the fins and alot less on the body.

[Kevin1000]

Ich will fall off the fish during the first 7 days - part of their natural life cycle - does not mean the fish is getting better. The ich fall to the substrate where they are capable of each producing another 200 ich within the next 28 days.

[MIO]

so how do I get the fish out? Break the whole reef down? I don't know what to do. Should I continue the garlic or mess the chemistry of the tank by breaking it all down and take all the fish out?

[Stanfill Reef]

I have used Kent RX-P in a reef tank with no problems, but I mostly have LPS and softies. The Rx-P is a pepper based treatment and worked great for us.

[Kevin1000]

Your choices are pretty simple. Take the fish out and properly treat or hope they obtain some measure of natural immunity and make it through the ich.

If there were an effective "reef safe" medication everyone would know about it and no one would care about ich. Fact is that there is no consistently effective "reef safe" ich medication and your stuck with a tough choice.

If you decide to not use a QT then I would just try and keep your water quality as high as possible and continue with the garlic soaked food. I would not use any of the magic reef safe potients on the market as chances are they will not cure ich and will screw up your tank to boot.

You can do a search over at reefcentral or reefs.org for methods of capturing fish - your not the lone ranger on having this problem.

Hope this helps.

[Tasher80]

You can get a QT tank setup pretty cheap. I have a Aquaclear Mini with a heater in a 10 Gallon tank. You would definaltey need a refractometer if you are going to lower the salinity. But a refractomerter is one of the best things I bought for my tank anyways.

[MIO]

I am going to get a qt tank for new fish but I really don't want to break down all my rock and coral to catch the fish. I will look for some coral safe med.

[rtgordon]

i am in the same boat. i am trying a cleaner wrasse and cleaner shrimp, too.

Let me know how it goes.

gordon

[MIO]

Well, I have lost my tang, fox face, soldier and a clown.. The rest of the tank looks great. My leathers, mushrooms, and clam look great. My fire fish and a couple others I forgot the names of are doing well