Marine Ick

[TheReefer12]

Well I did a dip for about 5 hrs and there are no more white dits on the fish. It is back in the tank swimming with the other clown. I am 99% sure that it was ick. I put some stress coat in to help prevent my other fish from catching it. I guess only time will tell.

[fish.freak]

The problem with ich is the visible spots on the fish come and go.When my flame angel had it the spots seemed to be more dense in the morning and all but gone by nightfall, only to be back again in nthe morning. Basicly there is no way you killed it all, it exists in the sand bed and the water colum for 2 weeks, if fish are not present. (with out meds) The waiting game is not on your side this time, don't sit on your hands while this outbreak is potentially being passed arround the tank. If you are serious about this hobby, you should own a qt/med tank anyway to hold new fish in before you introduce new fish. Ask most people that have been in the hobby for a while and they will tell you they learned the hard way. I did i lost my mated pair of false percs b/c I didn't qt new fish. I wont add anything new now, as we speak i have a new fish @ my friends house to quarenteen it b4 it goens in to my tank.

Stress coat claims to increase the slime coat, but dont think for a second that it will protect them from ich.

There is one other corse of action to help keep the ich down, have you ever heard of fresh water dips?

[TheReefer12]

I have heard of fresh water dips, but I have never performed one.

By the way, I have been in the hobby for 3 yrs and never experienced this.

[fish.freak]

I figured your been arround w/ 700 posts. Everyone gets to this point eventually if your in the hobby long enough, to be going 3 yrs w/o a problem means your lucky, good, or a bit of both.
I think if you have been arround this long, you will be arround for another 3 or more. If you think long term a QT isn't going to be a bad investment.


Freshwater dips are effective treatments for ich, and clowns are tollerant to them.
To preform a fresh water dip get fresh water (dechlor-tap is ok) to the correct temp, and pH and add the affected fish for a period of no-longerr than 10 mins. Keep a close eye on it to make sure it is not freaking out and breathing super fast. If so end bath early and test the water fro temp and pH.
This treatment need to be reapeated daily b/c it will only kill the paracites on the fish, which still leaves the ones in the substrate and the water.
This treattment usually works best in conjunction w/ qt-ing b/c it is much faster to catch them and less stressfull in a tank w/o LR.

[TheReefer12]

Thanks I will have to try that. I don't want to lose a fish.

[JY13131]

Make sure you read about the lifecycle of ich because it is deceptive!

[betamed]

I'm glad my advice helped. I hope you will be OK without QT. I've battled it with about 15 fish in my tank. Every few weeks I see a dot on one of my tangs, but it goes away. You are lucky it is only clowns. They are pretty good at fighting it off. Just to be sure it is white dots and not a white powder or film. There are other diseases that look like ick that affect clowns.

[creativereasons]

have u thought about getting a uv steralizer i have one and never had a problem with anything like that

[betamed]

UV can help, but it is expensive.

[TheReefer12]

Never thought about that, I will have to take a look at pricing. Since this is my first time with this problem so I am not too experienced with this problem.