Treating Ich

[Pollitz]

What is the best way to treat Ich if you do not have a quarantine tank and the fish is still eating and swimming?

1. Leave fish alone and let him fight it off?

2. Place fish in bucket with aeration, heater and do hyposalinity treatment?

3. Place fish in buck with aeration, heater and use some type of Ich treating chemical? And if so, what are some good medications?

Thanks!

[rwlancaster]

its rather hard to treat ich in a reef tank, if that is what you have. I do, and have found about the only thing to do was to go get two cleaner shrimp (scarlett skunkback).

it appears that what they do, is clean the fish free of the parasite. It takes them abuot 2 weeks, but they minimize the threat during that time, before it is finally ich free. The shrimp run about $20 each in most stores.

I have tried freshwater dips with no luck. Finally, I just quit buying from the store that kept giving me ich.

hope that helps

[partobe]

A few months ago I had a Major outbreak in my tank. In the past Ive treated with kick Ick and have always had mixed results but always felt it was totally stressing the fish out. This time I decided to leave the fish alone and feed them garlic every day. I went to the grocery store bought a jar of crushed garlic soaked the fish food in it for about 10 min then fed it to the fish. I did that 2x a day for about a month and by the end of that month the ick was completely gone.

[superwizbang]

What size fish and how many? A bucket might not be a good idea. If you can get the fish out and treat with a formalin (make sure manufacture date is recent) or malachite green based product, this would present the best scenario. I would recommend increasing temp to 78-80 degrees to increase the lifecycle of the crypto organisms in the hospital tank.

The treatment could last many weeks depending on how your livestock responds. If you do have corals, I would suggest buying of borrowing a tank large enough to allow some comfort for your animals and feed them well, increasing the temp as noted above. If getting the fish out is impossible and you have corals, you will have to wait it out and hope for the best. Again, make sure they are well fed and dose food with garlic and Selcon (Selcon as a vitamin supp. since chances are since they are stressed, they will eat less--and garlic for possible healing/parasite organismal intolerance) to help supply the nurishment needed to aid in the recovery process. Remember to place them in a cramped environment only stresses them more and could have a very negative impact on thier ability to fight off infection. Cleaner shrimp are an arguable minor aid, but won't hurt, however I am not a fan of adding critters just to immediately help control a problem.

-Ken

[Pollitz]

ok
I basically have a fish only tank but I have a puffer and I think he would eat the shrimp. I dont want to add any chemicals to my tank.

So should I increase my temperature in the tank and start feeding garlic and see what happens?

Thanks everyone

[superwizbang]

Indeed, shrimp would be out...or a tasty treat for those not worried about their current mortality. Temp/Garlic/Selcon might be the only answer if you are not interested in adding anything to the tank. With a FOWLR tank, you could actually go a bit higher (some articles I have read have said up to 85 degrees but I can't think I would ever suggest that high) than 78-80. A temp of 81 or 82 might be ok for a short period of time if elevated over a couple of days and not immediately.

This is a bit of a Coke-Pepsi discussion as there are no proven 100% fixes. The only thing to remember is a healthier fish will be better equipped to fight off diseases and parasites. Likewise, as in humans, a stressed organism will have a lower threshold for infection and the immune system becomes impared. Increasing the temperature does not kill the crypto organism, but merely increases the lifecycle. The thought is that the less time available for the organism to freely circulate in the open water, the less chance of spreading the infection by re-establishing in the current host or infecting a new host. Crypto only lives about an hour after breaking from it's host and into the open water column. Icreasing their metabolism/life-cycle shortens that window period some.

-Ken

[Nicco0315]

but remember do not feed to much garlic because it will start to stink the room up and the tank. it took me at one point 3 hours to get the smell out.

[superwizbang]

Lol, indeed. The easiest way to dose garlic to the tank is to buy garlic tablets from the local store (the little gel like ones that are squishy) and make a small hole at one end and apply to the food as needed. Your skimmer is likely to slow down a little while if you use this method since the capsule is oil-based but then again, as mentioned, you shouldn't add all that much to make too much of an impact.

Agreed about the garlic smell though...ha!

-Ken

[Phishy]

In addition to the shrimp, neon gobies also clean.

Garlic.

Kick ick (never used), I also had omade of capsian pepper (can't recall name) or another invert/coral safe medication. Thay are out there, just look around.

[partobe]

I really think if you keep your tank as stress free as possible and feed with the garlic you should be fine. I would also be worried about the neon gobies with the puffer. I also had a puffer and bought a cleaner wrasse that didnt work out so well either. The puffer never tried to eat the wrasse but the wrasse kept pulling on his spines thinking they were ick and I finally had to take the wrasse back.

[Loverotties]

2 and 3 need some type of filter when you take him out for a while.

[Pollitz]

Thanks,

To all who posted. Does anyone know what the name of the garlic capsules???