Uncontrolable ICH

First off, Fatcat, WELCOME to TRT!!! :dance:

I'm about to post a lot of thoughts that jumped right out at me when I read your post. Please "hear" me in the right context -- I wish only to be helpful, and not at all hurtful toward you and your livestock, but I think I need to be a bit ticked off at whoever is selling you all this stuff...

Tank has been running 3 months and it's fairly heavily stocked with big eaters and big poopers - that's Red Flag #1. Suggestion: SLOW DOWN. Nothing good ever happens fast in a marine tank.

Water quality you described as "good".... that always sends up my Red Flag #2. Please list all your parameters, Specific Gravity, Temperature, pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate (and any others if you test for them!) I've had people say "good' with pristine water, and some who think that a "little" ammonia is "ok".... so please, let's either rule in or out, your water quality as a factor.

Red Flag #3 - all those medications! Which sends up Red Flag #4 -- where the heck are you shopping, and why are they selling you all those fish so fast, and all those meds???? I won't even "go there" about using a canister filter on a marine tank.... Poly-Ox is meant to help rid the tank of cyanobacteria and other organics, so it's not going to help with an Ich problem, and if used incorrectly it can mess with the balance of your system. Rx-P is a pepper-based compound. As much as I love Kent, I don't bother using this. Melafix is a tea-tree oil and can be useful for some bacterial or fungal infections, but the jury is really still out on its overall effectiveness, in my opinion.

In order to curb the Ich, you must first figure out what's causing it. There is much debate about whether or not the Ich parasite is present in all systems - I'll leave that debate for another thread, but I personally believe that it is present in all systems, so on the basis of that notion, here are my thoughts....

Since I *believe* that Ich is present in all systems, the question remains, what is it that causes outbreaks? There are several possible answers to this, and you must be a detective.

Stress - adding a new fish to the aquarium is always stressful for the new addition, and the existing ones. Doing this by careful acclimation, gentle handling and leaving lights off for the rest of the day are a few ways to make this as low-stress as possible.

Another stressor - water quality... ammonia, nitrite, high nitrate, low or fluctuation pH (I will return to that one), fluctuations in temperature -- all of these can stress the fish, and render them vulnerable to infestation.

You need to figure out what it is that is wearing down the fishes' immune systems to the point that they cannot resist the Ich parasite. Fix the problem, find the cure, or at least the means to keep the parasite at bay indefinitely.

When you check your pH and temperature, do it in the morning before the lights come on. Then do it again in the middle of your photoperiod (Lights should be on a timer, BTW -- makes life better for all), and then test pH and temperature at the end of the photoperiod before the lights go off.

Any major variance, say more than 2 degrees in temp and more than 0.2 pH, can be stressors on the fish. This can be fixed by using pH buffer in your water, and adjusting your heater to within a degree of the warmest temp of your tank (provided that your tank isn't getting too hot during the day -- then a chiller might be in order...).

We fortify our fish food with garlic - it does seem to stimulate feeding and I believe it boosts the immune systems of the fish, and therefore they are better able to fend off parasites. Otherwise I'd stop putting all that junk in the display.

Yes, hyposalinity works too, but I prefer to use a freshwater dip for that - OR a longer course of hyposalinity in a treatment tank.

Hope this helps.

Jenn

Welcome Fatcat!

I'm sorry to hear you are having these problems, and EVERYTHING Jenn has told you is absolutely true and excellent info/advice.

As for ich being in the system, I'll share this recent experience.

We have a minireef, set up nearly 5 years now. Lots of LR and sand bed, and a decent amount of caleurpa also grows in there. It was home for over 4 yrs to a Watchman Goby and a Pistol Shrimp. They passed away before Christmas last winter. The Goby never had ich.

The tank has been "fishless" since mid-December. There are several corals and a few hermits and snails in it. Just three weeks ago we got a very healthy-looking small Lemon Peel Angel for the tank. We spent about 3 hrs acclimating the fish, making sure salinity and pH and Temp were the same. I might add the parameters of the water in this tank *are* pristine - 0 everything.
It also had a 25% water change a few days prior to getting the fish.

The fish entered the tank and ate the same day. The next day he was pretty well covered with ich and staying in one corner of the tank, acting fine, but not exploring anything. The ich was worse the next day. He was pretty well covered all over with it. This has happened to us before with certain "ich magnets" such as our Orbic Batfish and Yellow Tang, and they recovered nicely without treatment. By the 4th or so day, the Ich was disappearing, and shortly after that the fish was exploring and nibbling at the caleurpa on the rocks, and behaving like a normal inquisitive Angel. There's no sign of Ich now.

5 yrs ago I would try all sorts of things to treat Ich. None worked, imo. The money spent on the pepper stuff was wasted. The freshwater dips didn't work. I didn't lower tank salinity b/c of the inverts and such. We put the batfish in a hospital tank and that stressed him out so much we nearly lost him. We put him back in the 125G and he recovered and eventually grew about 10-11" tall and we gave him to Inland Aquatics.

I don't treat for Ich anymore. Actually, we haven't added a new fish to the established reef or fish only tank in so long, I can't remember, and we haven't had an outbreak of ich in at least as long.

There was nothing in this minireef to give this new fish Ich. In fact, I can't recall a fish ever having Ich in that tank.

So, it's either "everywhere", like the herpes cold sore for humans, and stress brings it on, or --- I have no other answer. It's in the fish, imo, and the stress brings it out.

I do think it's harder to deal with when you have multiple fish with an illness as opposed to just one. Takes longer to get rid of, and sometimes you don't win. If you are fighting velvet, there are meds for that, but we lost a pair of Percs to velvet almost 5 yrs ago....new tank, fish just arrived in LFS (didn't know about reef shops back then) we treated in sep. tank for Velvet and everything else we though it might be, and lost both fish within 4 days of purchase. $45 down the drain, and we started reading, asking questions, and learning....and majorly slowing down.

And yes, your eel will eat your cleanup crew, and then your nitrates will skyrocket. Again, imo, unless you have a refugium, they [nitrates] will not come down w/o cleanup crew and with the bioload you have. In fact, he'll eat what fits in his mouth...so as he grows, he'll widen his variety. Eels are also notorious escape artists and wind up dead and dried on the floor, or stuck in a pump, plugging and fowling your system, so be sure to make it "eel-safe" and you'll do fine with him.

Your maroon, most likely, will eventually harass your other two clowns to death.

One last word of advice and caution -- please don't buy an anemone for your clowns. The clowns don't need one and it will most likely die. That's another thread, but I had to at least give you a heads-up.

I hope all your fish make it ~ and welcome again to the friendliest Reef Community in the world! :dance:

~ Shirley

It could have already been in the LFS system. Most LFS have ich in their fish tank system. If you are saying that your tank was free of fish since Dec., then it came in with the fish from the LFS.

LFS usually have the free swiming stage of ich in their tanks and all it takes is a stressed fish for the free swiming stage of ich to find a suitable host. Once it attaches it progresses to the adult stage and then reproduces eggs. Once the eggs hatch into the free swiming stage it will look for a host. And then continue the cycle. That is why you may only see a spot one day but then two days later you see 20. It has reproduced and more have attached.

You have to break the reproduction cycle by removing the the host for the swiming stage.

I have always fresh water dipped all new arrivals and then up them in a treatment tank first before going in to the display tank. I quick 2-5 minute dip will kill most parasites.

Most people do not want to set up a treatment tank but if you don't your display tanks will eventually have an out break of some kind.

I never allow any water from a LFS to enter a display tank that has fish in it. You are just asking from trouble.

If you place a fish in a tank and it suddenly shows ich spots the next day then it came in with the parasite already attached. The attached parasites are not large enough to see in such a short time. This is one reason why the recommended quarantine time for all new acquisitions is three weeks MINIMUM. The tank didn't have ich in it waiting for a fish. You brought the ich in on the angel because you didn't properly quarantine it in the first place.
The life cycle of Cryptocaryon irritans has been studied beyond fully. It has been demonstrated in scientific trials that ich is NOT present in all systems. This has been reported in the scientific journals and it is not really even debatable. It must be introduced and it can be eliminated. It is an obligate parasite that must have a host to survive. It is not a virus and does not behave like one. Saying ich is always present is contrary to all scientific evidence. If you want to hold on to your theory that ich is always present despite scientific evidence that proves otherwise then so be it.
Terry B

ShrileyM

I'm curious about your comment:
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"One last word of advice and caution -- please don't buy an anemone for your clowns. The clowns don't need one and it will most likely die. That's another thread, but I had to at least give you a heads-up."
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I haven't really heard this before (maybe a thread should be started).

My 1st tank was established in Jan, 2002 if I remember right. It has been through hell and back with all my "new to the hobby" mistakes combined with bad advice from LFS. However, the anemone and 2 maroon clowns have been thriving since day 1. I don't have the scientific name of the anemone but I'll take a picture of try to find out. I don't want to jinx myself but I am wondering if I have been lucky with my anemone or if it's still to early to tell (1.5 years old so far).

Thanks for any comments. I'll try to get a picture soon.

Hmm,

I have have a very simple setup, which you can see from the "My Tank Specs" link below.

I use 36W of lighting. The anemone has always moved to situate itself towards the top of the tank and in a high flow area. (Right now it's under the return from the Red Sea Prizm protein skimmer).

For feeding, I mix up a very small amount of brine shrim with about 1/2 teaspoon of Marine Snow diluted with saltwater. I suck it all up into a turkey baster and then I squit the solution right onto the anemone (I don't actually insert the baster into the "mouth" of the anemone). When I do this the anemone "grabs" the brine shrimp (don't know where they go from there). After about 5 minutes its shrinks and swells up; which I've always attributed to the Marine Snow. I do this 2 or 3 times a week.

In order to do this I first have to drop some brine shrimp in another part of the tank to distract the clowns otherwise they gobbble it up too quick.

The Marine Snow has tradeoffs...I've never been able to get Nitrates below 5ppm and some of the other problems I've had might have to do with this.

I also add 1 drop of Lugol's per week and 1/2 teaspoon B-Ionic parts 1 & 2.

The other things I have observed is that the male clown sometimes drags large chunks of food stuff (like the moulting from a Cleaner Shrimp) or other various things into the anemone.

The maroon clowns are both very interactive with the anemone and the female will incessantly wiggle around in it when it starts to shrink (like she's trying to stimulate it).

I will definitely take pics. for ID purposes. It's not a fancy one. Just plain pink with a large flat inner surface area and lots of tentacles around the outside. When hungry, it can stretch to a diameter of ~8". Normally, it's not fully expanded like that.

Jeez, I've done something right...feels good