Author Topic: aaahhh ich!!!  (Read 485 times)

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Offline lilposeidon

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aaahhh ich!!!
« on: May 18, 2010, 08:46:26 PM »
i have'nt posted in awhile i have been travelling alot for work.anyways i started a new tank about five weeks ago. forgive me i do not have tons of info on the tank it is in my office and i am at home right now.all i can tell you is :
i noticed ich about a week and a half ago i bought some ich-attack by kordon used it for 5 days things looked like they cleared up did a 20 % water change like the bottle said (huge mistake) and killed my cleaner shrimp now the ich is back. i noticed it at the beginning of this week again i went and bought ich attack by kordon. my parameters before the huge water change was  PH - 8.4 , nitrate - 0 , nitrite - .05 ammonia - .25 salinity - 1.25 carbonate hardness - 10  phosphates - 0
the water change shocked my system dropped the PH and then for some reason my ammonia went up to .50.
sorry my tank is 50 gal. with 45 pounds of live rock 20 pounds of argonnite and for fish i have - 1 regal tang, 1 foxface, 1 domino damsel, i blue velvet damsel, 1 clownfish, 3 green chromis, and a pjama kardinal.
for coral i have 4 heads of frogspawn, 1 devils hand, orange zoa's about 15 or 20 heads, 6-8 various mushrooms, 1 green brain coral and a bulb tip anemone not to mention a patch of star polyps. inverts i have 1 blue electric hermit crab and 2 snails i know my tank will be alright if i get this ich under control any tips guys i could really use them ??? but what flusters me is i never had near the trouble with my 10 gal. and i have heard that smaller the tank the more difficult to maintain  i guess thats jus a ole myth and i also gotta remember each tank is extremely different.
Thanks alot guys and sorry for not posting like i said working like crazy and got a baby on the way

Offline Bergy

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2010, 10:08:41 PM »
well,  where do i begin... hmmmm   ... well, im thinking your tank is way to new to have that type of livestock...  way too many fish and way too many corals...  and yes, I know many people stock tanks like yours with way more stuff then what you got goin on...

but, your ammonia level is definately indicating your biolgocial orginisms are still growing and evolving...

And ultimately until that is steady and mature things are just going to happen... some minor, some maybe not so much

As for yuour ich issues, i would start off by making sure  you feed the fish well, that does not mean feed a lot, it means feed healthy foods... if you have nori/seaweed for the the fish that eat it, then use that whenever possible.


a good variety of food is also good...

other then that, maybe a uv filter to help minimize the ich population to minimize the qty of prasites that could attack your fish...


there are other discussions about quarintining the fish prior to placing them into the display tank, but realistically, that usually ends up poorly or not working... if you have a public aquarium or have multiple tanks and and all that, then yes, by all means, setup a good hospital tank and quarnite tank system...

byt for casul hobbyist that has one display tank, it isnt reaally practical to setup three tanks minimu to suppoprt the display tank...

For now, i would feed the fish better/healthier.. I would also try to address the ammonia issue, and do some good sized water changes.. and maybe a ammonia treatment something or other...

  maybe look on craigslist or ebay for a uv filter....

If you do get a uv filter, make sure you tear it apart prior to installing it to see how hard/easy it will be to clean it after you install it...


then make sure you clean it every six months.... or it will become opaque with calcification outside the quartz sleeve...

NO MORE FISH TANKS FOR BILLY BOY!!!!

SNIFF SNIFF  SNIFF

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Offline Just_Greg

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #2 on: May 19, 2010, 04:58:00 PM »
here's a good primer regarding the various methods of QT.  it's worth a read.

http://www.lionfishlair.com/qt/qt.shtml
Greg

Offline lilposeidon

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2010, 10:21:41 PM »
all is very true and the tips are very helpful i knew we overloaded the tank, i should've waited a few more weeks until we added some fish. this tank i just set up is just the tip of the ice berg now my boss wants to put a 250 gallon in his office and I'm the only person at the office that knows anything about saltwater my boss has recently gotten hooked on the hobby which is a good thing but I'm urging him to relax and jus let me get this tank good before we go crazy with this huge tank the thing is money is not a issue to the guy. lol i guess its good for me cause they are also my tanks too all i gotta do is look after them and hey i love doing that so its a awesome deal but yea i appreciate the tips and am learning from my mistakes thanks guys

Offline Bergy

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2010, 10:13:08 AM »
i understand your reluctance to setup a tank for your boss, and I am sure you will enjoy it when it happens, but as youknow ans have told him, it is great to wait a little bit to let you get both feet wet first...

but, after that, i am sure that if you go slow, and dont rush the addition of livestock, things will be good to go...

I hope you have the room and space to build his tank so you have lots of room for equipment, *chillers, and reactors, and maybe a QT or HT, hospital tank, so yuou can deal with issues as they arise.


but, i think you will enjoy being able to share stuff with your boss/office and your own tank...

at least I certainly enjoy that aspect of it on the one tank i take care of...


but, like you, i spent a good deal of time telling them, i am not liable, hehehehehehe,

NO MORE FISH TANKS FOR BILLY BOY!!!!

SNIFF SNIFF  SNIFF

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Offline lee_in_corpus

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2010, 11:46:41 AM »
just chiming in a bit...as i had an ick outbreak a few months ago.....

i dont think ive ever seen any ick medicine that is invertibrate safe. 

when i had my ick outbreak, my friend let me borrow a little 10 gallon tank, and we pulled out the sick fish, and treated them there.  since it was such a tiny tank, i did a small water change every day.

if you have shrimp or corals or stuff like that, from what ive seen, ick meds will kill them. 

Offline lilposeidon

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2010, 06:18:04 PM »
ich attack by kordon are 100 % organic and i have been using it for just about two weeks now and all the coral are doin  great. but yea most of the meds out there will kill your coral and your inverts as well as kill off alot of beneficial bacteria within your live rock.

Actually all the ich has cleared up in my tank except for my blue tang the friggin thing bareley eats sea weed i put in the clip and still has a few white spots on her. not to mention since i got her she had a little scratch on her face well now its gotten bigger but shes eatting lots and swimming around and her behaviour is typically normal besides the tryin to scratch her parasites off, i dont know what to do with her i hope she gets better by the time my 13 day ich treatment is done what else can i do ???

Offline Just_Greg

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2010, 07:28:53 PM »
sorry, to say this, but as you're finding out, "ich attack" doesn't cure ich.  if you have a resistant fish, it might kill the active parasites on the fish, but it won't break the cycle of the pathogen.  ich is an invert (in a manner of speaking), so anything that is harmless to inverts won't do much but maybe knock it off the fish.

BTW, i tried the stuff way back when it first hit the stores, and it didn't work either.
Greg

Offline psykokid

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2010, 08:13:40 PM »
I've been switching my tang between two 5 gallon tanks every two days and running a skimmer in the tank to keep the pH up.. I initially tried just hypo salintiy but that didnt work, then i did two dips of rid ich (formalin+methelyne blue) a few days apart and then swapping swapping out the hypo tank water every other day to keep the water quality up. Almost ready to put her back in the display tank, going to top off with salt water to bring the salinity up slowly..
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Offline lilposeidon

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #9 on: May 20, 2010, 09:41:03 PM »
well i got a empty 10 gal at my house that i could put the tang in and i guess all the snails and the crab in but what about my coral ??? oh another thing is i have heard that ich cannot with stand higher temperatures i have put temp to 83 deg Fahrenheit to slow down or kill the ich the tomites that come up from the adult ich in the substrate at the bottom of the tank. i do not wanna try to put my temp any higher it seems to risky 83 is already iffy. alsao i have read that ich definately dies in temps over 85 deg. fahrenheit   

Offline KYLE.801

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2010, 10:01:38 PM »
Sorry to hear about the ich, a couple months ago I lost all my fish to it so I cant really give you any pointers plus from what I have read others have already mentioned what you can try.  One thought I had is Im not sure if you would want to go any higher in temperature, Im not really sure how the coral and fish would handle it but that is just me thinking here..  Anyways I know how frustrating it can be and good luck!
if at first you dont suceed, try try, oh hell, just shoot the some woof woof!!!!!!! -Bill

Offline RandyFolds

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #11 on: May 21, 2010, 04:49:41 PM »
well i got a empty 10 gal at my house that i could put the tang in and i guess all the snails and the crab in but what about my coral ??? oh another thing is i have heard that ich cannot with stand higher temperatures i have put temp to 83 deg Fahrenheit to slow down or kill the ich the tomites that come up from the adult ich in the substrate at the bottom of the tank. i do not wanna try to put my temp any higher it seems to risky 83 is already iffy. alsao i have read that ich definately dies in temps over 85 deg. fahrenheit   



AHHH!!!! NOOO!!!! I am not sure where you got your information, but high temperatures are both extremely stressful to your livestock, and cause ich to grow/outbreak faster. It most definitely does not die in 86F water. Your tank should never be above 78F. The stress of high temperatures will inhibit the fishes immune system, leaving it even more screwed. Get your temperature down, set up that 10g with equal pH and salinity water, add some sort of something for water motion, preferably an airstone since most ich treatments drive down oxygen saturation, and quarantine the tang. You will need to leave it and all other fish out of the display for at least 6 weeks to be pretty much in the clear. At that point, the ich will likely have died off and you can restock.
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Offline pinkorchid

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #12 on: May 21, 2010, 05:05:14 PM »
Have no advice as I haven't dealt with the issue but just wanted to say good luck, hope you can get things cleared up.

Offline OCtrackiepacsg1

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #13 on: May 21, 2010, 08:07:21 PM »
I've read freshwater ich tips are to turn the tank waters up and supposedly that will kill em.

Offline lilposeidon

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Re: aaahhh ich!!!
« Reply #14 on: May 21, 2010, 10:25:39 PM »
i know I've read a billion things to try to get rid of ich. well i caught the blue tang today after work brought her home and acclimated her to my 10 gal. i first gave her a freshwater bath right before i put her into the tank after acclimating her for about and hour and a half i used RO water for the dip and put a airstone in the container it was actually quite interesting instantly the white lumps and a few white spots lifted right out of her it seemed like she had a certain level of calmness she didn't increase breathing too much and wasn't freaking out i left her in there for 5 minutes under very close watch then put her into the QT tank. The thing is i gotta get the crushed coral out of the bottom of that tank otherwise if any parasites did manage to stay her they will create a whole new infestation in the QT tank. I also plan to buy a few supplements to give her i was thinking a garlic enhancing food and something to help her develop the mucous on her body.