oh and i also tried this on a friends flame angel but it died i think the stress of moving him to a new tank and the ich was just too much. also i didnt have enough stop parasite for a full treatment
pull em all out and treat them? honestly ive had it in my dt before .. lost a couple but i fed them ALOT and with lots of vitamin supps and the loss was minimal...
note to all this is something that happens sooner or later. but the absolute best thing to do is be patient and qt the new fish for a reasonable tine befor introducing into the aquarium.I bring this up because i just made this fvatle mistake. and it seems i will soon loose all my fish an estimated $500.00 worth.ouch
Buy some Crushed Garlic (in the jar) from Food City, get about 1/4 inch on a match stick, put it in a solo cup with some Tank water, add a cube of frozen Mysis and a pinch of flake food, turn on the Sci Fi Channel and let stand for about 15 minutes, pour the whole cup into your tank for feeding.... Garlic helps fish Immune Systems, Hemorrhoids and keeps Vampires at bay.......... Good Stuff !
Love the Avatar Lauren!
-- Edited by Monty on Monday 2nd of November 2009 12:18:10 AM
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i am by no means an expert but i have heard one of the best thing you can do for the ich is water changes knock on wood i have not had to deal with it and i hope i dont... i try to do water changes every week and if not everyother for sure i have a 55 i do about 15 gallons at a time
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Well I had a fire fish goby die an I have no idea why. He hadnt been eating to to well some of the other fish are a bit aggressive at eating time. He got white places on him some were spots I am not sure if maybe he got ich from unhealthy eating or the clown fish picking on him. I havent seen anything in the other fish so far knock on wood. Everything seems to be running ok I am due a water change soon but other than that I haven't even added anything so I dont know what could have happened. If anyone has any insight or advice I would appreciate it.
On a side note.... Ich doesn't always kill does it?
I read on the web that most cases will go away as long as proper conditions are maintained in the tank and everything is still eating well...
My thoughts are, continue with the small water changes, garlic food, and keep the conditions ideal as possible... every fish has ich, it just becomes apparent when the fish is stressed... is that all correct?
Yes, try the Garlic, IMO it can't hurt. As Lucky said, Selcon is good.
Hey Jamesonkh, Good to hear from you!
-- Edited by Monty at 08:08, 2009-02-10
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"Earth, our Water Planet, is the only planet in our solar system to be endowed with appreciable quantities of liquid water. Life, born in the water, must be at least as rare as water in the Universe, and as such must be revered, under any of it's forms, as a Miracle."
I would agree that the raw garlic always seems to work for me, I think even better than the prepared garlic solutions. I used to add it in when I made homemade food mixtures, and my tanks were always healthy with no ich..... There are people who say this is just lore - may be more effective at prevention than it is for ridding ich from the tank after it has already taken hold - but worth a try.
So the green hue is fading but I still see little white specs on my fishies... I have done small water changes over the past couple weeks to keep good water quality. They are still not eating as good as they used to. Any more ideas to help battle the ich?
Good to hear T, keep us posted. I think it would be cool if we could combine all our threads on Ick Remedies into a Fish Disease Forum.
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"Earth, our Water Planet, is the only planet in our solar system to be endowed with appreciable quantities of liquid water. Life, born in the water, must be at least as rare as water in the Universe, and as such must be revered, under any of it's forms, as a Miracle."
All is doing well, everyone is eating, and besides the green hue of my water, I have seen a great improvement in my babies. Still have to let the treatment run for about another week and then a real good water change, then it should be back to normal!
How's the Ick doing today? Glad to put in my 2 cents....
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"Earth, our Water Planet, is the only planet in our solar system to be endowed with appreciable quantities of liquid water. Life, born in the water, must be at least as rare as water in the Universe, and as such must be revered, under any of it's forms, as a Miracle."
It's been about 1.5 years since I had an encounter with ICH. So it was a big surprise Wednesday night to come home to a very "salted" porcupine puffer... poor Soulja Boy...
Since I only have fish in his tank with a few snails and live rock, I didn't want to use copper because I know it will leach into the glass, kill invertabrates and live rock. I dipped Soulja Boy in a low dose of copper because of the sensitivity for just a small amount of time. Although I do not see any spots on the other tankmates, I wanted to take preventative measure to ensure nothing spread. I used Ruby Reef Rally last time we had an encounter with this nasty parasite. It does not harm live rock or invertabrates and is copper free. So I went to the LFS and purchased a large bottle and I have begun to treat my tank. I also picked up a bottle of Seachem Garlic Guard and soaked the food in it. Everything ate in the tank and it seems as though the tank is alot more at ease for the time being. I still have about another week of treatment but I will update the forum with whats going on...
Monty and Slipper, thanks guys for the great advice on treatments.. sorry for the freak out lol.
Have not lost a fish to ich in over a year . Odd as it sounds since I added my achilles . That was when I decided to try the heavy feeding , selcon more often, and more water changes approach to treating ich. I have since added a regal tang , pink spot goby ,and a royal gramma and every time i added one my achilles had a minor outbreak . I will swear by my method for as long as I have a tank. For what its worth I am not saying if you put a small powder blue in a 30 gallon long or even a 55 and there are 3/4 other fish in there he will fight ich off with this method because he wont. A tank that size is just to small for a fish that likes to roam . I am also not saying he will be fine by himself in a 55 . Maybe for a while but unless you go old school , no coral no live rock and keep small amounts of copper in the water he will get ich and die sooner rather than later in a tank that size. And if someone wants a fish like that so bad they try the copper deal with plastic corals and whatnot you still wont get more than 6/8 months out of him so just don't buy a fish that your tank can't handle.
At Ocean Inside we were using Garlic Guard and like products to soak fish food for Ick and saw decent results. As said before, it didn't rid the system of Ick, but it boosted the Immune system of fish that weren't too far gone. Our treatments worked better than 50%. *Are you still having an Ick problem?
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"Earth, our Water Planet, is the only planet in our solar system to be endowed with appreciable quantities of liquid water. Life, born in the water, must be at least as rare as water in the Universe, and as such must be revered, under any of it's forms, as a Miracle."
My thoughts exactly as long as the fish is healthy and eating right the parasite doesnt break out, even power feeding and hyper water changes can relieve the ich infestation, as well as hyper temperature.
But stress and poor aquarium life in my experience brings out the worst in the fish; Ive seen it in freshwater and sal****er even when there arent any new additions to the aquarium, simply poor environment.
On a thought though if the fish wranglers are using such potent drugs to treat captive fish, this could be the reason our treatments arent working. Just like any virus or bacteria they can become immune as well, making them super viruses and bacterias.
You are probably right about the persistence of Ich. It reminds me of certain human viruses -- better to avoid them, because it isn't always possible to get rid of them after-the-fact, and you don't want to have to deal with "occasional outbreaks!"
Most fish seem to be able to fight it off on their own if they are otherwise in good-shape, although this doesn't mean that it is gone from the system. I have read that the cell-lines break-down over time such that if you don't add anything for a long time (many months), the strains in your aquarium will eventually die-off. I am not sure this is true, but it comes from researchers that were attempting to keep Cryptocaryon cultures/lines going and always experienced a loss of the line after a certain period of time.
There has been talk of new, more virulent strains of ich coming-in from Southeastern Asia. Fish handlers have been using quinine-based (an anti-protozoal used to treat malaria) drugs. Apparently these have been successful against the new strains that seem to be resistant to "classical" treatments (hyposalinity, copper, formalin). I believe Quinine Hydrochloride and Chloroquine Diphosphate are the drugs being used.
I haven't tried any of these myself though...I would suggest that quarantine/isolation is probably very important and much easier than dealing with treatment later in a larger system, but perhaps these drugs could be useful if a new-arrival starts showing symptoms of ich.
I have ich in my system but I believe everyone does once they introduce fish , that said I have an occasional outbreak not bad but a spot here and there.I personally treat ich by feeding heavy , use of selcon a little more than normal and water changes. More or less I try to reduce all forms of stress and let the health of the fish handle the problem. The best practice is buying healthy fish and quarantine everything before adding to main system. What I really wanted to bring up was a new reef safe treatment called chloroquine phosphate . I read a little about it ut can't find much on it. I feel that the way I treat it works best for me but if this stuff works it would be worth the research . I will try to find more and post what I can but if anyone else is interested please feel free to help. Thanks !
